Hey EV,

I'm back tomorrow so will see then how things pan out but I imagine if Ididn't have to present at a conference in 10 days AND I STILL DON'T HAVE A PAPER WRITTEN! (Sorry) I'd be feeling the same way. My recent discovery is mytomataoes.com. It's just like an online egg-timer which goes off after every 25 minutes then allows you a quick break. Before you go on the break you have to write down what you did in those 25 minutes. It saves the 'tomatoes' and it gives you a sense of achievement to see them mounting up, even if you've actually done very little. This helps to spur me on, at least.
I planned to do loads of reading over xmas (I study literature so it was just novels, not massively taxing) and have done very little. Should I feel glad because I had a nice relaxing time, or should I panic and try and read 4 novels in one night? Ho hum...

Hey Megara,

I'm not really sure about regulations etc. and I'm sure somebody will be along with better advice, but I agree with Helen G that there are probably things you could try in order to cut it down, if you really want to. Saving the 'cuttings' is a great idea, as you can just toy around with cutting even substantial parts out. I've often found that doing that allows me to trim bits that I thought were indispensable, but which turn out not to be so. Perhaps you could draw up a plan, if you haven't already done so, and write down a single sentence for each paragraph describing what you need to do in that paragraph. If some of them are particularly hard to write then those paragraphs may not be needed. At sentence level, I also find that simplifying your language often works.

Hope this helped.

Interesting thread. I'm either very fortunate or extremely boring but I've always known more or less what I wanted to do. I loved reading as a kid and would sometimes lock myself in my toy cupboard for hours so I could read undisturbed :$ So at various points I've wanted to be an author, a playwright, an actress, a screenwriter....When I was about 14 I stumbled across a book in the school library about Hamlet and the Oedipus Complex and that was the first time I realised you could be paid to write books about other books! In fact I was so determined that I only wanted to work with literature I pretty much flunked my other courses at college, but finished my literature one 6 months early. At university I discovered the odd specimen that is the 'academic' and decided that was it for me. God help me if it all goes wrong, although it would probably do me some good to think outsde the box for once!

I agree with the others. I study literature, so not very close to your own field, but I spend 90% of my time shamelessly borrowing from other fields, applying the ideas to literature and seeing how they fit/ don't fit. It's how we roll 8-)

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Mine are:

1. Pass Mid-point progression (all the others depend on this!)
2. Publish a paper
3. Organize a conference
4. Go on a holiday/mini break
5. See friends more!

ETA: 6. SAVE SOME MONEY. Crucial for when I inevitably go over my 3 year time frame.

Keen Bean I'm really sorry to hear about your crash. But you sound very motivated and driven, I'm not sure I'd even be worrying about work at all! Hope you start to feel better soon.

Last week:
1) Write and send off abstract for conference (in Finland, woohoo!) DONE
2)Write a coherent first draft of conference article. Need to have at least a clear sense of what I want to say. Not Entirely Sure! I've done loads of work but still no definite sense of argument. Maybe it'll have to be one of those hypothetical 'what if?' type papers...
3) Meet supervisor to discuss his feedback on my chapter and where to go next. DONE
4) Buy diary for new year and write in next year's important dates and stuff for first month. DONE
5) Mark (last batch!) essays and have handed into office by Wednesday. DONE
6) Continue database of names: finish the current batch. DONE
7) Read one chapter of Book A. Half done!

I've been using mytomatoes.com these past few days and it's been great. Makes it much harder for an hour of browsing/faffing around to slip by. It does mean though that almost every minute of my working day is now monitored, Big Brother style.

This week (ending Thursday):
1)Have plan of paper blocked out- crucial! Only 10 days left when I get back from xmas and this is an important conference for me.
2) Make sure all books are back to library!/Work out what to take home.
3)Look up books supervisor suggested. Read intro to both. Add names to database.
4) Finish chapter of book A! Photocopy other useful chapters.

I'm going to continue working over christmas but plan to mostly just read primary sources - novels and plays - so relatively un-stressful :) I might not have access to computer so when I return on 4th January I want to have:
1) Re-read 3 books I'm teaching in January
2) Read 2 primary sources for thesis
3) (skim) read 1 seconday source...Need to decide what this should be- see above list!

Hapy christmas everyone (tree)

Tomorrow: 1) Mark esssays and hand in to office DONE
2) Meeting about organizing conference- have ideas/plans ready DONE
3) Read chapter 1 of book A

I didnt get my last aim done as I got confused with my diary and did today's work instead! So today:

1) Continue work on article draft: do mini recaps for each of 3 important theorists
2) Read article A
3) Read chapter B
4)E-mail sups with missing attachment

Today: 1) Meet sup. DONE
2) Write and send off Finland abstract. DONE
3)Bash out rest of zero draft: CRUCIAL! DONE
4) Mark essay comparasions.

