5 ms·

Hey, I'm the author of this blog post. I didn't think anyone would even read it, let alone post it on HN. To be honest it's a little scary how many people are s

Hey, I'm the author of this blog post. I didn't think anyone would even read it, let alone post it on HN. To be honest it's a little scary how many people are seeing this post since it's basically my 2am anxiety-fueled cry for help. But it's also motivating reading all these comments from people who've had similar experiences and are offering encouragement. I'm reading every one of your replies and they're giving me the confidence that I can be better and do better.

mourner 4y ago
Rooting for you get through this! How did the meeting go?
- shikshake 4y ago
  It actually went really well! It was sort of an informal review of my progress as a researcher in 2022, so it was a great opportunity for me to be straight up about my faults throughout the year. I spent a lot of time before the meeting thinking about where I went wrong, why I did what I did and how I will be trying to improve myself in the coming months (writing this post really helped with that process). Coming in with all that thinking made the conversation more honest and productive. I'm a lot more excited and motivated about pushing forward my projects once I drive back to college this weekend. I'm also lucky to have a super understanding advisor who is invested in my personal growth.
MattPalmer1086 4y ago
My dad, who is a professor, used to say "Don't get it right, get it written!". I would always feel there was more I had to research before I properly started. I missed the deadline for my MSc dissertation and had to start again. In fact, the act of writing it changed my thoughts and led me down more productive paths in the end.
Schroedingers2c 4y ago
Hi mate, just mentioning that I'm having similar experiences with dreading supervisor meetings, not making progress for long periods of time, getting frustrated, questioning myself and my career choices, feeling my research is not good enough etc. I also haven't figured it out yet.
- lioeters 4y ago
  I hope you get through the tough times to reach a calmer, more peaceful place in life one day. I imagine it's about persistence and patience, especially being patient with yourself. Good luck my friend!
  - Schroedingers2c 4y ago
    I appreciate your reply, thank you fellow human hidden behind a veil of 0's and 1's!
yomritoyj 4y ago
I procrastinated on my thesis. I got the usual advice: 'perfect is the enemy of the good', 'just get it written' etc. but it made no difference. With hindsight I now realize that I was working on an unfeasible project with inadequate preparation but did not want to accept that. How do other experienced people, not just your advisor, react to your project? If they are skeptical it may be a worth taking a cold hard look at the entire plan.
MayeulC 4y ago
I've been having trouble writing my PhD manuscript for more than one year, so the title clearly resonated with me :) I'm nearly done, I've been doing regular meetings with my advisor and keeping track of progress to help me write. At some point, I guess I realized that any progress is progress, that the thesis isn't going to write itself, and that I don't have to hand over a perfect work. I wish you all the courage to do the same!
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  I was supposed to turn mine in last week and have written ... 10 pages.
  - MayeulC 4y ago
    That was me 13 months ago... If can do it, so can you! I felt completely burnt out back then (still do to an extent). I wonder if allowing myself to work on something else to relax would have helped? on the other hand, it's much easier to just continue once you're on a streak. And you can alway dig deeper, which is so tempting.
croisillon 4y ago
My GF started working on her Master Thesis in 2011. A few things happened like moving to another city and some short jobs here and there. She was really dreading even thinking about it, constantly waiting for next year's updated statistics. Me trying to help also upset her, we were in a bad place in that respect. In 2015 she started going to a university help group but it still didn't really help. In 2016 I convinced her to pull the plug and it's been the best decision in years. Five years seem incredibly long for no result retrospectively, but what can one do. Everything will be alright, take care.
- neodypsis 4y ago
  Wow, some programs do give you a lot of time for your thesis!
  - croisillon 4y ago
    as long as we paid the semester fee the university never bat an eye
    - neodypsis 4y ago
      Public universities usually give you a lot less time, think months, and one may also be constrained by visa allowances. Not sure if it's also the case in the US.
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
        Not sure how is it with PhD, but with Masters and below, my experience (context: public universities, Poland) is that even in a public university you can get quite a bit of extra time if you... just ask for it. Preferably not in the last minute. The staff doesn't have any particularly strong reason to kick you out just for failing to meet a deadline, or even failing a class - the rules can be bent quite a lot if they see you're making an effort and want to complete your thesis / learn something. Just as long as you don't hit an administrative blocker, that is. In my case, I never submitted the thesis, because my request to extend the time coincided with the faculty being split in two and completely overhauled - so instead of extension, I was told that, because of "syllabus changes", I would need to repeat the entire MSc level (2 years) to be able to submit the thesis now. I politely declined.
ncr100 4y ago
For a different phase .. if you find your way beyond the current(?) association between the work and an understandable repulsive toxicity experience .. this brief inspirational vid may help with the hard slog needed to finish: https://youtu.be/KxGRhd_iWuE https://youtu.be/KxGRhd_iWuE <3, stranger
dekleinewolf 4y ago
My master thesis, which is supposed to take 8 months, took me 2 years and 4 months. Every morning I would wake up and think 'today is the day I will do good work!'. And every night I would go to bed and feel terrible and like a failure because no, I did not write or even read a single line. In hindside, I was definitely depressed during these days. I wish someone had told me I needed to get help for my mental health. I only 'snapped out of it' because of how the student loan system in my country works, and there was a huge financial incentive to finish it before a certain date.
