Phew. I am having a productive morning so far. Rather than carrying on writing more I decided to edit what I have written so far. I have now edited one part of my analysis and upped my word count by 900. :-)

My next goal is to edit a further part and not to let myself start to switch off.

Morning all. My first goal is to finish writing one section of analysis.

I completely failed this afternoon. I got a text saying my friend was on TV (which I thought was going to be tomorrow) so I ended up watching that and couldn't get back into it after. Tomorrow I'm going to aim to reach 1000 words and not to switch off once I've done so...

How did you go with writing up your pilot study PinkNumbers? Don't stress out, you seem to work hard and do so consistently so I am sure you will get there.

I am having a fairly good week after a positive meeting with my sup last week. He has now read 2 of my analytic chapters and rather than suggesting drastic rewrites he pretty much only suggested a few stylistic changes. So for the first time since I started my PhD I am feeling in control. I have a deadline for my fourth and final analytic chapter at the end of next month but I am trying to blast it and get it done by the end of March.

Keep plodding on, people!

My word count for the morning is 1200. :-) This is a VERY rough draft though. My next goal is to find something decent for lunch (a bit of a challenge, may end up with porridge) and then to finish off the section I'm currently on.

Morning all.

My goal for today is to write 1000 words. Starting with 600 by lunch time.

I wrote a huge reply to this earlier but lost it. Argh.

Anyway. I also have a similar deadline to you and I am on track for August/September. My hours haven't decreased because I never had to work longer than average hours anyway but I can identify with feeling like they should increase as I started writing up. However I know that concentrating and writing effectively for long periods doesn't work for me. I also found that there is nothing which makes me work more productively than having a set task to do on a Saturday and wanting to get it out of the way so that I can get on with my weekend. So I have now stopped worrying so much about time spent working and instead I set myself targets each day (usually 1000 words). If I hit the target I don't feel bad about shaving the odd hour off my working day. It isn't productive to spend time in front of the computer not actually getting any work done just because you feel like you should be.

So my advice is rather than aiming to work until 5, aim to get a certain amount of work done that day.

Fail. I really can't focus on my chapter at all. Rather than staring at the computer screen all day I'm going to put it to one side and spend the afternoon inputting and organizing my notes from my recent reading.

Morning everyone. I hope everyone is settling in and being productive!

I am just sitting down to write after spending the morning teaching. My goal for today is to write 900 words, taking the document I'm working on up to 2,500.

i hope things are going well today Batfink. I wrote 700 words this morning (very, very rough words). My goal for the afternoon is to write 500 more.

Morning. I spent yesterday planning out a new chapter and today I am starting writing it. My First goal is to write 600 words before leaving for spin class at 12.

I am really sorry to hear this. When speaking to a lecturer who finished last September well within 3 years she said that it's best to accept that life is going to get in the way occasionally and to build in spare weeks. Carrying on with PhD work during difficult times is really hard and sometimes impossible because just scraping through and putting in the hours isn't enough, your heart has to be in it. Don't beat yourself up about it and take some time out if you feel you need to.

I have now been through my notes and prepared some stuff for supervision tomorrow. I don't actually feel like I have made any progress in the grand scheme of things because I think the analysis I have been planning to do for my final analytic chapter might be a bit ambitious in the time I have left so it might come to nothing.

My goal for the rest of the day is to draft out a particular section of my methods chapter.

Morning! Yesterday I was so tired that I really couldn't focus. It took me almost 2 hours to read half a journal paper and none of it was going in so I gave up for the day just after 2. :$

Today I really need to think about the analysis for my next chapter and to prepare something to take to supervision tomorrow. So my first goal is to read through some notes and look through my data.

I hope its going well Batfink!

I am not having the best day. This is mainly self inflicted as I went to watch Terrorvision last night and had a couple of drinks and stayed up later than I should. I am completely worn out after teaching this morning. I really, really don't want to work. Ugh. But I need to start thinking about my final analytic chapter before I meet my supervisor on Tuesday so my goal for now is to read through some papers, trawl through my data and make some notes.