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oh dear today has been rather unproductive.

i read 1 and half papers today. oh well. but on the plus side, i've finished reading all 9 papers that were on my list that relate to one section of my thesis. now i am going to write notes on these papers which will help me understand the basic theory of my thesis. so tommorow is a fresh start and i can start making notes and making sense of it all.

so i'm happy that ive finished the 9 papers, even though took me a week! but like Ruby kindly said, it takes a week to get a routine going and get back to study mode, so i'm happy about that :) trying to think more positive these days and looking at half glass full instead of scorning myself for the lack of work, but focusing on what i actually did. positive reinforcement ...so not going to scorn myself anymore but try better each day...as long as one is consistent every little bit of reading counts...

reading consists of a multiple of steps and is a very active process, not passive at all- reading, understanding, making notes of the important parts, how it relates to your thesis, then being able to articulate in your own words the principles and ideas so you can converse about it in a viva. all takes time. and you cant rush the process.

well thats me clocking out for today. and tommorow i'm going to wake up early. going to try to have a more sensible approach, go to bed by 1am, and wake up by 9am. hopefully!!


hey Ruby hope you're okay with the methods chapter. and Armendaf, its great to have you back :) and Celesmai too

congratulations to Sarah on passing her viva last week!! just read the other thread :)

nite folks. thanks for listening.

Good idea Ruby!! take a break. dont worry about finishing it, you will get it finished when its READY to be finished! chapters are a living entity that sometimes need to grow on their own lol.

aww thanks for your encouragement, i like what you said!! digest mentally and quality and not quantity, i like how you think!!! :-) well now i just feel so much better, thank you Ruby.

i took a massive break! with dinner and watching grey's anatomy. so going to read one more paper before i take another break. catch ya later Ruby!

okay managed to finish reading one paper cant read anymore as i am very hungry so taking a break for food and will come back later for more reading!

hope you're doing okay there Ruby!!

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hey Ruby! well your methods chapter is miles ahead of my reading!!! i got distracted yesterday, and so yesterday just managed to read 2 papers. very poor!

today havent done any reading, just about to start reading a paper, then will take a break for a late lunch.

well done for you to keep sticking with the methods chapter, you will get there in the end!!

shame you cant go to the exhibition :( the sacrifices we must make eh!

im impressed by your preserverance though,

battle face agogo :-s

i'm not moving until i've finished reading this long review article - 11 pages.

my plans for tommorow got cancelled :( but part of me didnt feel like going out tommorow and socialising, one reason, feel abit tired cause of the time of the month and another reason i want to continue my reading and get into a real routine and gear up my momentum. the reward is so much sweeter when you feel like you REALLY earned it, and right now i dont feel like i have.

so i want to study hard till next weds, and then reward myself by taking a day off.

i soooooooooooooo need to kick up the pace of my reading and studying. so then i can reward myself by taking next weds off :-) and no more sleeping in late! i am going to start setting my alarm and get strict with myself.
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my aims for today:
read 3 papers.
make notes on the papers i have read so far (9 papers) haha i've already forgotten the papers i read a few days ago! lol my brain is a sieve haha

well done Zelda!! you must be so pleased. once you have recovered, maybe you can give us some pointers :-) congratulations !! you must be over the moon ! and with only minor corrections, you did so well!

hello clocking in late.
i only managed to read half a paper last night before falling asleep! - cure for insomniacs everywhere :p
then finished the rest of the paper today.

my aim for the rest of the day is to read 4 papers.

Hey Ruby how did the corrections go?

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how did your corrections go and did you manage to send it to your sup?

You are very welcome Ruby! :-) i'm glad they cheer you up :)

yah its good to eat when your that hungry, its difficult to concentrate on work. i hope tonights session went well and you have a nice lunch with your mum tommorow.

well i didnt get any reading done this evening! after my late lunch with the folks, i had cramps (that time of the month! which explains why i have been feeling so tired) so i just took the evening off with a dvd and hot water bottle and lots of chocolate lol
then i took a nap in the evening, and woke up at 10pm. and just been chilling ever since!

feel guilty and wide awake, so i've decided to read one more paper today and then as a reward watch an episode from one of my dvds, and hopefully fall asleep soon. otherwise my body clock will be all messed up.

see you tommorow.

