Hi All,

I'm writing this in the hope that someone can give me some useful advice. Here's my story - I'm just starting the second year of my PhD and have got to a point where I'm really struggling to keep going. I had a tricky first few months where I wasn't happy in the department, struggled to get experiments off the ground, had very few people to talk to for advice etc. I finally started to get things going, put a lot of hours in and started getting preliminary data and passed the 1st year viva, only to find that half of my methods now need changing and the work I've done to date needs redoing. I think this has knocked my confidence because now I just worry that what I'll be redoing might still not be good enough and may need redoing again further down the line.

I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, it's like I've lost all motivation to keep going with the work and don't really care anymore. In addition to this, I feel like I'm losing motivation to do other non-work related things, even simple things like keep in touch with and go out with my friends. I find that I put off doing things, which is normally not like me at all, and isn't very helpful for the huge pile of work that needs doing. At the same time, doing this PhD is incredibly important to me and deep down I know that I want to succeed and keep on top of things as much as possible. I'm not considering quitting (although I did earlier in my first year), I just need to find a way to get back into working, because I feel like I've lost so much time doing experiments that now need redoing and I feel very behind all of a sudden. I thought maybe I just needed a break a few weeks ago and took a week and a half off, but it didn't seem to help and now several weeks on I feel like I'm still struggling to make any progress. Has anyone else been in a similar situation and maybe has some advice? Any words of wisdom would be very much appreciated, as I really do feel very lost at the moment!

Thanks in advance!

Tulip

Hi Tulip,
I've felt like this sometimes. How I deal with it depends on how I'm feeling. Some times it's because I need to just take a complete break from my research, and then I regain some enthusiasm for it. Other times, I just need to kick myself up the backside and grind out some work.

No news to me, but you can get better... I promise. It worked for me. Just google 'my tomatoes simple pomodoro tracking' and go to the first result.

======= Date Modified 15 Oct 2012 23:03:47 =======
Yep - I know exactly how you feel!! Happened to me several times during the course of my PhD (I vivaed in July 2012). I know it's a miserable time, the only thing that got me though it was taking 1 day at a time, and not thinking past that. I had deadlines and goals I wanted to meet, but in terms of day to day stuff, when I was feeling like you are, I only thought about the next 24 hours, if thought past that, I freaked myself out, worried about what might/might not happen and I didn't do anything productive. If I thought about just those 24 hours, I found myself to be productive, and when that feeling comes back everything else starts to fall into place....slowly, but it will.

Just remember, you can put negative data into a PhD thesis! A PhD is about showing you can think - don't forget it's a Philosophy degree!!