I feel like a marathon runner collapsing feet from the finish line.
February 19, 2016 4:05 PM Subscribe
I'm in the last semester of my Master's program, and cannot find the motivation to do anything. Help me help myself finish.
I'm in the last semester of a two year master's program, and I just want to be done. I'm tired of school, I'm tired of working my part-time job while being in school, I just want to be able to live my life and enjoy my free time. I have a fairly light courseload this semester, and I can't even bring myself to do the small amount of work being assigned.
But the real problem is my thesis. I have a thesis project (it's actually in the form of a publishable paper, so not a full thesis) that I have to complete to graduate. I hate working on it. I hate thinking about it. Just thinking about it gives me anxiety. So I don't. And then I fall further and further behind. I met with my advisor last week, and he told me I'm still in good shape and can finish on time, but I need to keep chugging on it. I'm just having a hard time with that part. Part of the problem is the feeling that I'm in over my head with my subject, and I feel like I'm not getting the support I need from my advisor (he's department chair, and has his hands in a million things right now). I don't feel like I have a good metric for knowing whether I'm making progress in the right direction or not.
Somewhat extenuating circumstances: I've been having some health problems over the last year (sleep disturbances, chronic tension headaches that make it difficult to work on anything), as well as the 3 days a week part time job. I don't necessarily feel depressed (I've previously taken medication for that) but I definitely feel anxious most of the time (a low level anxiety that I'm not getting the things done that I need to, higher levels when I think about my thesis or a specific task that I've procrastinated on).
I've had minor procrastination issues in the past, but never this bad. I'm looking for suggestions on how to keep myself on track for a few more months so I can finish my program on time. I really don't want to sabatoge myself to the point that I have to graduate later. Like I said, I really want to be done.
I'm in the last semester of a two year master's program, and I just want to be done. I'm tired of school, I'm tired of working my part-time job while being in school, I just want to be able to live my life and enjoy my free time. I have a fairly light courseload this semester, and I can't even bring myself to do the small amount of work being assigned.
But the real problem is my thesis. I have a thesis project (it's actually in the form of a publishable paper, so not a full thesis) that I have to complete to graduate. I hate working on it. I hate thinking about it. Just thinking about it gives me anxiety. So I don't. And then I fall further and further behind. I met with my advisor last week, and he told me I'm still in good shape and can finish on time, but I need to keep chugging on it. I'm just having a hard time with that part. Part of the problem is the feeling that I'm in over my head with my subject, and I feel like I'm not getting the support I need from my advisor (he's department chair, and has his hands in a million things right now). I don't feel like I have a good metric for knowing whether I'm making progress in the right direction or not.
Somewhat extenuating circumstances: I've been having some health problems over the last year (sleep disturbances, chronic tension headaches that make it difficult to work on anything), as well as the 3 days a week part time job. I don't necessarily feel depressed (I've previously taken medication for that) but I definitely feel anxious most of the time (a low level anxiety that I'm not getting the things done that I need to, higher levels when I think about my thesis or a specific task that I've procrastinated on).
I've had minor procrastination issues in the past, but never this bad. I'm looking for suggestions on how to keep myself on track for a few more months so I can finish my program on time. I really don't want to sabatoge myself to the point that I have to graduate later. Like I said, I really want to be done.
I'm on year 5 of a 2 year MS program with a full-time job, 2 children under 3 years of age and a house that needs constant work. It sucks!! I'm sick of taking classes and although i find the subject matter interesting, I've lost interest in studying it formally. But I keep going because I've got about 1 year left (I take 1 course per semester due to my home/kids/work schedule), and the end is inn sight. So....you're not alone.
What helped me a little bit is that I took a year off but I thought to myself that I should just bear it and be done with it, especially since my job pays for a chunk of it. Hard work now for the payoff later.
Can you step away for a bit? Do you need to finish asap? You may find a bit of a break helpful but it would mean that you're extending the finish line.
Distract yourself, lie to yourself, do what you have to do to get it done. You say you feel like your'e in over your head? You're supposed to be, that's why you're there. If you knew this stuff you wouldn't have to go to school for it. Likewise, if it was easy then everyone would be doing it.
Believe it or not, you are at the home stretch and the finish line is right around the corner just over that little nothing of a hill.
A couple of other things that may help: They don't put your grades on the diploma and, depending on your program/course, you probably don't have to get an A to pass the class.
posted by eatcake at 4:37 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
What helped me a little bit is that I took a year off but I thought to myself that I should just bear it and be done with it, especially since my job pays for a chunk of it. Hard work now for the payoff later.
Can you step away for a bit? Do you need to finish asap? You may find a bit of a break helpful but it would mean that you're extending the finish line.
Distract yourself, lie to yourself, do what you have to do to get it done. You say you feel like your'e in over your head? You're supposed to be, that's why you're there. If you knew this stuff you wouldn't have to go to school for it. Likewise, if it was easy then everyone would be doing it.
Believe it or not, you are at the home stretch and the finish line is right around the corner just over that little nothing of a hill.
A couple of other things that may help: They don't put your grades on the diploma and, depending on your program/course, you probably don't have to get an A to pass the class.
posted by eatcake at 4:37 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I was really burned out writing my dissertation. I was on fumes. Here's what worked for me:
1. Everyday, I told myself that I only had to do one thing: Open the document I'm supposed to work on. This was really, really difficult on some days.
