It's approaching 2:30pm. That's 2 hours earlier than I wrote yesterday's post. Yesterday's post hasn't been passed by the moderators yet as I only recently joined this site. But I'm ready to write another one already, I hope that won't blow anyone's mind! Partly - I can't reply to yesterday's as it's not posted - but partly I also want to write this one in a different tone.

I haven't magically broken through the impasse but I did get somewhere yesterday. Crucially my emails are under better control and my desk at home is tidier.

Today I've even gone a bit further... I'm out - at the British Library - and I'm not in fully concentrating mode but there are surely fewer distractions here. I'm not actually in a reading room because I needed a coffee - I'm on one of the desks outside. But I'll go in soon - at 3pm perhaps (I do like a round number) and will do something concerted (not internet) - some actual work for the PhD. Typey typey type (that's how it sounds in my head).

The big idea to help myself feel motivated and like everything is under control is:

1. Write a list of all the main things I'm working on - main sets of readings, half-brewed chapter ideas, proposals etc.

2. Then write a summary of all these things - a paragraph about each one. such that I can sit down and read these paragraphs - perhaps in the form of a table - and remember where I'm at each time I return to my study-work.

3. Then write an inventory - what are the main things I need for each thing - which books in the big pile of library books is for each thing - which section of those books, which photocopies - also which webpages/saved tabs/ also any infos such as application procedures/deadlines/dates that my supervisor needs things by.

This list, the paragraphs and the inventory, are what I plan to do today.