Hello all.
The last few weeks I have been totally rubbish at getting myself motivated. I keep getting books out of the library & not reading them, getting bored beyond the first few pages & end up looking on the internet or taking all day to re-write one paragraph so it ends up with the same meaning as it had to begin with. I feel as if I am getting no-where. My supervisors won't let me get on & start gathering data for my analysis as I am waiting for the 100th version of my project proposal to be aproved by the thesis panel.I am so bored.
Is this a common phase ....how do you get yourself out of it?

Have done nothing on PhD so far except for a discussion about when I hope to finish and printing out a draft of the chapter I should have improved and sent to my supervisor on Friday. I have only had the evening to do it, but once I've had dinner and watched a bit of tv I can't seem to make myself do anything. I think I'm in the doldrums too! It seems to be common amongst the PhD students I have spoken to. My motivation has certainly gone up and down over the PhD period. High motivation times are probably before presenting at conferences and firmly fixed deadlines with no excuses. However lately my deadlines have been increasingly put back as I haven't met them and I feel awful about it!

Add me to your boat... I have been writing but it is not going well... I blame the silver thing that is 28 inches and beams images into my living room. I also blame the internet... I can just about look for any irrelevant thing and spend hours doing it!

havent done any work on PhD today, completely demotivated.....:(

Don't fret Pea. I reckon all PhD students have phases like that; I know I certainly have (for quite long periods too!). Obstacles crop up as well, like waiting for orders, conference preparations, & loads of other stuff seems to halt progress, so you're certainly not alone.Motivation has a habit of returning just when you'd given up all hope.

4.15AM BST... I think I will stop writing now and go to sleep. I can't think any more.

Awwwh thanks guys. I do feel a bit better knowing I am not alone.
I sat in on an MA seminar yesterday afternoon. I thought human contact & discussion might help. Unfortunately I chose the wrong one & joined a group of would be philosophers, that was everything that gives academia a bad name. Lots of pretensious waffling and rhetoric from badly dressed people who could not make eye contact!
I wish I had taken along a dictophone & recorded it as some of the conversations were priceless!
Am teaching this morning in an hour so maybe that will give me the oomph I need..?
If not I am fully prepared to give up on the week and go home early this afternoon. I have style magazine in my bag at the ready....