Categories: phd
Tags: procrastination, Masters degree, PhD
Date: 15 March 2007 15:42:00
Just because I'm doing this Lent thing and not blogging all that much about other stuff, doesn't mean that in many ways life isn't trundling along as it always has. This is particularly the case with my main talent, about which I have no doubt blogged at length in the past. Today is the penultimate day of term (hooray) and tomorrow I'm supposed to have a piece of written work finished and submitted to my supervisors. I have been right royally procrastinating, and decided earlier today to write a "To Do" list as they usually make me feel better - I like lists. Unfortunately the current one is so long it has just stressed me out, but on the plus side at least it used up a bit of time :)
I decided to change my procrastination strategy and not do the ironing this time. Unfortunately this has backfired a bit - I found plenty of other things to do to procrastinate, but I am now without much in the way of wearable clothing and I have even more ironing to do now (before I write the essay, obviously) than I would have if it had been my procrastinatory method of choice earlier in the week.
I wonder if I switched to a more boring subject it would be easier to write about it? My problem with the last few things I've written is that I find the subject so interesting I keep digging up more and more sources and things to read around it, which is great except when I come to write about it all and am confronted with a mile high pile of articles and books to distil into an essay. It's all very stressful.
I vaguely remember feeling like this at the end of every module I did in my Masters degree. It was right at the end of each module where I'd have a sudden "lightbulb moment", realise I had clicked with the subject and then wanted to go off and read everything I could about it, but couldn't because it was time to move onto the next thing. Once I'd written my last substantial piece of work, just before Christmas, I ended up finding all sorts of other books and articles about it which kept me going well into this term, when I should have been preparing for the essay I'm writing now. And now I'm coming to write about something else, I've suddenly (in the last week) really got into it, but am horribly aware of how little I know and how much I want to read, and how little time I have left to do that. I suppose this time I'm lucky in that I have plenty of time once I'm away and especially once I'm back from fieldwork to revisit things, but I want to read it all and know it all and write about it all NOW.
Doing a PhD is so bad for my blood pressure. Sigh.