The One Goal Thread
Well I managed to create an A4 "to-do" list yesterday of both PhD related things and some personal things. I also ended up speaking to a new friend I have made about some of my current PhD worries to discover she is in the exact same position as me at the moment! So we have decided that we are going to try help motivate each other to see if we can help each other out and hopefully cheer ourselves up at the same time. So all in all quite a productive day I guess.
Good work on completing your funding proposal! Hope did the conference paper and data analysis go yesterday? Today I plan on spending the morning looking at my data and planning out how to structure my different routes of analysis before I am demonstrating in the afternoon! Hopefully then I will be able to make a detailed plan/set some goals to achieve by the time christmas holidays come around (6 work weeks to go?!).
Hope everyone has a good day and achieves what they set out to.
Good luck with the data and planning. And it's always good to find someone else in the same situation to share motivations with.
I didn't achieve as much as I wanted to yesterday, so I need to really crack on with it today. I still have a lot of work to do on my conference paper, so want to work on that until 12 o'clock today. Then after that I'm going to move on to my data analysis. I absolutely have to work faster, I only have a few weeks left and I have a stupidly huge amount to do.
Morning all.
My plan to get on with my data analysis has been scuppered by the need to finish writing my conference paper up - it's taking a long time, but I've realised that I'll be able to use a lot of the text to finish off a chapter in my thesis, so it's not wasted time. I need to get this finished and sent off today. If there's any time left over I'd like to add the text to the thesis chapter.
Good luck with the work everyone!
Hello everyone.
Did you get your conference paper completed Batfink? It will be a very good contribution to the thesis so hang in there!
I have had quite an off two days, I don't know what has been wrong with me. In between demonstrating I have trying to do some new practical work and I am making silly mistakes that I would usually never dream of!
So today, I aim to finish 2 runs (almost at the end of 1) and prepare plates for tomorrows runs... without making any more silly errors! We have a post grad wine reception social tonight so maybe that is just what I need to recover from such an annoying two days.
Hope everyone is well and being productive!
Hi Xtiny. No, I didn't get my paper finished - about 3 hours from the deadline I realised I wasn't going to make it (by a long way) so switched to adapting the stuff I'd written for the thesis chapter.
I'm getting a bit stressed about how little progress I'm making at the moment. I'm running out of time and don't feel any further forward than I was a few weeks ago. And now I've developed conjunctivitis and either infected eczema or impetigo (they're not sure which) so am very miserable. The eye drops seem to be working though, and I'm sure the antibiotics they've given me will kick in soon, so hopefully that will improve.
Okay, today I'm going to blitz my data analysis. I want to end the day feeling that I've made some good progress and that it is all manageable after all.
Hope your work goes well! And that the social evening was what you needed - sometimes a chance to get away and just have some fun is essential to maintaining momentum and enthusiasm.
Batfink, I hope you are feeling a bit better. Conjuntivitis can make one pretty miserable. Hopefully the medication will kick in quickly for you. Hopefully you are back on track really soon...
The last post I made for this thread worked pretty well, so I am going to post another. My goals tend to be spaced, as I have my full time job inbetween, and my workplace at the moment is frenetic. I had to get a bunch of work in for a hurdle course that is part of the PhD I am doing. If you are in the UK, it is a little like a 3+1 course, only the 1 isn't a Masters it is a Grad Cert Research-and you can do it over two years, while you take your four years for the PhD. I'm studying Part time, but I have to do at least 6 months of the 1 year in my first year.
But I did manage to get all of the hurdle tasks achieved and the ethics committee have approved my submission, as well as the Director of the group of schools I am looking to collect data from. I completed my concept map for lit review and really rough drafts (really rough drafts for first three chapters).
So my next goal is to (next weekend on Saturday), get my survey finished and linked into the net, so I can send requests to the schools I am hoping will participate in data-before we break up for summer holidays. Then, in my summer break, my second goal is to really get a solid draft of lit review not the sketchy one I have at present.
My goals have lots of time in between though, when I don't do much at all other than think a bit about it. So other than the stint of work next weekend, I will leave study until just before Christmas, so I can finish all of the work for my school and role there.
But, even though my work pattern is a bit different, I am really happy that it still seems to be possible to work this way and move on in the PhD.
Basically using holiday time or small chunks of leave (a day here or there) in big spurts to achieve big tasks, and then gradual increments to just keep things moving inbetween. (I reakon though, that when it is time for a real write up in about two years from now, I will go for around 3 months leave from work to really get a good start.
Hi Pjlu. Sounds like you've found a good way to work there - sometimes I think having limitations on when you can work makes you more efficient than if you have lots of time!
My conjunctivitis and whatever else has almost gone - the eye drops must have been magic - so I'm feeling a bit happier. And although I didn't make that much progress yesterday, I did inch things forward, so hopefully today I can press on and feel like the progress is starting to happen at a reasonable speed. I have a meeting with my supervisors on Tuesday and desperately want to be able to tell them I'm actually making progress and have a chance of giving them the full thesis final-ish draft on 16 December.
Hello Button and Natassia, hope you both managed to get your goals done!
I woke up early thinking about my analysis, so I've already made some notes for one section of writing up this morning, and now have a plan for the next couple of hours to make progress on my data analysis. Let's hope I can keep the momentum going and get ridiculously masses done today!
Morning all,
Hope you all had a good weekend, especially if you managed to get xmas shopping started Button, good work!
Natassia, hope your seminar goes well tomorrow and same for your supervisors meeting Batfink. And I hope you are feeling better now?
Pjlu, it is comforting to hear that someone who actually sounds like they have more on than me is managing to fit in achieving PhD goals, it gives me a bit more encouragement that I can actually do everything that I am trying to do.
Today I need to update my lab book as I got 2 solid days of practical work done last week and I hate being behind on it. I also hope to have time to read and follow up on a very interesting paper I have come across, as at first glance it seems it could help me with my data analysis... Fingers crossed.
Good luck today everyone in achieving what you set out to.
Morning Xtiny, hope the paper turns out to be as interesting as you think!
And I'm much better thanks, the antibiotics and eye drops have been miraculously fast acting.
I'm also finally making progress on this data analysis. Hooray! I've got past the thing that's been blocking me for weeks and now I'm tearing through the analysis and feeling confident. Just hope no other tricky bits turn up in it before I get to the end! Yay!
Good afternoon all,
Hope everyone is being productive this week, the thread seems to be a bit quiet.
I have not had a good week. Since my 9 month assessment in June I have been struggling a bit, not only with my PhD but with things in general. I think I realised how little help my supervisor had given me and communication is extremely difficult and felt like I had hit a wall. So for a couple of months I have really been trying to re-motivate myself (joining this was one!) and trying to get myself out of the lull of work I was in. My supervisor would mention 10 different things he wanted me to look into but not give any incline to which to prioritise or deadlines to complete these. So I have had a very large to do list for a while and I feel like I am very unproductive yet I am at work all day doing tiny bits for all the big things. So on Monday my supervisor calls me into his office (after not seeing him for weeks and very poor email correspondance) to say he is concerned with my lack of process etc and he will be informing the University PhD monitoring etc etc. So since then I have been trying to be positive and come up with some ways to get back on track....
To cut a long story short, today I aim to make myself some deadlines and inform my supervisor of these. And of the fact that I much prefer working to a date deadline rather than being asked to investigate several areas with no completion date. I also plan to ask to have a proper meeting with him next week about my data analysis as I have no idea what I am doing and have so far been too scared to admit that or ask him for help.
Time to take charge of my PhD!
I hope everyone else is having a better week than me and getting things done!
