(no subject)

[rivka]

I suppose that it's normal to be falling to pieces at this stage of the process, but it's damned annoying.

Once again, I'm having trouble making myself work on the dissertation. No real progress since Sunday. I know that I can do what needs to be done, so it's not the paralyzing self-doubt and fear of negative evaluation that it was before. I just seem to have trouble... collecting myself, I guess. I'm not focusing. Instead of a laser-beam brain, which is what I need, I've got a swarm-of-gnats brain.

Also? Irritable. Not pulling my weight with housework, yet not amassing large piles of academic work in compensation. Perfectly unexceptional amounts of joint pain are making me go all whiny and complainy. I just can't seem to get a grip. curiousangel is being a saint, but I know I must be testing the hell out of his patience. If I can barely live with myself, how can he?

I know what I need to do: set small measurable goals, work on them whether or not I feel like working, give myself small concrete rewards, and just shut up with the whininess. It's not like it's a complex plan. But I just... argh.

Comments

[melebeth]

My trick is to find something I want to do even less, decide that I have to finish it, and then I avoid doing that by working on the thing that really needs to get done. Along the lines of...

"I need to clean the toilet... no I think I'd really rather just finish the data analysis I've been stalling on for weeks"

I.e. Been there, and so I send giant hugs and productivity weebles

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a suitably distasteful task to be avoiding by doing what's actually needful. Usually I end up cleaning the tub or scrubbing toilets or cleaning out the fridge.