brainwipe 4y ago
Know at least in part what you're going through. Submitted by crap draft of my PhD thesis in 2003 and then spent 4 years in full time non-academic employment doing the huge list of revisions in my spare time and commuting on a train! You're doing all the right things - getting help, seeking therapy (I wish I had done earlier), being fair to yourself. It might be helpful to try the following: Remind yourself why you started the PhD. Look back before you accepted. Might help to talk to friends about this. Why did you accept the challenge? What about yourself meant that you had to do it? Everyone's ignorant of what it entails until after completion and every PhD is different but why did you start at all? Reminding yourself of how brave you were to begin with is important. Next thing is to divide and conquer. Find the smallest, easiest task of all. It might be insignificant to the final work but it's something. For me it was a paper I had been putting off reading. I decided to code one small piece of it. Not the whole thing, not a reproduction of the results, not beautiful code, just something. For me, that broke the spell. Finally, accept that it's OK to walk away. Like everyone else here, I believe you can do it - I can feel it from your blog post. That said, it's OK if you don't complete it. Yes, there will be regret but you'll go on to other, brighter things, unshackled and free. That's OK too. You don't have to complete everything you start, that wouldn't be fair to you. I know a good few that didn't complete for a myriad of reasons and they're all doing great. I think you should give it a go but the world won't end if you don't. Best of luck, will be thinking of you today.
thatsadude 4y ago
I was at your position. I dragged on a journal and my thesis for 2 years. My advisor literally begged me to get my dissertation done at times. He complained I was a perfectionist and told me all good advice you have here every month for those two years. It didn't work. Eventually, he told me "How about you ``take leave`` and write whatever and bring it to me". I took one week leave, stayed at home and start writing. Somehow, I finished my first thesis draft in a month after that then I graduated. Those two years was the lowest years in my life emotionally. I don't have any advice for you because every person is different. This is a battle you need to fight by yourself. Start writing!
MrDrDr 4y ago
I took more than 3 years to write up my thesis. It was the most depressed I have ever been. There are many good comments here and I hope they motivate you. The advice that worked for me came from a professor in the depart (who was not my supervisor) which was essentially: - Make sure your thesis title is framed as a question - Each chapter should be a subquestion to the general overarching question - Start each chapter by asking the explicit subquestion - Conclude each chapter by summarising the answer to the subquestion and asking the subquestion of the next chapter. In this way you have an overarching narrative to your thesis - without actually writing it. Next add the headings and subheading of how you answered each subquestion (I image this will be cutting and pasting what have already written). You can breakdown subheading until each section only requires one or two paragraphs. Then start writing one paragraph at at a time. Do not worry about word count until you have finished a first draft. The narrative will make it much easier to read, understand and finish. You may need to get creative about how the narrative will flow so it makes sense - but you can ask for help with this. Hope this helps.
martopix 4y ago
There's one thing I couldn't find in your post: do you WANT to finish this PhD? Also, have you talked to your advisor about this procrastination problem, your fears, and the possibility of quitting? He sounds like an approachable person.
low_tech_love 4y ago
I finished my PhD with more than one year delay from the "normal" time because I also spent basically 2 years playing video games and not doing shit. Today I'm an associate professor with a nice job and good salary... so yeah, you can survive it! :) But seriously though, let me try to give you a couple of advices: first of all, the idea that you need to work on a project that gets you excited to get up from the bed in the morning is wrong and dangerous. Work is work and PhD is also work, just a bit different from the rest. So yeah you project is still work, so forget about being excited to get up in the morning. Trust me, you will survive even if you are not excited to get up in the morning! It's just work. Second thing, you made a mistake, which was to involve a million people in your project before you started. You built too much pressure for the results, and that pressure made you scared and killed your motivation to work on it. It's normal to sell the fish before you catch it in academia, but to do that in a healthy and efficient way you need lots of experience (like, decades of it, and being a professor with a stable career so you can take the punch and still stand up). Now that you're back to basics, it'll be easier. Start by making it worth it to you. Work for a few hours a day, like maybe two or three, then go do something you like after that. Soon you will realize that doing the stuff you like after you work a few hours is MUCH more enjoyable than procrastinating (it really, objectively, is). So you'll train your brain to get the reward from the work: hey, if I work for two hours, I can then do X or Y which will be awesome. (Do not plan to work 8 hours a day. You won't). Third, remember that you (as in, you, a person, a living being) are more important than all of this. It's just work; it doesn't deserve all the attention it gets. So what if there are a few people disappointed with you here and there? You are also disappointed with some people and that doesn't make them go home and cry in the dark. In all probability, there will always be a few people disappointed with you for the rest of your life. Actually, the list will probably grow. :) Good luck!
- twosdai 4y ago
  Great advice. Personally I think this applies to many long term ambitious, and ambiguous projects, not just a PHD. I had to learn this the hardway as well and now I really enjoy my work in a sustainable way.
- abhayhegde 4y ago
cracrecry 4y ago
