Thank you so much Dunham and IntoTheSpiral.

I'll take a look at THE and Nature. But reading Dunham's reply made me realise how much more proactive I can be with a job search. That's great also because the pool of people I can approach is now bigger.

Thanks guys, and the best to everybody!

Hi guys,

Since I'm close to submission, I've been thinking a bit about my next step. I'd love to start applying for postdocs as soon as I submit.

How do you guys search for postdoc opportunities? I'd really like to apply to some postdoc "jobs" apart from fellowships. I love jobs.ac.uk for UK postdocs. Are there equivalent websites for American/Australian/EU postdocs? I'm in a STEM field.

Thanks ever so much!

I'm on the home stretch too! I have had long delays due to health issues and other personal stuff, but finally nearing the end now. My deadline is September 30 - so internal deadline is September 20th similar to you timefortea!

I'm up for accountability, however I have realised that posting too often actually derailed progress for a bit in the past. So will revisit every few days and update. All the best pd1598 and timefortea!

Hi Mathcomp, I hope you don't mind me commenting here but I love this post! I completely agree about academia being so masculine, especially in science and engineering. I feel really out of touch with my feminine side quite often. It's lovely you took the time to pamper yourself and do things that make you feel good. I wish I did that more often - I don't remember the last time I got a massage and got my eyebrows done :( But to be honest even just a nice bath helps me sometimes.

I had to go shopping recently too to buy a pair of shoes and cocktail dress for a dinner I'm attending. I had a mini meltdown due to the amount of PhD weight I had put on. I used to enjoy dressing up, now I feel like I'm dressing to hide myself.

I agree that nothing is more important than our own happiness. After all that's why most of us are doing PhDs here - because it makes us happy in one way or the other. But if it becomes too stressful it's always great to take a small step back and reflect.

I hope you were able to talk to your friends, and that you are having a nice start to the week.

Good luck glowworm! Sorry about the cold! But good on you for pushing through it - really motivating for me here. Hope you were able to send the full draft and that you thoroughly enjoyed your theatre evening :)

AislingB, good luck! I'm sure a couple of days don't make a big difference in the long run. My full draft is due in a few weeks as well!

I've had a really bad couple of days with motivation levels really down, and just feeling tired and sleepy all the time. The bad weather right now doesn't help at all. I went from being in the office by 8:30 to not being here at all for two days. I was determined to come in today, made it by 11:30 am :( Hopefully the momentum builds up rather than down.

Have a nice day guys!

Hi guys,

Hope everyone is having a great day! Thanks for welcoming me silverlining, Caro and Mathcomp. This community seems awesome :)

Caro, I'm in the same place! About 2 drafted chapters with just a few weeks left! I have another big data chapter to draft though, so slightly behind there!

Mathcomp, yes 2/3 months for me as well. Are you in Maths/Comp Sci? I'm in Applied Maths. How many chapters do you have written down?

Hope you all have a productive day guys. Would love to hear back and keep updated on your progress.

Mathsgirl x

Good morning all!

Hope everyone is doing well today.

Tulip, hope your experiments are going well. I'm sort of in the same place running experiments alongside writing, and somehow hoping that one result that ties everything together is round the corner! Eeep!

Good luck Aisling with your two chapters.

Grumpy, a pub lunch sounds perfect right about now and is making me hungry :) Good on you for making the bank holiday weekend count! It's not easy working when everyone else is off. Glad you could take half days off - so much more efficient than an entire day off which really slows me down I find.

I'm in the office today bright-eyed and bushy tailed - I'm also surprisingly the only one! I hope this pushes me to do more rather than less. My headache stayed with me all of yesterday but I managed to still get some work done. After that I treated myself to Indian food and an early night in so I'm feeling much better.

I wrote down what I need to do today and it will take me at least 15 tomatoes - that is brutally long. I really hope I can do this. I hope to send across Chapter 4 to my supervisor tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Found this and it made me laugh. I will be humming this to myself today :)

Hi everyone,

Lovely to see that people had a productive weekend! Mine was reasonably productive until Sunday. On the bank holiday I had a mini panic attack and ended up taking the entire day off for a long walk by the river with my husband and a big mug of hot choccy (with gingerbread syrup yay!). Although the weather was crappy the fresh air and exercise really lifted my spirits.

Unfortunately struggling with a headache today but determined to pull this together.My deadline for this chapter was yesterday! So I really need to pull something out of the bag.

Have a great day everyone!

Mathsgirl x

Hi lovely people!

I'm a 4th year PhD student in the UK with just a few months to go until I finish! I'm working on pulling everything together in these months but struggling quite a bit. This forum has helped me lots, and after lurking for a few days I decided to sign up and join in the conversation!

Hopefully the accountability helps me, and hopefully I can contribute in some way to this awesome community as well!

Yesterday, I did 10 pomodoros (tomatoes) towards my meat chapter (chapter 4). Today I hope to do at least as many, and get my zeroth draft of chapter 4 done by tomorrow.

Good luck everybody!

Mathsgirl x

Hi there, this is a great thread Grumpy and very motivating for me. I would love to join in and update my progress once in a while if you don't mind.

I'm a 4th year Maths PhD student and need to finish up very soon! My absolute deadline is September but that is for the post-viva submission so I'm aiming for end of June or start July.

The trouble is that writing is going really slow and I feel uninspired most of the time. I oscillate between crippling self doubt and crazy overconfidence :( I guess I must finally accept that this is not going to be a super fun, rewarding time and I need to crack on with it.

I'm currently working on one of the two major chapters (Chapter 4). I have just one chapter done overall (well almost, I need to still revise a few things based on my supervisor's feedback).

My goal today is to:
1. Generate all the figures necessary for the Results section in Chapter 4 in the right style
2. Write a first draft of the Results section in Chapter 4
3. Fix bibliography style for the previous chapter

Good luck everybody, and have a lovely weekend!

Mathsgirl x