Lately I fell stressed. Even when I am doing something relaxing, I can feel an underlying tension that I don't think will go away until after I defend.
Some days, I get to my office all wound up and excited to get to work. But it's like anxiously waiting to start a race, hearing the gun, and then running in circles instead of following the course towards the finish.
Other days are much, much better. On those days, I get a lot accomplished, enjoy my work, and have a good time with my coworkers.
As I get down to the wire, the good days need to far outweigh the bad. I want to finish in the fall term, and I have a lot of work left to do. I guess there is a chance I could take another semester. That's unappealing -- I've already done that more than once and really, I think this thing will just expand to fill the time I give it.
So when I look in the mirror these days, I see someone bound and determined to finish her dissertation. I revisited the Dissertation Coach's advice the other day and made a timeline for the work I need to do, week by week. It's tight, but I think if I focus I can stay on schedule and finish without panicking towards the end. Every day needs to count; every day I need to arrive at work knowing specifically what I need to do. I see a person who will pull this off and not write a sloppy dissertation that was finished in a hurry*. My committee may have questions about my research, but it's not going to be because I wrote a crappy dissertation**.
*yes, I know no one else will read my dissertation, but each chapter will eventually get published as an independent paper, so I don't want it to suck.
**it will be because of the very limited replication in my experimental design.
scientiae-carnival
7 comments:
Running around in circles instead of toward the finishing line is exactly how I feel lately. I hope you get back in the right direction soon, but it's also nice to know I'm not the only one!
I hear you. I have been experiencing generalized anxiety for days. It sucks. I know I don't really have anything to worry about, but my body insists on throwing "worried" symptoms at me even though there's nothing I'm legitimately worried about. Argh! It (the anxiety) just needs to die already.
Sorry you are feeling this way. I hope making a time line helped with the anxiety.
Nice to know I'm not alone, I guess. Although I wish we all could feel more relaxed.
You have the right idea about spending time on the chapters since they will be individual publications. If all you have to do is reformat them and do slight tweaks, you will DEFINITELY be able to get them submitted (and published) quickly! Good luck!!
You so totally can do this. This is the end stretch. In fact, most of the work is behind you. You're doing great....
Good luck! The timeline helped me a lot, even when I didn't keep to it for even 1 week ...
See if you can submit the papers and get reviewers' comments before submitting your thesis, it helped me a lot in the end, because your chapters have been scrutinized already before by experts.
I am sure you will submit a wonderful thesis!
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