Procrastination is routine in PhDs. It is the norm, you are not alone. Millions have been there before you, millions will be there after you. First is a 100% anti natural work to do, only using your mind. Lots of people forget the basics like eating well, resting well, or doing exercise. For me for example, having a routine of exercise was essential, because your job does not require exercise, like most jobs did 100 years ago.
drosan 4y ago
[dead]
Toutouxc 4y ago
I feel like something being a "2am anxiety-fueled cry for help" makes it MORE worth seeing (and paying attention to), not less.
paulkre 4y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience. I am currently in a similar situation, writing my master thesis. Your words motivated me.
glial 4y ago
I feel you. I've been there. It took me 9 years to finish. For several years, every Friday I was more depressed because I'd gotten nothing done that week. To be honest, the only things that helped me were: (1) stopping taking SSRIs. This was a big one for me. I didn't realize until afterwards what effect they had on the particular type of motivation that a PhD thesis requires. (2) letting go, a bit, of my original thesis topic. I let my mind wander during a home improvement project and it led to an interesting question that was related but not identical to the original. One thing I would say is -- don't beat yourself up about it being hard. A PhD is famously hard, and can be exponentially harder depending on your topic and advisor.
cptnapalm 4y ago
A friend of mine took something over a decade to get around to doing his. So, don't despair!
yonz 4y ago
I see your ted link and i raise you my favorite one about creativity and procrastination https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas... I for one appreciated reading this post and as you can see below there are a lot of well off people who have had similar experiences.
- SamBam 4y ago
  OP has two days to write a first draft -- don't give them more videos to watch!
yonz 4y ago
I see your ted link and i raise you my favorite one about creativity and procrastination https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas... I appreciated the post.
Balgair 4y ago
Adding my bits of thesis history: It took me about 10 months to even start working on it. I managed to blast through it by locking myself in the public library for 2 weeks. Most of the first week was screwing around anyway. Funnily enough, I accidentally submitted a rough draft as the final for my committee. They never read it anyways. The final draft has all kinds of errors and 'insert here' kinda stuff. My SO had to do basically the same thing, only they procrastinated for ~2 and a half years because the grant was really really good. Their thesis is the only published place for some important things in the field, so it's actually been cited a few dozen times. A friend of mine took about 14 months to get his thesis done. His description of it was: Imagine you're on a green grassy hill, curled up in the fetal position. And on another hill, just a little hill, there is a bar. You have to get over this bar. It's only 6 inches off the ground. So you look at the bar on the hill over there for months, still curled up in the fetal position. And eventually you kinda lump over at the other hill. And you hork, and sprot, and froll at the other hill. And eventually, crying the whole time, you kinda move at the other hill. You repeat this, in spurts mostly, until you kinda pour yourself over this tiny little bar on a green grassy hill. That's writing you thesis. Just remember, no one except your SO and hopefully your advisor is ever going to read it anyways. Literally no one.
contr-error 4y ago
Hey, I own the existence of my thesis (and resulting degree) to Beeminder[0]. I also made use of someone who was my supporter. Someone not involved in any capacity with the project, but who I could send status reports to. This is related to the concept of a body double (search for "body doubling adhd"). Reply if you want to know more or want a chat. [0] https://www.beeminder.com/home https://www.beeminder.com/home
- contr-error 4y ago
  Also, if you haven't seen it before, read this seminal procrastination post by Wait But Why[1]. Of course it's just a theory, but one that clicked for me and many others. It gives some helpful names to many of the things you experience when procrastinating. Afterwards you'll be able to recognize, "oh, I'm in the dark playground again" and possibly be able to do something about it. [1] https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...
cca778 4y ago
Hi, shikshake. Next month my PhD will complete six years (+2 of the "regular" 4 years). I still have to evaluate my proposal (finish planning details, invite experts and perform case studies). I am exhausted. I have published 3 papers as first-author, but none of them is actually my core thesis. My graduate program requires minimum publishing criteria, so I pursued this criteria. You need the thesis and the publications, period. But I have a marriage, one kid before the beginning of the PhD, one kid born on the second year, a pandemic on the fourth and fifth year, the discovery of autism of the second child on the beginning of the sixth year. It is too much for me. I am lazy, I procastinate, I am a news addicted. But I have a wonderful adviser. She always says "keep working in whatever you can", "write your way out". It is worth noting that my first two years was spent with a bullying ex-adviser that was more in the business of "filtering" students then properly advising. In almost every business day of last three years I have made some kind of progress, but it was not enough, I am still late. Every time I open the LaTeX editor, I think about quitting. Anxiety is high. I keep blaming myself for the (lots of) bad decisons I made. When I finally can get away of bad feelings, I produce something. I am capable of building the proposed system, but it is taking longer then I thought. I really do not know if I will graduate or not. But what it is working for me is this: 0) Revise the thesis scope (or "I really need to do all this?"), 1) write one paragraph or code function at time, 2) keep a lean todo list (only the essencial). I keep battling because I really need to finish the PhD, as I also think you need. Just write one new paragraph. Or code a tiny feature. After that, start again: a new paragraph/code. Will we finish the thesis before the final deadline? Who knows. But at least we worked until the last day as much as we can. If we (and I hope we don't) fail, I am sure that battling until the very end will make a huge difference in how we deal with the failure.

