Firstly - Sacha, thanks for the URL, tips are ACE. The 25 minute rule is working a dream...am using an alarm...though finding it hard to switch the internet off!

Secondly, I'm firmly back in head-in-sand panic mode (after about a week of feeling great about the damn thing)! But cannot get enough time to write the phd. i am re-writing a 'revise and resubmit' paper, i have to drum up funding to renew my work contract, and that small matter of a wedding means even most of my weekends are gone.

My July deadline is looking increasingly unobtainable :-(

BUT if I don't finish this PhD this summer, I probably will quit (need to find a job will mean i can no longer sustain a part-time phd), and there's no way i am going to let that happen, having got this far.

SOOO: big gulps, only a few months to go: we can do it!!

:p

Eeerm, yeah not sure about that whole working-standing-up thing! But bedroom working is totally where it's at: I wrote my whole master's year in my bedroom and got the best marks i've ever had!!

One thing i do find really helps, especially when i'm getting stuck, is to treat myself to a working 'day out' 8-) I find a beautiful library, or a great cafe, and sit there for a day treating myself to coffees/teas (ok and may be a pain au chocolat) - and it works like a dream. I veto laptop use, so force myself to write on paper...maybe the lack of internet distractions helps (ahem) :$

What subject are you reading Pink? Was looking through the chapter layouts (mine changes about once a month at the moment), so interesting how people lay theirs out. I'm doing a thesis on how to evaluate medical tests (epidemiology/public health) and this is what i've got at the mo:

Chapter 1: General Intro: definitions of diagnosis, outlining importance of the field of enquiry, summary of previous work and emphasising the hole in current research that i aim to fill. ends in a thesis orientation.

Chapter 2: General methods

Chapter 3: Characterising my 'data set' (equivalent to 'materials')

Chapter 4: Analysis of methodological quality of my data set (this has a separate methods, results, discussion)

Chapter 5: Small mini-project on trying to estimate the total number of studies on tests that have been published

Chapter 6: Review of theoretical frameworks (methods, results, discussion)

Chapter 7: Development of a new comprehensive (yeah right!) theoretical frameowrk

Chapter 8: Application of my framework to a case-study

Chapter 9: Discussion

Just writing it down is panicking me! But it's interesting, and exciting to think that when it's finished i'll have produced this massive thesis :-)

Well, so i tell myself ;) just hope it doesn't get totalled in the viva (eek!)

Good luck with the work - and try the cafe idea, it really works.

Hey there everyone! What a fab thread. In an all-too often moment of 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah', i googled "phd how to get motivated", and came up trumps with this. Having procrastinated from my current chapter-3 hell for a good half an hour reading the whole thread, i now feel ready to try and focus again...

My name's Vi, and I'm a last-minute PhD student. Pink - my deadline is 1st July!! Have been through Denial, now firmly in Panic but really need to push on through to 24-hour Workoholic stage ... ;)

I'm a little bit behind, and I'm also getting married in early September and i'm a whole heap of panic-ridden shoddiness at the moment! However, on the bright side my thesis only has to be 50,000 (yey) and, well, it just has to get done doesn't it!!

So I'm here to also offer any advice I can...in fact in searching for tips on how to stay focussed when writing a reeeeeally hard chapter I came across this little gem: http://gradschool.about.com/od/procrastination/a/motivate.htm

Good luck peeps, keep going and remember: every minute you work now, is a minute closer to the finish line!

over and out,
Vi(up)