Hey guys, is anyone else having trouble getting back into the swing of things after the break??

I swore that I'd return to work in mid-Jan, when the teaching term begins, with a clear plan for my research (I'm just about in the middle of 1st year pHD) but I've only managed to read about 8 paper in the last 4 days. My plan was to read 6 per day and spend a couple of hours trying to figure out the nitty gritty of experiment design in the evenings. Now although I have another 2.5 weeks til holidays are officially over, I have a 6 day family holiday booked, during which I doubt I'll get much work done.

I had the perfect opportunity to get woeking today - empty house and no other plans or distractions but it's already 3 o'clock and all I,ve managed to do all day is eat and watch daytime tv :-( Plus may other half will be home in 2 hours and I need to cook dinner, the dog still needs to be walked and it's New Years Eve.


I seem to have no motivation to work at all but I'm contantly worrying because I'm making no progress. :-s

I am indeed, EV. I'm hoping tomorrow, with the start of the new year, things will be different. I like to think of this wasted time as 'charging my batteries' time.

Well I've done some work :-) but not as much as I should have done, I plan my work around school holidays, so should have done more, but I will send something to my supervisor tomorrow, even if it isn't finished, cos I'm supposed to be seeing him on Tuesday evening. tomorrow I've planned to sort out all my journals into alphabetical order, as I've got to the stage where I'm looking up stuff and thinking 'thats new' only to find tell tale annotations in it which prove I've read it sometime in the past. :$

Hi EV

Yes, it's hard starting back, isn't it??!! Don't feel guilty about what you haven't done, that won't help. Work out when you really need to start working again, and start on that date - 2 weeks from now, wasn't that your original plan? And I reckon that you shouldn't take any work with you on your holiday - I took some work with me when I went on holidays, but once I started relaxing I remembered how to do it and then determined to just enjoy the time off. Am glad I did, both for my mental health and also because it's important to spend quality time with the family. Enjoy your holiday, we all need breaks. Then get back into it - start with something small and not too taxing, like some admin work, and build up from there.

Today's my last day of freedom, then it's full-on back into it. Ah well, holidays do have to end and we'll be in the swing of studying again before we know it.

Have returned overseas back to my institute and the SNOW!!!! deep snow! so distracting, have never seen a capital city covered in 6 inches of snow before - and plus everything is functioning like it is perfectly normal, which it is, but weird... must crack on with work. 8 WEEKS TO COMPLETE THESIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!(snowman)

Hey EV,

I'm back tomorrow so will see then how things pan out but I imagine if Ididn't have to present at a conference in 10 days AND I STILL DON'T HAVE A PAPER WRITTEN! (Sorry) I'd be feeling the same way. My recent discovery is mytomataoes.com. It's just like an online egg-timer which goes off after every 25 minutes then allows you a quick break. Before you go on the break you have to write down what you did in those 25 minutes. It saves the 'tomatoes' and it gives you a sense of achievement to see them mounting up, even if you've actually done very little. This helps to spur me on, at least.
I planned to do loads of reading over xmas (I study literature so it was just novels, not massively taxing) and have done very little. Should I feel glad because I had a nice relaxing time, or should I panic and try and read 4 novels in one night? Ho hum...

EV, you are definitely not alone! I'm doing my MA, not my PhD yet, but I feel exactly the same! I've had the odd few days over Christmas to do work but that just didn't happen, a spontaneous trip to the Lake District this weekend didn't help, and now I just can't seem to get back into it.

I'm just trying to ease myself back into working mode and hopefully my motivation will come back soon!

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I can totally relate to this, I always find it hard to get back into working mode when I've had some time off. It's been good having time to relax and just not think about the PhD for a while though, think it's done me good!

Back at the uni office tomorrow so am hoping I'll feel motivated again then. :-)

Well I'm back into it. Spent the week-end doing some work, and got back into it and the brain's started functioning again. And am just about to go and get ready to start a month's work in a 'real' job in an office - bleah!! So all of you who are working on your thesis are lucky - could be worse!