mourner 4y ago

Rooting for you get through this! How did the meeting go?

shikshake 4y ago
It actually went really well! It was sort of an informal review of my progress as a researcher in 2022, so it was a great opportunity for me to be straight up about my faults throughout the year. I spent a lot of time before the meeting thinking about where I went wrong, why I did what I did and how I will be trying to improve myself in the coming months (writing this post really helped with that process). Coming in with all that thinking made the conversation more honest and productive. I'm a lot more excited and motivated about pushing forward my projects once I drive back to college this weekend. I'm also lucky to have a super understanding advisor who is invested in my personal growth.

MattPalmer1086 4y ago

My dad, who is a professor, used to say "Don't get it right, get it written!". I would always feel there was more I had to research before I properly started. I missed the deadline for my MSc dissertation and had to start again. In fact, the act of writing it changed my thoughts and led me down more productive paths in the end.

Schroedingers2c 4y ago

Hi mate, just mentioning that I'm having similar experiences with dreading supervisor meetings, not making progress for long periods of time, getting frustrated, questioning myself and my career choices, feeling my research is not good enough etc. I also haven't figured it out yet.

lioeters 4y ago
I hope you get through the tough times to reach a calmer, more peaceful place in life one day. I imagine it's about persistence and patience, especially being patient with yourself. Good luck my friend!
- Schroedingers2c 4y ago
  I appreciate your reply, thank you fellow human hidden behind a veil of 0's and 1's!

yomritoyj 4y ago

I procrastinated on my thesis. I got the usual advice: 'perfect is the enemy of the good', 'just get it written' etc. but it made no difference. With hindsight I now realize that I was working on an unfeasible project with inadequate preparation but did not want to accept that. How do other experienced people, not just your advisor, react to your project? If they are skeptical it may be a worth taking a cold hard look at the entire plan.

