Hello there fellow PhD people. I was just wondering if anyone else here is aiming to submit over the summer? I've got a very vague June/July deadline and I'm feeling slightly horrified how much I have left to do!

I am aiming to submit in July. I too am horrified at how much I have left to do, sleepless nights tossing and turning dreaming of calenders of all things! I am in life sciences, my thesis is comprised of four data chapters that need to be submitted for publication and a general introduction and discussion. I have a decent full draft of one chapter with just a few revisions before submission to a journal; a rough full draft of two other chapters; and the fourth that I am trying to analyse at the minute. Plus intro and discussion, which are not started, and not helped by the fact I am not sure what my thesis is "about" - I studied the ecology of a threatened animal, so while the outcomes of the research have practical applications, I'm struggling to make a theoretical framework to pull it all together! It will be a challenge to be done by July, but I potentially have a job starting then so it needs to be done.

My aim is to have a full draft of my data chapters together by end of May. So I need to keep my butt in my chair and write. I'm using a word target of 750 words a day, and I don't care if they are good words first time round, because my challenge is getting words on the page - once they are there, I have no problems editing and making a story, but gosh getting the words down is hard for me.

Where are you at with it all LabPixie?

My deadline is also vaguely stated as summer, due to my sups' summer recess - long story cut short - they want it in summer... Anyway, I feel like that threatened animal in your studies, furry. But I am trying my hardest, sleepless, endless lists, etc. So, can I join you please? May I propose to touch bases with each other err.. on a weekly basis, or so re: our progress?

Hi all,

I'm aiming to submit in the summer too. It's a literature thesis, I'm trying to write about a chapter a month at the moment to have a full first draft by the start of June, and then spend a week per chapter dedrafting over the summer, to be finished late July and spend August on the admin-y stuff. I got the last chapter off ok, but this month am really struggling - have been under the weather and struggling to sleep, now feeling disengaged and can't rediscover my focus/ drive. Need to not let the writing timetable slip though as it's so tight as it is! Not all doom and gloom though, I've planned treats/ breaks for the end of each chapter, so I just need to focus on getting through to the Easter break...
Good luck everybody, think how great we'll all feel six months from now!!!

Hiya, I need to show my supervisor something which looks like a whole thesis in October or November. So at the moment I'm doing my final chapter (gah!) for this month and next month, then re-draft my other chapters from May to September, after that, try to get a mock viva in late autumn. I am trying to be calm about the whole thing but sometimes can't help but freak out !

Hey,
My deadline is the end of July and have loads to do. I'm doing a science PhD and have loads left to do, never done quite so many long days as I have in the last few weeks. I'm about to sort out what I have for my intro so far and send it to my supervisor later today with notes in the sections I haven't finished so he can tell me whether he thinks I need to cover it or not . This will be the first time he's seen anything, not even started results chapters and have loads of lab work left to do. Not panicking yet for some reason though, just busy all the time and tired when I get home so struggling to get some writing done.

Hope everyone else's stuff is going well!

Trin

I'm not panicking yet either, but I've realised it doesn't actually seem real yet. I think my subconscious believes I'm just going to be pottering around the lab forever. I've got one results chapter finished and submitted as a paper, then there's one I'm writing now, and two more that I've still got too much lab work to finish up on. I've been dabbling with my introduction too when I don't feel like working on my chapter so that's slowly starting to take some sort of very vague beginnings of a shape!

Touching bases on progress sounds like a nice idea. It's good to know that I'm not the only one with too much left to do (hopefully that doesn't sound too mean)!

I'd like to join the club too! I have my a very rough first draft... well I shouldn't even call it that - it's more of a brain-dump of everything I would like to include in my thesis, but I've spent the last 2 months figuring out what on earth my phd is about with my supervisor. My phd is in the humanities and I am half way through my 4th year, doing a qualitative research... I have a rough format of my results but it certainly feels like I still don't have a clear idea about where it's actually going or what I'm trying to say with all of this. Trying to not panic... but it's hard to not go crazy unless I tell myself each day that I am only going to chip away one small section at a time, and that is OK!

Good luck to all of us!

Hello - can I join too? I'm 3 years and 3 months in and due to submit soon. Deep breath. Am tackling all the corrections on first draft and frowning at stats and badly aligned endless tables of data. I'm in the pyjamas, spots and sticky up hair determined stage. You know when you get that - right this needs to get done point. Good luck today everybody! Think today might be a mytomatoes.com and to do list sort of day.

How is it all going? I am so stressed with undergraduates stealing all my time at the moment. Luckily they'll be gone next week and then I can really crack on with my work again!

LabPixie - tell me about others stealing all your time! For me I can exercise some control over how much I let others distract me - I have found that I tend to attract sources of distractions whenever I'm feeling unmotivated to work on my phd, to procrastinate from doing what I need to be doing! At the same time, I think that keeping an interest immediately outside of work helps me stay motivated because it adds another dynamic to my work pattern.

So long as you stay focused on your primary goal - i.e. submitting on time - distractions in moderate amounts can help you progress! If it gets too much though, we need to do something about it... I've burnt myself out one too many times from the inability to say 'no' to people, but I've learnt my lesson and I practice the 4 D's - Do Delay Defer Delete!

Good luck to all!

Hey guys,

I've made little progress since my last post, written about 2 paragraphs of materials and methods chapter and in my lab work my experiments keep failing- not what I need with only 4 months left, just need to get these last few experiments done and can then write up in peace. I've also had undergraduate students taking up about half my week but they've finished now thankfully, although I do get an MSc student next week (I think) that will need training; and have been helping the new post-doc get settled in. Really should do some work today but I had to nip into the lab today which took twice as long as usual with the snow.

Trin x

My undergrads have finished too now so I can actually get on with things. It was my job to supervise them in the lab and for the last few weeks before Easter they were all very busy getting their projects finished! I'm back in the lab this week trying to get another chapter's last bits of labwork finished off!

Have a thesis meeting with my supervisor today, experimental work is not going to plan so having to include more work on things I wasn't going to have as much on so got to have a re-plan and see what I need to do. Although hoping to have materials and methods so far finished at the weekend.

Hope everythings moving for you guys?

Trin x

Hi, just seen you guys following up on the thread and feel bad for not contributing enough. Sometimes I feel like telling here how little I am (my thesis is) progressing is making me feel even more depressed and despondent, but I am sure it's just me. What I want to say actually, Trin and everyone here, hang on there: the end is coming soon. Oops, meaning, things will work out in the end. That is my mental mantra at the moment.