so from today until the deadline, work as many hours as i can, completing as many sections of my thesis that i physically can. and then spend the last few days proof reading and compiling it into one thesis document.

then my reward is a day off, watching films at the cinema

"when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully".

Joan Bolker: p130

"getting on with it....
"Back in chapter 5, I warned you to keep a sustainable pace. But now as you move into the final stages, you can afford to get wired, to overwork, to push yourself harder than ever before."

'you'll be amazing how much work its possible to accomplish in a (week or so)...'

"your work now is to keep up a stady perhaps even accelerating pace, and to get yourself over the last hurdles, psychological, intellectual or organizational. You also need to force yourself to revise your thesis up to a standard...'you can show your supervisor'".

okay my final deadline for 1st draft of thesis is:

email my sup: 1st draft of my thesis by:
Thursday 3rd July 1600hrs:
(with some sections pending - that's okay, its my 1st draft of my thesis)

then taking a day off on Friday 4th of july, and spending the day at the cinema watching movies

I really want to see Hancock and that new angelina movie with the guy from atonement.

As Joan Bolker states, make rewards coincide with deadlines.

13 days left.

but you must be backing up on a DAILY basis aswell as an hourly basis (in some cases when you've done alot) and weekly basis.

no backup, no sympathy.
--

okay sermon over

*comes in for midday confession*

just spent 4 hours sorting out my computer. it refused to turn back on! after hours of frustration and safe mode and system restore, got it to work again. and i immediately backed up what i have done this week onto dvd!

Okay A-team, I am going to be obnoxious today and tell each one of you to:

**********BACK UP everything you have done this week!!!!*********

i dont care how long it takes, back it up TODAY!

email it to yourself, to a friend, backup to DVD, onto an external drive.

have at least 3 seperate places you have backed it up.

if you have figures in your document, back up the WRITING only ASWELL. sometimes word documents go pear shaped for no reason, so i back up my writing aswell in a seperate file.

if you can print out a copy aswell, please do so!

it's friday, which is official "backup your work day"
(i just made friday, backing up day)

don't forget us! when you're all big and famous

freewriting as joan bolker describes is :

"first you make a mess than you clean it up later"..

"NO elegant sentences" almost write as if its conversational.

"when you sit down to begin a piece of writing, your first aim ought to be to make a mess, to say anything that comes to your mind, on the subject or off it. not to worry at all about whether your stuff is connected logically, to play with your subject the way you used to build mud pies, to do no fine detail work, to spell poorly, if you want and to generally forget about standards altogether"

" i suspect many writing blocks come about because people aren't used to playing in the mud when they write, they think writing is a neat clean endeavor, i dont".

"obsessing about technical details can slow it down or stop it altogether"

write in brackets look up XYZ and carry on with the flow of writing.

EMTEA, welcome! and thanks for stopping by my diary.

yes, I can help you you can be my little side project

okay, I want you to start the timer (10 minutes MAXIMUM) if you have an egg timer great! the buzzer that goes off, will remind you of when you used to sit in exams.

--

okay for 10minutes, i want you to do "free writing"

write anything on your subject. it doesnt have to be perfect, nor wholly relevant. even if you hate it, you can do it for 10minutes.

and then report back with what you came up with.

after the 10mins, read what you have with a highlighter, and circle key things that seem interesting.

okay your aim:

free writing, for 10minutes. let me know how you get on

you're deadline to do this. is 3.30pm. you have one hour. go!

i agree that book is VERY good.

also "writing a dissertation in 15mins " by joan bolker.

helps to unlock the writer in you

also try the flowers paradigm method.
https://webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie/b_flowers.html


the basic premise is that you start by deliberating writing "rough" making mud pies. and not worrying about grammer and perfection.

good luck

i agree, hard work , passion and determination are the key qualities of doing well in a phd. grades although are a good indicator, aren't everything.

good luck! as long as you have the passion and determination to do it, you will do it. grades are not everything.

go for it!! that is so cool presenting a tv show. let us know which one it is. we can check it out!

yah i dont think they really care the details of interruption. just ask, and see what they say. the worst they can say is no way in hell. but u wont know unless you ask

thanks billy for your kind and supportive words!

my desktop computer is being stupid again, refusing to connect to the internet, so i have to do system restore and hope it works. just dont know why it keeps doing that

update from yesterday:

1. spent a couple of hours figuring out how to add page numbers to a landscape page, it was bugging me! as some of my pages in my current chapter are in landscape mode.

finally figured it out using the following webpages. i learnt how to do "section" breaks properly. and how to use header and footers.

http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/sections.htm

http://www.castlejb.com/webdesign/landscape/landscape.html

2. sorted out my table of contents and did proper numbering of titles of my sections of the chapter.

3. finished section 1 of my results in chapter 4.

4. total words done yesterday = 724 words, plus made 2 figures.

lol sorry !

i meant you need to do a map of your paper.

join our club
http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=9671&cat=4&threadpage=1&newview=1

and visit this site about procrastination and how to get moving.

split it up into little chuncks. and do abit EVERYDAY no matter how little or the quality.

http://davidmaister.com/blog/18/Done-at-Last-Thoughts-on-Procrastination

listen to the video clip, its worth the 15minutes.

your aim today, is to make a map of the things you need to get done for your map,. just spend 10 minutes on it and report back when you're done

thanks bakuvia

i agree, it was a fantastic idea by Anthropolaga!

---
and a good morning to the rest of the A-team! hehe. hope you are all well. and well done on everyone working hard.

*confession from yesterday*

finished 1 section of my results section. so i only managed to get 1/3 done of my first aim. took me 6 hours to complete 1 section. by late evening, i was so tired, so i had dinner and didn't return and fell asleep.
----

aims today:

1. section 2 of results (chapter 4)
2. section 3 of results (chapter 4)
3. discussion of chapter 4.
---

good luck with your work today people!