I'm really really tired so am going to mark the essays tomorrow. I need to accept that when I leave the office and come home I'm going to struggle to get work done. Things will have to be timetabled more realistically.

Tomorrow: 1) Mark esssays and hand in to office
2) Meeting about organizing conference- have ideas/plans ready
3) Read chapter 1 of book A

Good aims Bug, and I'm glad you're sounding happier (snowman)

Cobweb I did that a heck of a lot in my first year. Stupidly, things only really changed once I got into my second year and had no time to do anything. Now I feel really motivated! *rolls eyes*

I can't tell you how much making achievable daily targets has helped though. If I'm feeling really really stuck I will write down things like: 1)open document and 2) write two lines as my aims. Being able to cross them off (writing DONE is mandatory) makes me feel a flicker of achievement and sets the ball rolling for more. I also love looking back at the end of the day and writing down everything I've done. If it's not much, drag it out! 1) Got into office 2) Checked e-mail 3) Read one page of book X, etc. etc.

I recently started a thread about organization and Sue told me how she keeps cumulative lists of her weekly aims on her computer so she can look back and seehow much she's done. My weekly targets are on here but today I wrote my first six-monthly plan in a Word document so I can follow her lead.

Everybody works in different ways, as Bug has just demonstrated, but I couldn't get by without my lists and plans anymore. Maybe give it a try (robin)

I know I spend half my life on this thread but it's working and I will do anything that helps me get stuff done. Even talking to myself : D
Ugh, I cannot believe how much faffing around has been involved in getting these essays marked, moderated and handed in. Nobody has a bloody clue what they're doing. Anyway they're in, once and for all.
So today I:
1)Finally got those essays out of the way.
1) Worked on my zero draft. It's STILL not finished (bad KC) but its getting there. Just need to read through what I have, read a couple more texts, ponder a few more things...
2)Spoke to some other people about putting together a bid for a conference grant : D
4) Made a pretty graph of monthly aims for the next 4 months.
5) Organized a meeting with my sup- for tomorrow.
Tonight I will sort out what I need to do for the Finland abstract.

Tomorrow:
1) Meet sup.
2) Write and send off Finland abstract.
3)Bash out rest of zero draft: CRUCIAL!
4) Mark essay comparasions.

Some wise poster once said to me Cobweb that during the Phd you kind of circle your central subject, venturing away all the time but constantly coming back to the middle, hopefully with more and more knowledge and understanding. I know how it feels though, I still have days when I think, 'what exactly is my PhD about again?!'

I'm in!

I don't know much about postdocs either but I'd like to find out.

Thanks Sue,

I will have a go at making the spreadsheet in Excel for monthly plans. I always get so flustered and confused making large scale plans, but I really need to start.

Hello all (mince)

How do you organize the tasks you have to do? Ideally I would have yearly, monthy, weekly and daily aims but I can't work out a way to organize them all. I write on the accountability thread for my daily and weekly aims, which has really helped, but I'm not sure what to do about things of a bigger scale. Do people use wall charts or just diaries? Do you even have written-up plans, or do you just know where you are meant to be?

I'd be grateful for any tips.

Hope everyone is well,

Clocking in at 11pm on a Friday night...so this is what my life has come to:$

Aims for the week were:

1) Have zero draft of conference paper finished.
2) Have marked all essays for my class and had them moderated and handed back to office. DONE
3) Have done various bits of admin (I won't list them all here, my posts are tedious enough!) DONE
4) Have received and read back sup's comments for chapter sent off last week. DONE
5) Read two chapters and intro of book A, and all of Troilus and Cressida.

I only read the introduction of book A, dumped Troil and Cress and still have lots to do on my zero draft. The zero draft HAS to be done by Monday so I will do that on Sunday. Went to a careers day today which was very helpful (if depressing) and marking took an Age :-s so I'm not feeling too bad about not completing all my aims, but they still need sorted. Next week:

1) Write and send off abstract for conference (in Finland, woohoo!)
2)Write a coherent first draft of conference article. Need to have at least a clear sense of what I want to say.
3) Meet supervisor to discuss his feedback on my chapter and where to go next.
4) Buy diary for new year and write in next year's important dates and stuff for first month.
5) Mark (last batch!) essays and have handed into office by Wednesday.
6) Continue database of names: finish the current batch.
7) Read one chapter of Book A.
8) Hand out xmas cards in office (snowman)