Pandammonium: career [reading academic papers]

Just thought I’d bring this to your attention.

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’m back to the day job, now, after working at UCLES before Xmas and after New Year. I was hoping that having to get up and get to work for a certain time every day would help me establish a routine whereby I would get up in the morning, get ready, and get straight to work, but so far, it’s not working. Yesterday, I spent much of the day playing the evil Desktop Tower Defence and some time pottering around my website. Today, I’ve Facebooked, DTDed and generally Internetted.

Come on, girl. Get a move on!

I started work on Wednesday. I had to get up at 6.30 a.m.. That’s half past six in the morning. I get home about 11 hours later, except on Wednesdays, when I get rudely awakened by the dust… Fridays, when it’s only 10 hours later. Then I have to do some work on my PhD. I am not a morning person, so these early starts are somewhat disagreeable to my system. Last night, when it was only my second day, I was so tired that the Hubster forbade me to do any PhD work. I’m not much more awake tonight than I was last night. I might just have a snooze on the new sofa (that the cat appears to have damaged slightly already, despite not being allowed on it. See her innocently washing her furry-pointy paw).

I can’t say anything about my job because it’s confidential, although I did demonstrate my marvellously sharp wit today at afternoon break. Someone was telling us about the crazy lady who used to wander along Mill Road with a bucket on her head. Apparently, she couldn’t cope with what people might think about her. We all didn’t think the bucket would really help with this problem. Anyway, the narrator of this sad tale said she thought the crazy bucket lady died, because she’s never there any more.

“Did she kick the bucket?” I asked, innocently.

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow!

This means I’ll have to get up in the middle of the night, and drive for miles, work, then drive for miles home again, then study!