Lockdown doesn't display the clock in the status bar, but if you go to the Leechblock menu and click Lockdown it will tell you at what time the Lockdown ends . The Leechblock statistics do indeed total up your procrastination time in each of your set groups.

H, it actually takes a few minutes to set up, but i went back to it to tweak it a bit. I like it but as Missspacey says, i can defeat it if so choose to. Let's see if I can resist...

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Still tinkering here. A slight reprieve for this website and BBC News - I've moved them out of outright block during the set working hours into a new group I've called "Quota". I'm allowed no more than 10 minutes (for the whole group) in every 2 hour period which could be a tad frustrating if I'm writing a post and my time runs out! Eeerily, once this is switched on, a clock appears on the Firefox status bar counting down how long you have left of your 10 minutes. 5 minutes and 32 seconds left for me tonight!

I'm configuring it now, so far so good and my firewall hasn't detected any unusual activity. It took me about 5 minutes to set up. I created a group (you can have up to 6 groups) called "Procrastination" containing (among others) Facebook, Youtube, BBC News, The Guardian and, dare I say it, Postgraduateforum.com (so my worst offenders). I'm blocked between 900-1300 and 1400-1700 every week day and I've set it so I can't disable it during the blocking time. Another neat feature is Lockdown. Say, like me, you are nocturnal working tonight, you can press the Lockdown option at anytime of day and tell it to block me from all my "Procrastination" websites for, say, the next 4 hours. I also notice that it will log the amount of time you spend browsing sites in each of your groups when you're not in blocked time. My Procrastination group is currently reading 26 minutes for the last 30 minutes! A word of caution, you can set it to require a random 64 digit password in order to access the Options tab. Don't switch this on (if at all) until you've got all of your websites listed. It took me 2 painstaking minutes to type in the darned password but I guess that's the idea - to discourage you from meddling. I like it though we'll have to see if I persevere with it over time!

Coming to end of second year. I have all the data I need to analyse, interpret and write up but suffering from a phase of lack of interest. I want this thing done in 3 years and have shed loads to do to achieve it within the next 12 months, but can't seem to generate any momentum right now. It comes and goes though, and ultimately this thesis isn't going to write itself. So here's to nocturnal working!

Wow, since 8.30 this morning! Are you writing up?

Okay, a lazy day now calls for a late night session. Anyone else burning the midnight oil tonight?

I can procrastinate with the best of them. I think I've done 1 hour's work today if I'm brutally honest, so something has to give.

The Lifehacker website (a website which reviews ideas for getting things done) is pretty good for this sort of stuff. Some ideas are just plain daft but some are genuinely quite useful.

The LeechBlock download seems interesting and cuts straight to the core of how I procrastinate (i.e. it blocks user-determined websites during user-determined work hours). The best bit is the option to stopping you from hacking in to unblock sites during work hours. I'll give it a try and see if it actually can reform the error of Sylvester's ways or whether I'm an incorrigible procrastinator! Unfortunately, this website might have to go on the block list. Hmmm.

Does anyone else have this or tried anything similar?

http://lifehacker.com/374812/save-yourself-from-time-sinks-online-with-leechblock

Me and some friends were discussing this the other day. An ill-informed guess is that Academia would do quite well out of recessions because alot of people return to study if they can't get a job - so a decent source of income for universities and perhaps a better chance for each of us to get a lectureship. How this affects the other streams of funding of academia I can't really say!

Fees should be met separately by the EPSRC, meaning that the stipend will be all yours. I also run a car and live quite comfortably on my stipend.

Yeah, there's pros and cons. I too work from home although my previous accommodation (a house share with 4 others) was distracting and didn't help my productivity. Since I've moved to a 2 person flat my productivity is much better and i've developed a good work ethic at home (although I still have pulses of working hard and procrastination). I have my nice laptop, cheap lunches, unlimited tea and no noise/distractions. You do miss out on some of the department goss and goings on and I do sometimes wonder that being out of sight makes you out of mind with some of the movers and shakers in the department for when interesting research projects come in. Nonetheless, I can't work in the communal office environment so I'm more productive and happier at home.

For some people (and this included me until recently), you physically have to go out to work in order to be able to do work. Sometimes the creature comforts of the distraction type can be a problem. However, i no longer have a TV/Games console etc, so only now have the internet to procrastinate with! 8-)

Yes, ask lots of questions (even those you consider dumb questions) early on in the PhD. You're not expected to know everything at this stage.

Regarding the length of PhDs, my university has pegged me to submit within 4 years or be failed. As my money runs out after 3 years, I'll be aiming for that deadline rather than the years. The downside is that the motivation is simply to get the job done rather than spending in-depth time doing detailed and innovative investigations. A bit of a shame really but money talks!

Re: Juno and TheCoastman

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/postgraduate/postgraduate-study/calling-time-on-the-long-phd-823190.html

I guess it depends on the nature and personality of the supervisor and your discipline. Essentially, your PhD is your research apprenticeship so you are learning all the time from the supervisor. However there comes a point in your PhD where you are expected to carry the project forward yourself and it's you who is leading the supervisor. The time for this is probably discipline-specific. In the sciences, this may be later in the PhD. Don't be afraid to disagree with your supervisor so long as you can back your ideas up. It's good practice for the viva anyway. Sorry if this sounds somewhat vague but it's a student-, supervisor-, and discipline-specific thing.

I concur with the advice given here. In my case I know this stuff but strangely don't put it into practice often enough. Ahead of trying some of these techniques, one trick I find useful (and is similar to what Tricky is saying), is to sit with a blank document and talk to yourself on screen, e.g. (what is the problem? why can't I get any work done? why can't i sleep at night?). Just type up whatever comes into your mind. It's the old trick of taking what's in your mind away from your mind and display it tangeably on "paper". Once you've done this, you can break up your various worries into separate compartments and develop plans for tackling each. It's a sort of self-therapy but it works suprising well.

The thing to remember is that the theses and papers you read will have been through several drafts/edits to acquire their prose. The danger a lot of people fall into is getting too caught up in using fancy words whilst they're still thinking through their arguments. It is much better to separate the thinking part from the writing part. In the first instance, get the points down in whatever prose feels comfortable and leave the academic prose until the editing stage.