Hi everyone! I really need to get some feedback from other PhD students on this. I just started my PhD in October, and I'm already feeling demotivated. I can't seem to get a routine going, and am doing everything to avoid work. I'm really worried about this, so much that I'm not sleeping at all. It seems strange to me that I'm already experiencing despondency. Has anyone else felt like this so early on in their PhD? If so, I'd love to hear about your experiences.

I wouldn't worry too much to be honest. It is perfectly normal to have these lulls in motivation and productivity. In my first year I had a post christmas lull and it does pass. Did you take a proper break over christmas? When I am in a lull I find that changing my direction helps, for example starting on a different experiment or catching up with recent journal articles. Other than that it can help to take a complete break from work even if it is just over the weekend, get a change of scenery for example or visit friends or family.. Always seems to work for me.

I think some of the problem is just the sheer unstructedness of PhD work. And I think that the answer is to some extent a rigid and unflexible self-discipline. Be at work at your desk at 8:00 ( or whatever time you set yourself) no ifs, no ands, no buts. You would not have those available to you in paid employment, so just shift that mindset to your PhD. Its your job. And then set yourself daily, weekly and monthly tasks that HAVE to be met. For instance, work until your daily to do list is done. If it gets done early, then give yourself a break, or move onto the next day and get a head start.

There is a huge gulf between lack of motivation and other sort of mental health issues. I well see how the isolation of the PhD could contribute to depression and anxiety. A real antidote to that can be exercise, decent diet and I think most significant, contact with real live people. Ring a friend for lunch, water ( if your budget is low), coffee, whatever. Go to a campus activity that you might never go to otherwise, find out if there is an on campus training course for a day you could do--any sort of human contact is important!

That's some good advice from Olivia. I felt really de-motivated at the mid-way point of my first year simply because I was completely overwhelmed by what seemed to be the huge, impossible task ahead of me. I spent a lot of time panicking and thinking 'i don't know what i'm doing' so I started lots of strands of research and then gave them up because I feared that I was wasting my time so I didn't really get anything done at all.

Make it manageable - break the thesis up into small sections and then set yourself smaller, achievable goals in each of those sections. The smaller you make the task, the easier it is to achieve and then you feel like you're making process. Also, get along to research seminars - even if they're not in your subject area they may be interesting, you'll feel involved in a research community, and they'll get you thinking like an academic.

I think sometimes just making any progress at all can get you unstuck and unpanicked, and moving forward again. That is why something like, "write 500 words on x," as a daily target can be motivating. 500 words is easy, once you get going you might do more, but even if you only did 500 words a day, you could have 15,000 or so at the end of a month! That is a chapter more or less! And on those hard days, just stop after 500 words. Its done. You can always go back to the writing and edit it the next day.

And I know some people think its rubbish, but really, really, really, the Flowers Paradigm ( or ANYTHING that gives you structure to move through creative free flow drafting to final edits) is valuable. If you try to edit yourself as you write your first draft, you are doomed to endless frustration. JUST WRITE! You can save the big footnote clean up until the Judge ( or final stage) kicks in...so while I am a proponent of the Flowers Paradigm, really whatever works, works--but its impossible to write and edit if you do not have a structure of some sort to use...doing one step at a time, not merely churning out draft after draft.

olivia. i take my hat off to you as you give great advice.

im intrigued at this flowers paradigm thing you mentioned. could you post a link? i think i tried searching google before but couldnt find much on the topic

Wow, thank you all so much for your great feedback. I think the hardest thing to get my head around at the moment is the long road ahead. I keep forgetting that the PhD is 3-4 years. I'm treating it as though it was a project with an imminent deadline. Olivia, the lack of structure is definitely getting to me. Without it, I can drift and become lazy. I feel so out of my depth. When I read a great text in my field, I feel excited and terrified at the same time, because I can't imagine ever being able to produce anything like that!

https://webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie/b_flowers.html

This is a website that gives a cursory description of the proces. I know it sounds a big too simplistic, perhaps, but it DOES work. I first heard of this when I went to a legal writing seminar offered by Bryan Garner, who is well known in American legal writing--he edits, for instance, Blacks Law Dictionary--which might not mean anything to you if you are not an American lawyer.

He suggested using this method ( the Flowers Paradigm) in non academic legal writing ( the seminar was on legal writing for practitioners, but it really transcends disciplines, I think).

Let me see if I can find some links for Bryan Garner. He himself has some great books on the writing process.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/garner/


This is a great book, especially if you are in legal writing of any sort, but I think that regardless, it has great information on how to structure your writing, how to edit your writing, and if I remember correctly, he even has a bit of advise on how to take it when your writing is criticised--that you are not your writing, and how to de-personalise the feelings you have when someone talks about what you have written.

Hope this helps!

You know what, you've hit on something there. I think that's exactly what it is! When my supervisor criticises my writing, I feel worthless, and feel like it's a direct reflection of me. I've never had problems writing in the past. In fact, I've enjoyed it immensely...until I started doing the PhD! I remember really enjoying writing my MA dissertation, and all of the coursework on the MA. The gears shift dramatically at this level, where you have to be very precise with your language. All of a sudden, I find myself panicking when I'm faced with the prospect of writing and I just freeze!

I beleive it is the Garner book that has the comments on that ( my "mature" student memory might be letting me down! )

but the point that was made is that while it feels immensely personal, to reframe the criticisms on your writing away from something that you take as a judgment on your intellect, your self-worth, etc...as a piece of writing is not a reflection on all of that, it is an isolated piece of writing, and ALL writing can be improved upon. It is often the lack of process to edit and move through stages, and NOT the quality of the writing itself, or the intellect of the person that is involved, that can result in less than stellar writing. Garner is about the PROCESS, and with those tools, you can learn to improve editing skills. Look at it this way, if no one ever gave you those tools, why should you feel bad if you need to improve in that department? Its impossible to know how to do it if you are not given the means and tools !

I feel like you do now and im at exactly the same stage as you are I thought it was just me who felt like this.

Unfortunately, it only gets worse.