Thanks glowworm! Sorry to hear you're having a less productive day - just remember the day is still young! I was sick this morning so only started working at 11.30, but the thing that keeps me calm is reminding myself that the day is young and there's always time to get something done. Any progress is a step in the right direction. We can both still have a productive day :) hope you have a better afternoon! (And I should follow my own advice and get started too...).

Good luck to everyone working today!

Thanks for your kind words, Tulip :)
And you were right! I'm only just finishing and I've got a big section dealt with. I've still got 4 out of 6 sections left to add, but the one I did today was a really important bit, so I feel like I've achieved and done well getting that (pretty much) sorted.

How did everyone else do? Sorry to hear you weren't well, Tulip. Hope you managed to get what you wanted to done this afternoon.

See you all tomorrow x

Hi everyone,

Glowworm - well done on finishing that section yesterday. Tulip - I hope you're feeling better and managed to make some progress.

I woke up at 6am this morning in a complete panic, feeling as if I will never get my thesis to an acceptable standard. It feels a bit chaotic - threads going off in several slightly different directions and I'm struggling to bring them all together into a coherent argument. Anyway, I guess I just have to keep plugging away at it. I'm at work today, but then I will be writing most of the weekend. I need to add one more substantial section to one of my data chapters and then polish those chapters ready to send to my supervisor next week.

Good luck with your work today everyone!

I think everyone has panics like that, Aisling. I know that I definitely have. I've found that it all kind of comes together in the end. I'm not sure if it's the PhD pixies or what ;)

I've also gradually realised the closer I get to submission that I can't include everything and that this won't be a 'grand opus' it's just a starting point of my (hopefully) research career. This realisation helps a lot and makes it a lot easier to cut out less relevant stuff.

I've got my 4 other sections to crack on with today and I'm out this evening so I can't work too late. Hopefully I'll be able to get enough done before then.

Good luck everyone! =D

Morning all!

Great to see so many people about. I'm realising that updating on here everyday is not always productive for me, especially those days where I'm in and out of meetings all day. Today though is a full writing day! I try and have 2-3 of these a week. I like to have full days set aside.

Silverlining - I hope your progress is going well and I completely understanding that this isn't motivational for everyone. Glowworm, Tulip and Aisling B, hope all is going well.

Glowworm - the idea of the thesis as a starting point helps me with my perfectionism and writers block, very good advice :)

My progress...

On Tuesday I managed 1100 words in the end and was pleased with that. Wednesday and Thursday I managed much less between meetings.

Today the aim (as always is 500 words) anything over is a bonus. Going for a run later (training for a half marathon) and that is keeping me motivated.

Best of luck everyone

GM x

Hi there, this is a great thread Grumpy and very motivating for me. I would love to join in and update my progress once in a while if you don't mind.

I'm a 4th year Maths PhD student and need to finish up very soon! My absolute deadline is September but that is for the post-viva submission so I'm aiming for end of June or start July.

The trouble is that writing is going really slow and I feel uninspired most of the time. I oscillate between crippling self doubt and crazy overconfidence :( I guess I must finally accept that this is not going to be a super fun, rewarding time and I need to crack on with it.

I'm currently working on one of the two major chapters (Chapter 4). I have just one chapter done overall (well almost, I need to still revise a few things based on my supervisor's feedback).

My goal today is to:
1. Generate all the figures necessary for the Results section in Chapter 4 in the right style
2. Write a first draft of the Results section in Chapter 4
3. Fix bibliography style for the previous chapter

Good luck everybody, and have a lovely weekend!

Mathsgirl x

Hey everyone,

Is anyone else working over the bank holiday? I decided to come into work to write since the temptation to relax at home while my boyfriend is off too is too great! Despite feeling a bit ill earlier in the week I still managed to meet my (modest) goals so I'm happy. So today I'm working on my literature review and aiming to finish a couple of sections (around 800 words).

Grumpymule - I hope you had a good writing session on Friday, I also like having a block of time to sit down and write. Glowworm - hope you got on well with your 4 sections and had a good night off! AislingB - how are you feeling now? I know the panic feeling too well, I'm just hoping like glowworm says that it will all come together at the end (fingers crossed!).

Good luck to everyone working, and hope everyone resting has a nice weekend!

Tulip

Hi everyone,

Tulip and Mathsgirl - I hope you had productive weekends and reached your goals.

I was writing on Saturday and Sunday but took yesterday off for some fresh air and exercise. I'm not quite where I'd hoped to be - I realised one of my sections needed rewriting, which slowed me down a bit - but I have the whole day today, so hopefully I will be ready to send two chapters to my supervisor by this evening. Perhaps Glowworm's PhD pixies will work some magic :-)

Good luck everyone!

