Hey HennyPenny, I totally get the struggle with this. I have recently been writing this section of my method and have found Bryman's (2008) Social research methods to explain it fairly well.

Just what I needed to hear right now. Thanks!

In all honestly, I wish I had realised it wasn't for me sooner and saved myself all these years of misery. If you feel like this already, I say quit now and follow your passion.

Hey it could be worse, you could have 10 weeks left to do most of your qualitative analysis and write your entire 100k word thesis with no chance of an extension, like me, I'd say you're doing fine lol.

I am a distance learner too so I don't know anyone in the same year or anything and I only have 1 supervisor. I don't have enough time to step away from it but I'm really struggling with it at the moment.

There was me thinking I was the only one about to have a total breakdown with this PhD. I can relate to all these comments but the thoughts/feelings have come on so suddenly that I just thought I was going nuts!!

I would suggest if you already have no interest in your PhD at this stage, quit before you invest any more time into it. The further on you go with a lack of interest, the harder it will get and the worse you will feel.

That sounds really tough but thank you for sharing. I haven't even submitted yet and I am worried about the viva.

Hi all,

I am doing a Ph.D in Human and Health Sciences (Psychology).

I am just wondering how others who are in a similar field are structuring their Ph.D? What chapters have you included and what have you included in each study chapter if they have been done separate? e.g. have you included lit review and methodology in each study chapter or have you had a big lit review chapter and a methodology chapter detailing everything and then just findings and discussion in each study section?

I have all this data and all these findings and I am planning to have 4 separate study chapters but I am finding it difficult to visualise the "big picture" and I can't really see how the thesis structure/layout will be when it's finished, because of that my writing is all over the shop just now.

I have worked full time all through my full time Ph.D to the point where my Ph.D has suffered tremendously. I have had to work to pay bills and keep myself afloat but I had to take suspension for a year in between just to try and get caught up. I am now into submission pending stage, I have 7 months left and nearly my entire thesis to write (and still working full time although I am now in a much less demanding job)!!

I would say if you are working a part time or weekend job then you will manage it, if you are looking to work full time I would suggest doing a part time Ph.D or start stocking up now on pro plus and red bull ;)

I keep trying to get my supervisor to agree some deadlines with me and ask me to submit work to her from time to time, we agree goals and deadlines and she puts dates in her diary but she never follows through and asks me for it so I have gradually stopped meeting the deadlines because she seems to only show an interest if it is beneficial to her in some way.

I could do with someone else keeping me to deadlines like this. I wish there was some kind of group for PhD students similar to weight watchers or something, where you know everyone will know if you have put on a few pound, or in our case, haven't progressed your word count at all lol.

You could also put in a reflexive chapter or section which basically states what you have found out personally, what you would do differently and what inspired you to use the methods that you did. In your case, you could write a section that says that you took on board the feedback you received and that is why the study changed slightly.

I don't know what your area is but I am Human and Health Science and my supervisor advised me to do this to say how my own experiences may have influenced my research and what I did to overcome any bias I might have had.

What is a "ted talk" ? I need as much motivational help as I can get lol.

I need a motivator like you MattFabb....on tap!!!! lol

I have been in your exact situation for a while and only recently have I started to get myself out of it.

I have so much to do that the very thought of it puts me off, I think to myself that there's no way I will get it done in the time I have today so it can wait until another day.

However, I recently spent a few days breaking down absolutely everything I have to do into smaller tasks, instead of thinking I have the data of 100 surveys to input into SPSS I wrote down "input 1-10", "input 11-21" etc and thinking of doing 10 at a time is a lot less scary than thinking of doing 100 and I have actually managed to get the whole data set input in less than a week by doing it this way. The main reason for this is because in my head I have had 10 to do and it has got me to actually sit down and focus and I ended up doing more. Plus on the day that I did only do 10, I still achieved what I had set out to when I sat down so I didn't walk away from my desk feeling like I had let myself down by not doing the whole lot.

pm133 and Tudor_Queen have both mentioned breaking down your to do list into smaller chunks and trust me, it honestly does work.