I began my PhD early in 2007 having finished a Masters and some research work at my university. I was very much in the zone then and got off to a brilliant start. I worked like the clappers for the first few years until mid-2009 when personal circumstances in my life took over and I had to take a break. This was after an exhaustive year of fieldwork, data collection and transcription. Previous to that I had the bones of a literature review and a decent enough methodology chapter.
I was to resume my PhD early this year and to date have nothing very much to show for my time. Again, my personal life and circumstances has had a lot to do with that. I sought counselling and it did help quite a bit. I have made some strides in mastering NVivo and I am trying my best to code my data. The problem is though, that I seem to have lost my interest in it. I feel terribly detached from it all. I feel so guilty that I am not making more progress. I find it so hard to face it each day. I find it so difficult to apply myself to it and find I can so easily wander off. That is how I came by this forum. I work from home, as I've always done but I would really love to be in contact with others in a similar position, or ideally anyone who has been there and got through it. Thanking you in advance, whoever you are.....

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hi - I have had similar problems since I restarted a few months ago after more than a year's break. I am trying to set myself small goals (that I know I can keep) rather than thinking "I have to work all day today or I am a complete failure". Working from home is really hard I find as there are so many distractions. Can you go somewhere else to work? I work from home somedays and from the library other days - the library days (although I lose some time in travelling) are inevitable more productive! I also felt that my subject no longer interested me when I restarted but I think that is because I felt lost. As I have started rereading and thus understanding some of my key texts I am finding that slowly but surely, a glimmer of enthusiasm is coming back. Good luck!

I took some time out myself after the babies were born and yes it is very hard to get back into the subject. I felt very detached from the work and wondered if I could get the same interest/motivation in the subject again. By taking small steps I managed to get back into analysing the data, setting my thesis framework and writing up. In my experience I found lists of what needed to be done invaluable. This gave me the direction I had to take. I prioritised the work and then broke it down into little chunks which were easier to acheive. As i very slowly started to tick off jobs from my list my enthusiasm built again. The data analysis aspect is a very tedious and non-inspiring activity so if this is where you are it is going to be harder to feel inspired! You may need to do some analysis but then change to something more fun, like thesis structuring, reading literature etc. Also, it is very easy when working from home to get embroiled in the internet (like now lol) but to be honest you need to work for say 30 mins and then take a mini break. Then get back to the next 30 minute working time. The alternative is to switch off the internet to allow you to focus until a set time. Don't worry, it will come back to you.

Thank you Dunni.
I am at the coding stage and it's like having teeth pulled. I was once, so at one with my data and I treasured every word of the 55 one hour long transcripts. Now that I'm coding, looking for themes, I'm not as interested anymore. I do take breaks, far far far too many and I read some literature or I trawl the net for who's doing what and saying what on the subject. Then I find the day has passed and I myself have made little in the way of progress. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll get back to the job at hand. Thank you for your great encouragement.

I'd echo Dunni's advice re using to-do lists of small achievable tasks and ticking off things as you do them. This builds up your enthusiasm and makes progress - really valuable.

Your current technique is not working so why not try this? You need to break down the tasks you are working on into small achievable sub-tasks, in list form, and start tackling them, in any order.

I had to return to my studies numerous times during my part-time PhD. Because of severe disabling progressive neurological disease I often had to take long breaks, and could only work in short chunks, often no more than an hour every few days. Without to-do lists I wouldn't have kept going and I wouldn't have made progress. But I completed my PhD successfully.

Good luck!