I'm afraid this is going to be a bit of a rant. I've got so much on at the moment that I feel completely and utterly overwhelmed by it. I have a talk and a poster to do on a different topic to what I'm working on at the moment, and another poster to do on the background to my current work, all to be done in the next four weeks.

I also have work to pick up from a postdoc who's left, so I have to try to decipher her method of labelling everything. The techniques I'm using aren't familiar to me, and I'm in a new lab, so I have all that to cope with. In about 9 weeks I have to submit a report on my work, including a short lit review.

There's so much to do that I feel like I don't know where to begin. I'm prone to anxiety/depression anyway, and I feel close to breaking down at the moment. There's certainly no one here who I can talk to about this, my family are 250 miles away, and I don't like to bother them anyway as they have problems of their own, and so I feel like there's no way out. I guess the best way to describe it is like a plate spinner who has several plates on the go, and is so overawed by the prospect of trying to keep every single one of the spinning that he ends up letting them all smash.

Oh, and I've not had any decent amount of time off work since Christmas, and have no prospect of any until September.

:-(

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Hi 4Matt,

Do not give up and make a list of priorities. Try to give yourself some feasable tasks everyday that will give you the
positive feeling to go somewhere.
What you are feeling is more than normal for a PhD student! We all have been there and are.
I have my VIVA tomorrow and I can tell you I know how you feel...the stress, the anxiety, the fears...my family is far far away from here and when I am at home I have to first take care of my kid and home management tasks and then get some time for myself that of course is invested in the PhD. Plus I am 8 months pregnant so have to support all of the nice feeling of pregnancy (heartburn, insomnia, pains...).
If I can do it, you can!
See the things in a positive way, at least if we give you all these responsabilities it is because they know that you have the knowledge.
The posters will help you gain invaluable feedbacks on your work, your report will help you keep track and stand back on what has been done and the work of the post-doc will allow you to learn new techniques!!

Good luck :-) and keep positive (up)

Hi Matt

I totally recognise your feelings here! My supervisors are very keen on deadlines and on getting me to write lots for them - I know in the long run I'll be really pleased about this, it will really help me in the later stages, but I'm getting worn down by it and really need a break. I'm lucky in that I do have ten days' holiday coming up in July, and the thought of that is really keeping me going. Is there any way you can get some time off, even it it's just a long weekend completely away from the work? Or would more of a social break help? With your family so far away does this mean you're feeling isolated overall? I think that can make stress feel worse and make workloads look even more daunting.

The advice to set small goals is really helpful - the small goals are manageable and nowhere near as overwhelming as trying to look at the massive big picture all of the time.

Also, if you really do feel like it's an unmanageable amount - it is actually okay to let one plate fall occasionally, if that helps to keep the others spinning!

Good luck with it all!

i also have a load of stuff to do, a newbie tech starting at school, 6 new teachers starting in September in the department, but coming in in the next few weeks to  get a feel for the place, a rock identification exercise to sort out for next week, budget to sort out (where did that £20.000+ go last year) ready for when I can start ordering again, plus my PhD stuff. However whilst on half term and in between doing other things I have read Hart's Book 'Doing a Literature review' and it has been so worth the time its taken to read it, if you can find a few hours to peruse it it will probably make writing your lit review so much easier. There is no magic formula for getting through these crowded times, I think the theory is, you appreciate things so much more when you can get a break, but I've never got to that stage yet, so can't vouch for that one! :$:-)