MayeulC 4y ago

I've been having trouble writing my PhD manuscript for more than one year, so the title clearly resonated with me :) I'm nearly done, I've been doing regular meetings with my advisor and keeping track of progress to help me write. At some point, I guess I realized that any progress is progress, that the thesis isn't going to write itself, and that I don't have to hand over a perfect work. I wish you all the courage to do the same!

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
I was supposed to turn mine in last week and have written ... 10 pages.
- MayeulC 4y ago
  That was me 13 months ago... If can do it, so can you! I felt completely burnt out back then (still do to an extent). I wonder if allowing myself to work on something else to relax would have helped? on the other hand, it's much easier to just continue once you're on a streak. And you can alway dig deeper, which is so tempting.

croisillon 4y ago

My GF started working on her Master Thesis in 2011. A few things happened like moving to another city and some short jobs here and there. She was really dreading even thinking about it, constantly waiting for next year's updated statistics. Me trying to help also upset her, we were in a bad place in that respect. In 2015 she started going to a university help group but it still didn't really help. In 2016 I convinced her to pull the plug and it's been the best decision in years. Five years seem incredibly long for no result retrospectively, but what can one do. Everything will be alright, take care.

neodypsis 4y ago
Wow, some programs do give you a lot of time for your thesis!
- croisillon 4y ago
  as long as we paid the semester fee the university never bat an eye
  - neodypsis 4y ago
    Public universities usually give you a lot less time, think months, and one may also be constrained by visa allowances. Not sure if it's also the case in the US.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      Not sure how is it with PhD, but with Masters and below, my experience (context: public universities, Poland) is that even in a public university you can get quite a bit of extra time if you... just ask for it. Preferably not in the last minute. The staff doesn't have any particularly strong reason to kick you out just for failing to meet a deadline, or even failing a class - the rules can be bent quite a lot if they see you're making an effort and want to complete your thesis / learn something. Just as long as you don't hit an administrative blocker, that is. In my case, I never submitted the thesis, because my request to extend the time coincided with the faculty being split in two and completely overhauled - so instead of extension, I was told that, because of "syllabus changes", I would need to repeat the entire MSc level (2 years) to be able to submit the thesis now. I politely declined.

ncr100 4y ago

For a different phase .. if you find your way beyond the current(?) association between the work and an understandable repulsive toxicity experience .. this brief inspirational vid may help with the hard slog needed to finish: https://youtu.be/KxGRhd_iWuE https://youtu.be/KxGRhd_iWuE <3, stranger

dekleinewolf 4y ago

My master thesis, which is supposed to take 8 months, took me 2 years and 4 months. Every morning I would wake up and think 'today is the day I will do good work!'. And every night I would go to bed and feel terrible and like a failure because no, I did not write or even read a single line. In hindside, I was definitely depressed during these days. I wish someone had told me I needed to get help for my mental health. I only 'snapped out of it' because of how the student loan system in my country works, and there was a huge financial incentive to finish it before a certain date.

brainwipe 4y ago

Know at least in part what you're going through. Submitted by crap draft of my PhD thesis in 2003 and then spent 4 years in full time non-academic employment doing the huge list of revisions in my spare time and commuting on a train! You're doing all the right things - getting help, seeking therapy (I wish I had done earlier), being fair to yourself. It might be helpful to try the following: Remind yourself why you started the PhD. Look back before you accepted. Might help to talk to friends about this. Why did you accept the challenge? What about yourself meant that you had to do it? Everyone's ignorant of what it entails until after completion and every PhD is different but why did you start at all? Reminding yourself of how brave you were to begin with is important. Next thing is to divide and conquer. Find the smallest, easiest task of all. It might be insignificant to the final work but it's something. For me it was a paper I had been putting off reading. I decided to code one small piece of it. Not the whole thing, not a reproduction of the results, not beautiful code, just something. For me, that broke the spell. Finally, accept that it's OK to walk away. Like everyone else here, I believe you can do it - I can feel it from your blog post. That said, it's OK if you don't complete it. Yes, there will be regret but you'll go on to other, brighter things, unshackled and free. That's OK too. You don't have to complete everything you start, that wouldn't be fair to you. I know a good few that didn't complete for a myriad of reasons and they're all doing great. I think you should give it a go but the world won't end if you don't. Best of luck, will be thinking of you today.

thatsadude 4y ago

I was at your position. I dragged on a journal and my thesis for 2 years. My advisor literally begged me to get my dissertation done at times. He complained I was a perfectionist and told me all good advice you have here every month for those two years. It didn't work. Eventually, he told me "How about you ``take leave`` and write whatever and bring it to me". I took one week leave, stayed at home and start writing. Somehow, I finished my first thesis draft in a month after that then I graduated. Those two years was the lowest years in my life emotionally. I don't have any advice for you because every person is different. This is a battle you need to fight by yourself. Start writing!

