PhD Discussion Forum

Identify where you waste time. (For me that was procrastinating on Facebook and Mumsnet!) Stop doing it! (I still have these sites blocked on my computer - I have no willpower).

Hi Tudor Queen,

Being stressed over thinking of all the things that you have to do burns out a lot of energy. So how I usually get around this is having a monthly plan,weekly plan and a daily plan. To design a monthly plan I down load a monthly calendar with a reasonable space to write down my objectives. you should be realistic in setting your goals. Following achieving a goal I cross this out and it really gave me a feeling of satisfaction. Also when planing your work prioritise your work and I also I made sure that all the necessary areas are included. e.g.: Time for the experiments, reading papers, updating lab book, other admin work etc. Having a plan increased the efficiency and also remember to be kind to your self at times when you did not achieve some goals due to valid reasons. Hope this helps.

I am submitting in a few weeks- the thesis is written and I am applying final amendments whilst working multiple teaching/research roles.

My advice echos others' here; I use a notebook to write down my monthly 'goals', then each week I make a 'to do' list (crossing a completed task out has always felt satisfying for me) and I also make a 'done' list where I note everything I have done on a daily basis. I found that this works well when feeling a bit demotivated as you can reflect on your accomplishments.

More recently, I deactivated my Facebook which has worked wonders. Instead of checking Facebook I now check and deal with emails (work based). I text/call friends to stay in touch. I am also quite amazed at how less 'cluttered' my head feels having Facebook deactivated. I realised in retrospect that, in addition to the many hours wasted mindlessly scrolling through, that dealing with notifications, messages etc. made me feel quite stressed...it felt like a 'chore'.

Hope this helps :)

When I had this problem I made a realistic list of what I expected to be enough to get a PhD and then broke it down into manageable tasks.
For me it helped to stop putting the PhD on a pedestal and to focus on doing enough to feel I had earned the award. I stopped worrying about how many papers I was producing and focussed on the one specific thing I wanted to resolve. Once I had done that, it was a simple case of writing the thesis. For that I broke the thesis in chapters, sub chapters and a range of headings and then started to write stuff in each block. As I finished one block I ticked off the item on the contents page in bright yellow marker so I could see visually that I was getting closer and closer to completion. I stopped setting time deadlines and instead focussed on delivering tasks one at a time. It helped hugely that I had papers already published and that I had started the theory chapter 12 months before the end of my PhD.
I submitted the complete thesis to my supervisor this week after 3.5 months of work and I will apparently be getting his feedback on Monday or Tuesday. I honestly don't think I could have worked on this thesis for much more than I did before it broke me mentally which is why I deliberately started writing up last year on the weekends at home.
If you can start the theory stuff now I would strongly urge you to start writing that up now.
You will be thankful for it at writeup time.

This sounds like a good plan. Admittedly I recently became overwhelmed regarding when on earth I could fit the PhD whilst working 3 jobs. I have done exactly this- dedicated half days or my days off to my PhD- I wrote PHD!!!! on these days in my diary to make it official ;)