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Hey Ruby! thanks so much for the encouraging words about my reading yesterday :-) that really is nice to hear!

great to hear from you too!! sounds like you are working really hard today! well done on writing well today, that's really super and that you are crosing things off the list!! excellent ! i am confident you will get it done today. just go for the sprint, and when you hand in your chapter, be sure to reward yourself!!! maybe even take tommorow off and do something relaxing :) before you start working towards your next chapter. that will motivate you to get it finished today.

thats so great that your chapter is nearly done!! hurrah! :-)

problem with writing a big ol thesis is that even when you accomplish finishing a chaper, we dont let ourselves enjoy that moment and then start worrying about the next one. so please make sure you do reward yourself!

and wow your teaching subject sounds very interesting!! :-)

cont.....

"what if you miss a deadline ? ...get right back on...make a new easy realistic deadline and get back to work. dont waste time crying over lost opportunies, take advantages of new ones"

"sprinting for short stretches is fine and sometimes very productive, but you cant sprint for a whole marathon, and that is what a thesis is. ..consider using close-up markers like "by the time the kids get out of school...by this friday" and when you meet them, be sure to reward yourself".

----

so my advice is to first finish your analysis. once thats all done. then you can concentrate on getting your thesis written. i would consider writing zero/rough drafts, and not worrying about writing things perfectly. just write the ideas down, dont worry about grammer or anything else. know that you will and can improve on it later. just get something written down first. give yourself a task, i will write 5 rough pages on section X from chapter X.

the goal is to break up your thesis into small sections, and then work on a particular section. its like climbing a mountain, you take it one step at a time.
good luck ! we are all here for you and with you every step of the way!

Hey Mira! so lovely to hear from you. and you're very welcome. well i dont know about my motivation, it really sways drastically on an hourly basis ! so please do not feel so out of league! i have my good and very bad moments. its a constant struggle. i never have motivation to study, i have to either force myself or bribe myself to study haha.


i'm sorry to hear that things got pretty bad.

thats great that your almost there with the analysis. sounds like you're not jogging on the same spot, but moving towards something, even if you think it might be slow. its still moving forward.

thats a very good question about how much time to devote to each chapter. and Ruby answered it very well. its a good idea to know what your ultimate deadline is, then give yourself a safetly deadline, which is an artificial deadline, because things always take longer than you anticipate and like Ruby said work backwards. consolidate what you can theoritically write about and practically what you cannot. if you have a limited time, then there are certain things you wont have time to. and so you just learn to focus more.

do you have a specific deadline by which you MUST submit your thesis?

even if you dont. set yourself an artificial deadline, by which you want a complete first draft of your entire thesis completed in 3-4 months.

well for me, i made a huge mind map of what my thesis was going to contain. it was going to contain X number of chapters. and then within each chapter, i had major headings of the topics, results, discussion points i wanted to include.

then i would set myself an arbituary deadline, because you really dont know how long something is going to take. you can tell yourself, you only have 1 week to write introduction section of chapter 3, but in reality, it can take you 2 weeks. so give yourself a generous deadline. if you think its going to take 2 weeks to write a first draft of chapter 3 or whatever chapter you decide to first work on, then give yourself a deadline of 3 weeks. and then really work towards getitng a 1st draft completed within that time frame. if the deadline comes close and your not near to finishing, thats OK. you can then set yourself another deadline, its like doing a sprint.

you sprint for 1 week or whatever and then if you havent met the deadline, you give yourself a break and a treat /reward and then make a new plan and sprint again for another week.

try setting yourself small goals. that is much easier.

i will quote bolker to help you with deadlines. and if you havent read bolker's book on writing your dissertation in fifteen minutes, a highly recommend it!

quote" the deadlines you set for yourself need to be very very generous ones. if you think it will take you 2 weeks to finish a chapter, give yourself three. if you finish early, you'll feel particularly fine. most importan is that you finish the chapter and give yourself cause for celebration, rather than dissappointment"

"set up deadlines so they involve rewards, not punishments. do not set them up so that you have to be superhuman to meet them. perharps you can work nonstop for a few days, but no one can sustain that sort of effort over the long haul ...set very easy goals.. Every one that you meet will empower you, so that you can make the next hurdle a bit more strenous. this is the way to turn "i think i can " into "i know i can".

deadline for the final completed thesis is difficult to imagine and trying to find how long that will take is difficult to establish. therefore bolker suggests that you need to break up a single deadline into a series of much smaller ones. each of which you can imagine meeting. with a thesis, these smaller goals and time frames can be stated in terms of certain number of pages or chapters, or sections of chapters. "your taks is to divide the single project into pieces small enough so that one by one they dont frighten you"

"what if you miss a deadline ? ...get right back on.