I have to admit that the writing-1000-words-a-day thing didn’t work out for me as well as I’d hoped it would. It just didn’t seem meaningful to stop writing at some random place, and I never seemed to have scheduled enough time to continue to a sensible stopping place.

So then I decided to complete subsections. The document I’m currently writing isn’t that big, so this seemed reasonable. However, I can’t tell how long a given section will take to write, even though it doesn’t look long from my notes, it still seems to take a while because there’s thinking and stuff to be done as well.

I’m also trying to move the deadline because I’m going to a course on how to get published on Thursday, so I’d like to not have to go to Essex twice in one week - have you seen the price of petrol these days?! Plus, it’ll be more productive if I spend less time travelling.

I told my supervisor I need deadlines, so he’s given me the choice of two: either next Monday or next Tuesday. This was supposed to help. So far, it’s nearly ten o’clock, I’m not ready, and I’ve played two games of the evil DTD. I have written out a timetable/things to do list for the day, but I’m behind schedule already.

I’ve also been writing 1000 words a day, although whether they mean anything together or not is a different matter. I review them the next day, and rewrite them, generally. Yesterday, I didn’t write anything because I was worried about my poor cat.

Academic Productivity » How to complete your PhD (or any large project): Hard and soft deadlines, and the Martini Method

Maybe this will work. I’ve been meaning to tell my supervisor to give me deadlines for work. There was a short time when I had to produce something weekly, and I got loads done then, but it’s all pretty wishy-washy at the moment.

Also, Parkinson’s Law is very true - I’ve known this for some time, although I never knew it had a name. And Hofstadter’s Law is true as well, even if you do take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Link sent by The Hubster.

Update: another way to get stuff done is to not have an attention-seeking cat.

I should be doing the following:

• filling in expenses claims forms for conferences;
• reading a paper by Adam Albright;
• food shopping;
• the washing;
• some tidying up.

I am doing none of these things, some of which I should have been spending rather a lot of time on. Certainly more than the day and a half I have left to spend on them. If I do others, then it cuts into my time for doing the lengthy, deadliney things.

What I have actually been doing is the following:

• blogging (faffing with WordPress rather than writing actual posts, mainly);
• doing websites:
  • my own:
    • personal;
    • university;
  • YEMM;
• looking at sofas on the Internet;
• general miscellaneous stuff.

Not very good, although I was supposed to be doing the YEMM website.

I am writing up the proceedings of LingO 2007, which has to be no more than eight pages long. I wrote it all up and it came to ten pages. I usually go over the mark with this sort of thing, which is often due to me not writing concisely. This is better than not writing concisely and falling short. It’s now down to eight pages, thanks to replacing the verbosity with more concise sentences, removing some of the lesser content and a with a bit of jiggery-pokering with the formatting.

My supervisor is pleased with it, so I’ve just got to do a couple of minor things to it, then I can send it off - days ahead of the deadline!

I received my shiny new V5C in the post today! That means I can now get my car MOT’d and then, hopefully, taxed. I’ve even renewed my car insurance. Still plenty of time before all the end of May deadlines, too, although it’s really not been my fault this year. Not totally, anyway.

10 days to go!