MrDrDr 4y ago

I took more than 3 years to write up my thesis. It was the most depressed I have ever been. There are many good comments here and I hope they motivate you. The advice that worked for me came from a professor in the depart (who was not my supervisor) which was essentially: - Make sure your thesis title is framed as a question - Each chapter should be a subquestion to the general overarching question - Start each chapter by asking the explicit subquestion - Conclude each chapter by summarising the answer to the subquestion and asking the subquestion of the next chapter. In this way you have an overarching narrative to your thesis - without actually writing it. Next add the headings and subheading of how you answered each subquestion (I image this will be cutting and pasting what have already written). You can breakdown subheading until each section only requires one or two paragraphs. Then start writing one paragraph at at a time. Do not worry about word count until you have finished a first draft. The narrative will make it much easier to read, understand and finish. You may need to get creative about how the narrative will flow so it makes sense - but you can ask for help with this. Hope this helps.

martopix 4y ago

There's one thing I couldn't find in your post: do you WANT to finish this PhD? Also, have you talked to your advisor about this procrastination problem, your fears, and the possibility of quitting? He sounds like an approachable person.

low_tech_love 4y ago

I finished my PhD with more than one year delay from the "normal" time because I also spent basically 2 years playing video games and not doing shit. Today I'm an associate professor with a nice job and good salary... so yeah, you can survive it! :) But seriously though, let me try to give you a couple of advices: first of all, the idea that you need to work on a project that gets you excited to get up from the bed in the morning is wrong and dangerous. Work is work and PhD is also work, just a bit different from the rest. So yeah you project is still work, so forget about being excited to get up in the morning. Trust me, you will survive even if you are not excited to get up in the morning! It's just work. Second thing, you made a mistake, which was to involve a million people in your project before you started. You built too much pressure for the results, and that pressure made you scared and killed your motivation to work on it. It's normal to sell the fish before you catch it in academia, but to do that in a healthy and efficient way you need lots of experience (like, decades of it, and being a professor with a stable career so you can take the punch and still stand up). Now that you're back to basics, it'll be easier. Start by making it worth it to you. Work for a few hours a day, like maybe two or three, then go do something you like after that. Soon you will realize that doing the stuff you like after you work a few hours is MUCH more enjoyable than procrastinating (it really, objectively, is). So you'll train your brain to get the reward from the work: hey, if I work for two hours, I can then do X or Y which will be awesome. (Do not plan to work 8 hours a day. You won't). Third, remember that you (as in, you, a person, a living being) are more important than all of this. It's just work; it doesn't deserve all the attention it gets. So what if there are a few people disappointed with you here and there? You are also disappointed with some people and that doesn't make them go home and cry in the dark. In all probability, there will always be a few people disappointed with you for the rest of your life. Actually, the list will probably grow. :) Good luck!

twosdai 4y ago
Great advice. Personally I think this applies to many long term ambitious, and ambiguous projects, not just a PHD. I had to learn this the hardway as well and now I really enjoy my work in a sustainable way.
abhayhegde 4y ago

cracrecry 4y ago

Procrastination is routine in PhDs. It is the norm, you are not alone. Millions have been there before you, millions will be there after you. First is a 100% anti natural work to do, only using your mind. Lots of people forget the basics like eating well, resting well, or doing exercise. For me for example, having a routine of exercise was essential, because your job does not require exercise, like most jobs did 100 years ago.

drosan 4y ago

[dead]

Toutouxc 4y ago

I feel like something being a "2am anxiety-fueled cry for help" makes it MORE worth seeing (and paying attention to), not less.

paulkre 4y ago

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am currently in a similar situation, writing my master thesis. Your words motivated me.

glial 4y ago

I feel you. I've been there. It took me 9 years to finish. For several years, every Friday I was more depressed because I'd gotten nothing done that week. To be honest, the only things that helped me were: (1) stopping taking SSRIs. This was a big one for me. I didn't realize until afterwards what effect they had on the particular type of motivation that a PhD thesis requires. (2) letting go, a bit, of my original thesis topic. I let my mind wander during a home improvement project and it led to an interesting question that was related but not identical to the original. One thing I would say is -- don't beat yourself up about it being hard. A PhD is famously hard, and can be exponentially harder depending on your topic and advisor.

cptnapalm 4y ago

A friend of mine took something over a decade to get around to doing his. So, don't despair!

yonz 4y ago

I see your ted link and i raise you my favorite one about creativity and procrastination https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas... I for one appreciated reading this post and as you can see below there are a lot of well off people who have had similar experiences.