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Mathsgirl - somehow I managed to miss your post over the weekend, I hope work went well for you and you got some time off too! AislingB - good luck for today, I think we all need to hope that the PhD pixies will turn up at some point!

My weekend went pretty well workwise - I wrote around 1500 words on my literature review and prepared buffers for my experiments. Today I'll be in and out of the lab so I hope to finish my experiment and write around 500 words of another section today. Data collection is really getting in the way of writing so I'm hoping to be finished in the lab at the end of May, but we'll have to see I guess. If only my supervisor would let me stop and write up properly, but the department has dwindled in numbers so when I leave there will be no one to finish these experiments so he's piling on the pressure right now! Right enough ranting, hope everyone else has a productive day!

Tulip

Hi everyone,

Lovely to see that people had a productive weekend! Mine was reasonably productive until Sunday. On the bank holiday I had a mini panic attack and ended up taking the entire day off for a long walk by the river with my husband and a big mug of hot choccy (with gingerbread syrup yay!). Although the weather was crappy the fresh air and exercise really lifted my spirits.

Unfortunately struggling with a headache today but determined to pull this together.My deadline for this chapter was yesterday! So I really need to pull something out of the bag.

Have a great day everyone!

Mathsgirl x

Good afternoon all and welcome to the thread Mathsgirl! :) I hope your headache clears soon. I had a similar experience the other day. I wrote about one sentence, gave up, went for a pub lunch and then a nap! In fact last week was bad all in all but made up for it with a very productive bank holiday weekend, I even managed half a day off on Sunday and yesterday.

Tulip - I also find it hard balanced data collection and writing, I'll be done next week which will be great as I need to focus on writing now.

Aisling - glad to hear you got some fresh air and exercise too and best of luck finishing your two chapters off.

Glowworm - I hope all is well with you!

I had tons of small jobs this morning and squeezing in a couple of hours writing now. Aim is to tidy up the final section in chapter 2 (about 500 words) and then finish for the day.

Best of luck everyone and anyone I've missed :)

GM x

Good morning all!

Hope everyone is doing well today.

Tulip, hope your experiments are going well. I'm sort of in the same place running experiments alongside writing, and somehow hoping that one result that ties everything together is round the corner! Eeep!

Good luck Aisling with your two chapters.

Grumpy, a pub lunch sounds perfect right about now and is making me hungry :) Good on you for making the bank holiday weekend count! It's not easy working when everyone else is off. Glad you could take half days off - so much more efficient than an entire day off which really slows me down I find.

I'm in the office today bright-eyed and bushy tailed - I'm also surprisingly the only one! I hope this pushes me to do more rather than less. My headache stayed with me all of yesterday but I managed to still get some work done. After that I treated myself to Indian food and an early night in so I'm feeling much better.

I wrote down what I need to do today and it will take me at least 15 tomatoes - that is brutally long. I really hope I can do this. I hope to send across Chapter 4 to my supervisor tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Found this and it made me laugh. I will be humming this to myself today :)

Hi everyone. I'm still here - just about! As most of you know I have to get my full draft off to supervisors by the end of tomorrow. I'm determined to do this and I have theatre tickets for tomorrow night so can't even work that late. Aaaaaand on top of everything I've developed an absolutely horrendous cold that started on Monday, so my concentration span and general 'ability-to-do-anything-useful-ness' has gone completely out of the window.

Sod's law. Anyway, I'm determined and am taking all the cold & flu drugs I can get my hands on. The full draft won't quite be as polished as I wanted it, but hey ho, that's life, isn't it?!

Sorry about the huge moan. I'm just feeling very sorry for myself haha!

Good luck everyone - keep going =D

Hi everyone,

I only finished one of my chapters :-( The other one is nearly there tho.

Good luck glowworm! Hope those cold medicines do the trick. It must be so great to be nearly there. I have to submit a complete draft in June and I am expecting that it will be very rough around the edges.

Good luck glowworm! Sorry about the cold! But good on you for pushing through it - really motivating for me here. Hope you were able to send the full draft and that you thoroughly enjoyed your theatre evening :)

AislingB, good luck! I'm sure a couple of days don't make a big difference in the long run. My full draft is due in a few weeks as well!

I've had a really bad couple of days with motivation levels really down, and just feeling tired and sleepy all the time. The bad weather right now doesn't help at all. I went from being in the office by 8:30 to not being here at all for two days. I was determined to come in today, made it by 11:30 am :( Hopefully the momentum builds up rather than down.

Have a nice day guys!