Dear all,

I am a 5th year phd student, graduating next year. I am in the stage of wrapping things up and write my thesis. I have become greatly disinterested in my research or any research at all, and have very low motivation to get to work. I tried to force myself to concentrate, but it's not working so well so far. I am wondering if it is common to experience this, and if any one has good motivation strategy that you can share?

Thanks much, and good luck to you all!
Carol

i think it is v imp to see the reasons for lack of motivation. personal or work-related???? in any case, maybe you can just focus on the target that you need to finish your work in this much time and get out of the PhD program. keep your eyes on the end target...:)

I know that Lara - one of the regular posters on here - suggested a strategy from Joan Bolker's publication: 'Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day' which involves (if I've understood correctly) setting a timer for 10 minutes and only writing / working for that length of time.

The idea is that if you tell yourself you only have to work for a short time, the prospect of starting to work will be less horrendous. You might find once you've started you do much more than that, but if you don't at least you've done 10 minutes, you can reward yourself with a break and then do another 10 minutes.

I suffer with loads of problems with motivation. At the moment - out of sheer panic over a deadline - I'm managing to work but I will be trying this technique in future.

I find that frequent meetings with supervisors / getting them to set deadlines also keeps me going.

Good luck!

good advice, will be hanndy for me in couple of years

Thanks everyone, good advice. I will try it out. :)

bettyspaghetti is spot on!

i feel like you, most of the time! i go through cycles of feeling motivated to the complete opposite, and usually within the same day! - i have felt lack of motivation, procrastination, anxious, fear of failing, fed up. it's constant up and down.

usually lack of motivation is fear in disguise. i know it is for me. it's not that i *don't* want to write my thesis. but i am scared of failing to complete the thesis in time, or not doing a good job of it.

the task of writing a thesis is sooooooo huge and overwelming and most if not all phders go through the stage of "i just dont know where to start and it just seems too big to even start!"
--

you have to tackle it on daily/even hourly basis. it's not easy the demons are always there in your mind reminding you and wanting you to indulge in negative fantasy.

recently, i learnt of a strategy - whereby you schedule a "worry time" you pick a time during the day, and for 15-30minutes or whatever you sit there and you worry. i know it sounds absurd, but it has actually been helping me. i usually write down my worries first, and then i address each worry as a rational person and try to find a *solution*

but it means that for the rest of the day you tell yourself STOP when a negative thought creeps into your head and remind yourself that you're scheduled to worry at 9pm. or whatever.

Dale Carnegie writes about how to overcome worry and that is to do something that requires concentration. it is impossible to think two thoughts at the exact same time. you just can't do it. think of the statue of liberty and then think about what you want to do tommorow. you're mind can only think one thought at one time, and it might go back and forth, but you cant think both at the same time.

the same concept can be applied about lack of motivation. at the moment you feel that you are not motivated.

well one way to overcome that, is to actually *do* something related to your thesis. no matter how small! and no matter for how long. but something, anything related to your thesis. you can ever write or make notes on bits you dont like about your thesis. your worries your concerns your fears, what bits about your research you do like, how you would organise your data to explain it to a layman, so they would understand what you've been working on the past few years.

do it for yourself. write the thesis or plan it for yourself. think of it as a biography. writing about your life for the past 5 years. indulge yourself as a writer..

"worrying and planning both involve thinking about the future - but planning is productive"

like betty said. work in very very short spurts. just work on your thesis for 10minutes everyday. everyone can do just 10minutes everyday. even if you hate it, you can do it for 10minutes. and that might help you to overcome your fear and might get you motivated to do more.

also work on just a small tiny section of your thesis. and before you set your timer for 10minutes or 15minutes, ask yourself.
"why do i want to write about X?" "how will X improve my own knowledge?"

try to find internal motivation to do it. not because you HAVE to do it, not because your supervisor told you to, not because you want to get a phd degree, those are all external factors. find and tap into your inner child that is curious and wants to learn and feed your intellectual curosity.

i'm reading this really fascinating book called "punished by rewards" by Alfie Kohn, he writes about how external motivation are not productive, one needs to find internal motivation.

{quote} "the core of pop behaviourism is "do this and you'll get that".

Hi Lara... I'm glad I interpreted the Word of Joan correctly and agree about the up/down stuff. I hope it's all gone well for you today though

i think the key is to tap into our inner child. when we're children, we're constantly facsinated by the world around us, we ask questions, we want to learn. but then we hit school and that all changes, the focus changes to get grades and we're "controlled".. we no longer feel we have any options and are "forced" to learn things so that we can pass a test or an exam..

maybe go back and find something in your research that you *are* interested in. there must be something. and work from there.
good luck!! you are most definately not alone, i feel like you most of the time we're all here to support you, please feel free to come back and share your concerns , positive and negative, its important to get them written down so they can stop controlling you, and swimming around in your head. the very act of writing down what you fear or worry about , is thereapeutic.

thanks betty, you're very kind

well i had a "down" day. tore down my mind maps that were on my wall, taunting me that i hadn;t accomplished my aims for the week. so i figured it's august 1st. start fresh, clean the slate free. so i went for a bike ride, sat in the park and wrote down my fears and worries, and then addressed each one and wrote solutions to it. and felt better about it.

i then had fun working on my mind maps. and breaking down what i have to do, in really tiny tiny steps.
like saying to myself.

I want to sort out my penny data for pt 1-16. then i would write. why?
then i would write to myself, because it will help me to compare the data with cluster analysis. and then i wrote -why do you want to do that? and then answered myself - to see if the data is different or matches.

that way i feel like i am in control. i am doing it because i *want* to, and i pretend it's interesting! lol

i loved the mind maps so much, i bought the student lite version. expensive. but its definately helped me with my motivation. i know feel psychologically secure that everything is there. if i havent quite finished something. i make a note of it on my mind map. and i also have a document, where i monitor my punch in and punch out hours. lol and i have my trusted egg timer! for times when i lack motivation, i set it to 15minutes, for other times, i set it to 30mins.

anyone can try out the mind maps for free, for 30days. mindjet.com
be careful- its quite addictive!

Glad you worked through things and managed to solve some problems.

The mind maps sound useful. I'm re-drafting earlier chapters at the moment and they could be a useful way to keep track of what I was thinking way back last month (...because I can't seem to remember what I was thinking the day before yesterday at the moment!)