Congratulations on your submission! I too am looking forward to catching up on housework and unpacking the other half of the stuff we didn't get round to doing when we moved recently. Don't forget to take time to relax as well!

Late start today as i could not sleep at all last night then slept in the morning. I have, however, finished the chapter I was working on and have one more to tinker with. Hopefully, that means Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to re-write the intro and conclusion, leaving the weekend for everything else!

A week to go! I am behind on my list of things to do - so I made another list. I have spent the weekend doing some fairly straightforward stuff which I should have done ages ago but kept putting it off thinking it wouldn't take me long. Today I am up bright and early so am working on rejigging a chapter - mainly just re-doing the intro and conclusion. I have to get this done today - no slacking.
How is everyone else doing?

I've got more than 3,000 images that I am going to put in the appendix of my thesis and was going to put them on a disk but last time I tried to do something like that the disk was blank after I had spent ages on it. I know I obviously did something wrong! However, I was wondering whether there was any etiquette on how to include images. I'd rather put them on a portable hard drive but this is not as easy to attach as a disk which can just slip in a pocket.
Any views?

OK, 11 days to go. I've finished my last chapter and am pleased with it, my supervisor is having a look and will get back to me on Monday. I hope she is OK with it. I haven't stuck to my plan so am worried about fitting everything in now. Today I am re-jigging another chapter and hope that can all be done today. If I do enough work I am treating myself to a couple of drinks at the pub and an Indian take away.
I then have to re-jig another chapter, re-write the introduction and do my conclusion - two days for each and I still have 4 days to put all the appendices etc together and get it printed. If I stick to this things should be fine........

Hidagarde, I am so sorry to hear about your sad situation. Everyone deals with illness and bereavement in different ways so I can only talk about my personal situation. My mum died a a few months after I started my PhD and to help me deal with it I carried on working hoping ot would give me something to focus on. I don't think I really worked very hard in my first year and I had issues with other things like a change of supervisor and also my relationship breaking down. I think having my PhD helped me keep grounded as it was something I had to keep working at. I'm not sure what would have happened if I had taken a break then.
If you do take time off then you need to think about practical things like funding - will you need to get a job? It might be better to carry on with the Phd which will be more flexible than a job (depending on what discipline you are in). However, if you take time off - say three or six months - you can still work on your PhD when you have time, and then when you resume your studies you will be on track still hopefully.
As I said everyone deals with things differently and I wish you the best in whatever you decide.

I totally empathise with you on the tiredeness. I've got 12 days until submission and am just exhausted. I'm still in bed now as I work till midnight or later most nights. I may just stay here to work today! The thought of finally finishing is spurring me on but then there is the Viva and probably more work after that for corrections so I'm trying not to think beyond submission at the moment.
But for you, you know you are at the very last stage - and you will soon have your PhD. Just keep going. And then you can spend as much time under the duvet as you want and sleep till you are refreshed and think of all the things you can do without having the pressure of the PhD.
Good luck.

Hey Stressed, it sounds like you are on track. Your uni should have a format of how to present your thesis and what order things need to go in.
This is a reduced version of what my uni asks for: 4.1. The following items (a-h) must be included as preliminary pages of the thesis in
the order given:
a. APPROVED ELECTRONICALLY GENERATED COVER-PAGE
b. TITLE PAGE
A title page giving:
c. LIST OF CONTENTS
A list of contents, giving all relevant sub-divisions of the thesis and a page number
for each item.
d. OTHER LISTS
Lists of tables, figures, diagrams, photographs, abbreviations etc.
e. ABSTRACT
f. LAY ABSTRACT (not compulsory)
A lay abstract may be provided in addition to the standard abstract described in
section 4.1e.
g. DECLARATION
h. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

Carrying on with the Oscar Wilde theme, I think I have reverse Dorian Gray syndrome. ie there is a picture of me somewhere looking all freshfaced but since the PhD I have become an unrecognisable deformed fatter uglier greyer haired wrinkled version of myself!

absolutely shattered after two 11 hour shifts at work at the weekend, so took it easy this morning. But really got motoring this afternoon and had to force myself to stop for a break. However, I have realised how much more I still have to do on my last main chapter before I can start putting the rest together and organising the whole PhD into submission format. If I carry on writing and editing everything this week, will one week be enough to put it all together.

Not a good day so far. I'm feeling under the weather and didn't sleep very well, so have had a lie in and am only just getting down to work. But if I work until late -maybe 10/11, I can still get 7 hours work done so I won't feel so guilty.
I have to do a weekend shift at my job this weekend so I won't be able to do any PhD work as I am completely wiped out by the long shifts.

It's amazing the wide range of topics we are all doing.
I've had a good day today, but with a little too much going off on a tangent when I find something else interesting, which its too late to include.
My word count is probably going to be around 70,000. I was worried about not having enough rather than having to cut back too many.

My thesis is on the representation of costume on medieval funeral monuments. I'm still finding it fascinating thank goodness.

Finally back to the PhD marathon - well it's more like the sprint there (keeping up the Olympic references)!
I've had a mini-crisis with one of my other jobs in that a spreadsheet of data I had been working on has become corrupted and I'll have to do it again. I have the info but it will take a while to sort it and edit it all again. I'm really annoyed and was on a real downer last night. I thought I had finished and it would be a clear run on the thesis for the next two weeks. At least it wasn't any of my PhD work.
Oh well, I'm leaving it to the weekend and am spending the next two days on the PhD - I've written a final final to do list for each day and I have to stick to it. I am supposed to be working the whole of the weekend before submission but I'm going to take it as holiday, meaning I will have about four days holiday left until next June - the hope is that with a wonderful PhD, I'll get a fantastic new job with loads of holidays!!