Feeling ok about my dissertation for once

Well, after my last couple post about being discouraged on my dissertation, I am happy to report that I am not so discouraged at the moment. I managed to get another draft of Chapter 1 to my advisor as well as the goals for the semester. He said it looked good and that my goals are doable :-)

Good feedback is always welcome.

My next goal is to get a revision of Chapter 2 to him by next Friday. Chapter 2 is a hot mess, so my goal is to make it less of a hot mess. Not going for perfection here, just improvement. Ok, major improvement. But it is not going to be perfect and I am (mostly) ok with that. Perfectionism is not good for productivity - at least in my case. I feel odd about just doing "well enough", but in actuality, this paper is going to revised so much it is going to be unrecognizable from the first draft when it is all said and done. I can work on polishing it in later drafts.

It is going to be a busy week, that is for sure, but if I can get done what I've set out to do (and I think I can) it will motivate me that much more to tackle Chapter 3 (which is even more a hot mess than Chapter 2).

Motivation: shame and excitement

I just got back from a conference yesterday (was actually supposed to be Sunday, but I'll get into that later). It was great to see old friends, make new friends, and learn a few things. But the biggest thing I got out of the conference in motivation to finish my dissertation.

There were people that were attempting to motivate me say the usual, "You're almost done", "Just get it done!", "When will you be done" and "Wait, you aren't finished yet?" Let's just say shame is not the best motivator for me and I had a hard time constantly dealing with these questions/comments. My answers? "Yes", "I will", "When it is done", and "Not quite. So I have have a request (for me and others): Please, please, please stop asking when my dissertation will be done!!!!!! Seriously, the entire planet will know when I've finished!

While the former tactics caused embarrassment and shame rather the motivation, there was an aspect to the conference that did motivate me. Namely, the prospect of getting a job. While I've always known that I'd be working after i finished, this particular conference (since so many friends were interviewing) really hit home with me. I want a job! I need to finish my dissertation to get a job! So, lets get going!

I did not do the job placement myself, mostly due to not being in a great place with my dissertation to pursue a full-time big girl job. Once my data is collected however, that will be an appropriate time to start really looking for employment.

Switching topics a bit, I mentioned earlier in the post that I was supposed to get home on Sunday instead of yesterday. The flight I scheduled to be on was oversold. Vouchers for future travel were being offered, first $100, then $150. I volunteered, but I've done so before and never got a chance to be bumped.

I did in fact get chosen. I figured that I'd be on the next flight, which left at 6pm (my original flight left at 4pm). Turns out the next flight that had room was at 6am yesterday. And they'd put me up in a hotel (the Hilton at the airport - very nice!), give me some food vouchers, and a voucher for $200 of my next Continental flight. Score!!!!! Sometimes being ABD and having no set schedule does pay off. So I got home yesterday morning with plans for another trip :-)

So I'm off to work on my dissertation - I have a feeling I'll be making a lot of progress :-)

Motivation needed; concentration too

I've not been especially good at staying motive or beings as productive as I'd like. I have worked on stuff a little more, but not nearly what I could do. At this rate, I'll be graduating in 2038.

I think I may need more structure, or at least some routine. I have routines for absolutely nothing. If it is not scheduled, I don't do it on any predictable basis. I don't have a particular time that I get up or that I go to bed. So essentially, nothing in my life has become automatic. It is rare that I feel like I'm having an odd day, that I'm doing something other than I usually do. So you could call me a free spirit or whatnot. Without that automaticity, however, I don't "just do" anything. I have to think about it and decide what to do. So I need to think less – save it for the dissertation.

I think way too much about everything. Today I woke up early and wanted to do some laundry. However, I was concerned that I might want to go somewhere after I started a load. And I didn't really HAVE to do laundry; it could wait. Took me about 10 minutes to decide that I was, in fact, going to do laundry. When I get to the laundry room however, there was someone using it. So I had spent all of this time making this small decision and it didn't even work out.

I think about small things in the same way I tackle bigger problems. A bit too much analysis for daily life. Perhaps that's why I can't concentrate on anything; every little decision seems to be a big deal.

So, I'm going to try to stick to some sort of schedule. I hate conforming to schedules -way too limiting. But I have to admit that when I had classes I was much better about getting things done and generally did things at the same time each week.

So I'll see how this works. I'm only going to schedule week-by-week and reschedule "appointments" if I don't do things when I am supposed to. I have a new color-coded calendar – hopefully I can put it to good use. I love to create calendars and schedules, but I'm generally very poor at sticking to them.

Dissertation...who cares? I don’t.

Yet another day in which I do no work. I wanted to…I just never made it to my office…or got the articles out of my bag, or even opened the document. I have a meeting tomorrow – so screwed. I'm not going to be around next week (I'll be in 'bama) either, so I should have something to talk about at least. I really don't care at the moment though.

I'm less upset about the breakup today than yesterday (i.e. my box of tissues is no longer attached to me). Still pretty sad about it though. It was a very good relationship with an unbelievably good guy. I'm very sad that I couldn't make it work, that I couldn't be what he deserves.

Must go in tomorrow – don't really have much of a choice. I'd better get to school early…I've got a lot to do.

And the weekend is over…

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! I got a chance to relax a bit, although I did have some work to do. Did I finish all of it? Of course not. I've got revisions due tomorrow. However, I did not specify what time tomorrowJ. He certainly won't have them at 9am. Noon? Maybe. Six? More likely. I'm going to try to get up early and get them done as fast as possible. Hopefully, the urgency to finish the revisions will be the same tomorrow morning. Does anyone find very urgent things not so urgent when you have to wake up early? I often turn off the alarm, decide that I can get 6 hours of work done in 2 hours, turn over and go back to sleep. Notice I didn't hit the snooze. I never seem to, then wake up at 11am when I intended to get up at 7am.

I'm not sleepy either. I hope I can get to sleep before 2am. I seem to lose track of time at night. Everything seems more interesting at night.

*sigh* I must be very productive this week. I seem to spend a lot of time at school, but I don't seem to get a lot of work done. If I could focus really well for a couple of hours, I could get so much done. I'm so distractible. Adult ADD? Or grad student apathy? I used to be scared shitless that I'd get kicked out for my first 3 years of grad school. That's powerful motivation. Sure, I can disappoint people (I can be really good at that), but it would be pretty damn hard to get kicked out now. No tests to fail. No real deadline for dissertation. Think we get 10 years (total) to obtain our PhDs before we have to take comps over. So, I need to finish by August 2013. I've got some time….

I want out...

I'm really, really, really sick of being in school right now. My cohort and above are never around or have already graduated (mostly the latter). I need a job. Badly. I'm thinking about how much i hate research. Well, i don't mind reading stuff and analyzing data, but the actual writing and designing studies I hate.

I realize now that i could be a mediocre (at best) professor, but could be a great consultant. I really think I'm going to go applied. Yet, I feel guilty about this, like I'm wasting my opportunities. *sigh* I wish I was the type of person who doesn't care what other people think. Or more like care about what I think they think.

I just want to get done. Give me a dissertation topic and I'll start today. I'm involved in so many projects now I can't devote the time I need to on my dissertation. My goal was to propose this fall. That seems quite unlikely at this point - that I'll write a whole dissertation proposal in the next 2.5 months.

I'm burned out and lack motivation. Why did I decide to go to grad school in the first place? I forgot. Please remind me.