SamBam 4y ago
OP has two days to write a first draft -- don't give them more videos to watch!

yonz 4y ago

Balgair 4y ago

Adding my bits of thesis history: It took me about 10 months to even start working on it. I managed to blast through it by locking myself in the public library for 2 weeks. Most of the first week was screwing around anyway. Funnily enough, I accidentally submitted a rough draft as the final for my committee. They never read it anyways. The final draft has all kinds of errors and 'insert here' kinda stuff. My SO had to do basically the same thing, only they procrastinated for ~2 and a half years because the grant was really really good. Their thesis is the only published place for some important things in the field, so it's actually been cited a few dozen times. A friend of mine took about 14 months to get his thesis done. His description of it was: Imagine you're on a green grassy hill, curled up in the fetal position. And on another hill, just a little hill, there is a bar. You have to get over this bar. It's only 6 inches off the ground. So you look at the bar on the hill over there for months, still curled up in the fetal position. And eventually you kinda lump over at the other hill. And you hork, and sprot, and froll at the other hill. And eventually, crying the whole time, you kinda move at the other hill. You repeat this, in spurts mostly, until you kinda pour yourself over this tiny little bar on a green grassy hill. That's writing you thesis. Just remember, no one except your SO and hopefully your advisor is ever going to read it anyways. Literally no one.

contr-error 4y ago

Hey, I own the existence of my thesis (and resulting degree) to Beeminder[0]. I also made use of someone who was my supporter. Someone not involved in any capacity with the project, but who I could send status reports to. This is related to the concept of a body double (search for "body doubling adhd"). Reply if you want to know more or want a chat. [0] https://www.beeminder.com/home https://www.beeminder.com/home

contr-error 4y ago
Also, if you haven't seen it before, read this seminal procrastination post by Wait But Why[1]. Of course it's just a theory, but one that clicked for me and many others. It gives some helpful names to many of the things you experience when procrastinating. Afterwards you'll be able to recognize, "oh, I'm in the dark playground again" and possibly be able to do something about it. [1] https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...

cca778 4y ago

Hi, shikshake. Next month my PhD will complete six years (+2 of the "regular" 4 years). I still have to evaluate my proposal (finish planning details, invite experts and perform case studies). I am exhausted. I have published 3 papers as first-author, but none of them is actually my core thesis. My graduate program requires minimum publishing criteria, so I pursued this criteria. You need the thesis and the publications, period. But I have a marriage, one kid before the beginning of the PhD, one kid born on the second year, a pandemic on the fourth and fifth year, the discovery of autism of the second child on the beginning of the sixth year. It is too much for me. I am lazy, I procastinate, I am a news addicted. But I have a wonderful adviser. She always says "keep working in whatever you can", "write your way out". It is worth noting that my first two years was spent with a bullying ex-adviser that was more in the business of "filtering" students then properly advising. In almost every business day of last three years I have made some kind of progress, but it was not enough, I am still late. Every time I open the LaTeX editor, I think about quitting. Anxiety is high. I keep blaming myself for the (lots of) bad decisons I made. When I finally can get away of bad feelings, I produce something. I am capable of building the proposed system, but it is taking longer then I thought. I really do not know if I will graduate or not. But what it is working for me is this: 0) Revise the thesis scope (or "I really need to do all this?"), 1) write one paragraph or code function at time, 2) keep a lean todo list (only the essencial). I keep battling because I really need to finish the PhD, as I also think you need. Just write one new paragraph. Or code a tiny feature. After that, start again: a new paragraph/code. Will we finish the thesis before the final deadline? Who knows. But at least we worked until the last day as much as we can. If we (and I hope we don't) fail, I am sure that battling until the very end will make a huge difference in how we deal with the failure.