2. Once I opened the document, the goal became writing two pages. Once I wrote the two pages, I allowed myself to stop working without feeling guilty. Sometimes it took 30 minutes to write two pages. Sometimes it took all day.
I didn't think about how much more I needed to do. I just focused on opening the document and doing two pages everyday. And I finished my dissertation in 1.5 years.
posted by jcatus at 4:43 PM on February 19, 2016 [9 favorites]
1. Everyday, I told myself that I only had to do one thing: Open the document I'm supposed to work on. This was really, really difficult on some days.
2. Once I opened the document, the goal became writing two pages. Once I wrote the two pages, I allowed myself to stop working without feeling guilty. Sometimes it took 30 minutes to write two pages. Sometimes it took all day.
I didn't think about how much more I needed to do. I just focused on opening the document and doing two pages everyday. And I finished my dissertation in 1.5 years.
posted by jcatus at 4:43 PM on February 19, 2016 [9 favorites]
Another thought - can you make friends with some of the other grad students in your program? They can help you get through the subject matter that is troubling you. I know it was really helpful for me to just be able to email folks and bounce ideas off of them to see if I was understanding stuff correctly. If you don't know anyone maybe your advisor can help put you in touch with some other students.
posted by FireFountain at 4:44 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by FireFountain at 4:44 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
A lot of anxiety problems are treated with the same medications as depression, and amotivation (the inability to get yourself to DO anything) is a major feature of depression. You sound like you could benefit from a chat with your shrink to me - the number one feature of anxiety/depression for me is procrastination/avoidance (number two is insomnia, and it's a lot easier to get me in to the doctor about insomnia than procrastination.)
If you just want to handle this with action, it's the same old story: break the task down into small steps, small enough you can face them without the rock in your stomach insisting you go somewhere else and do something else. The task can be as tiny as "open the document and close the document again." (On preview, yup, uh huh, jcatus has it.) If you can't get it into quanta small enough that you can start, that's objective evidence that you've hit a breaking point and you have to do something more proactive to treat your anxiety.
posted by gingerest at 4:46 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you just want to handle this with action, it's the same old story: break the task down into small steps, small enough you can face them without the rock in your stomach insisting you go somewhere else and do something else. The task can be as tiny as "open the document and close the document again." (On preview, yup, uh huh, jcatus has it.) If you can't get it into quanta small enough that you can start, that's objective evidence that you've hit a breaking point and you have to do something more proactive to treat your anxiety.
posted by gingerest at 4:46 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Seconding the idea of having designated work times with planned "relaxation time" at the end of each day. When I was finishing my thesis, I did NOT do what many of my colleagues did and work until all hours of the night. I knocked off work at a reasonable time and had a nice evening. This worked great for me because I knew that break was coming at the end of the day and didn't feel the idea of interminable work hanging over my head. Additionally, it put the right kind of pressure on me to get my work done so that I could have a nice evening. In the last couple weeks this all went to hell as I had to get things finished, but it really got me to make consistent progress for my last half year of grad school.
posted by Betelgeuse at 5:12 PM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Betelgeuse at 5:12 PM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
My method was: Pomodoro method: 20 min writing, 5 min break, with timer, and lime FireMountain said, keep it to specific hours. No more, no less.
Write one section at a time.
When at editing phase have a list of mudane editing to check, and do this when on writing block. I.e. check each paragraph has a topic sentence. Check that you are using consistent tense. Etc.
A friend's method: sit down at the same time every day and write for thirty minutes. If it's going well, keep going, if not, stop at thirty minutes. He completed a doctoral dissertation this way.
My mantra in the last year was "I can still quit.", which for me felt like deciding each day to finish.
My friend *hated* this. Her mantra was " no one will take this from me. I will finish."
Also set regular meetings with the advisor with specific goalsfor completion points
Finally... Peer writing group. Meet once per week to working be same space, and make commitments about progress to each other.
posted by chapps at 5:16 PM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
Write one section at a time.
When at editing phase have a list of mudane editing to check, and do this when on writing block. I.e. check each paragraph has a topic sentence. Check that you are using consistent tense. Etc.
A friend's method: sit down at the same time every day and write for thirty minutes. If it's going well, keep going, if not, stop at thirty minutes. He completed a doctoral dissertation this way.
My mantra in the last year was "I can still quit.", which for me felt like deciding each day to finish.
My friend *hated* this. Her mantra was " no one will take this from me. I will finish."
Also set regular meetings with the advisor with specific goalsfor completion points
Finally... Peer writing group. Meet once per week to working be same space, and make commitments about progress to each other.
posted by chapps at 5:16 PM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
Sorry one more thought! So if you find yourself being unproductive at home, a way to combat this is to have a set schedule of going someplace like a library to focus and get your work done and then go home and relax afterwards. For some reason it was easier to get into work mode if I was somewhere like a library than at home where there's lots of stuff to distract me. Ok I'll shut up now :-)
posted by FireFountain at 5:17 PM on February 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by FireFountain at 5:17 PM on February 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Say it with me: "The best thesis is a done thesis." I know none of us want to do bad work - but it doesn't have to be great, it just has to be done. So focus on just getting a draft done with some of the techniques above (I'm a big fan of "you just have to do X amount today and it counts" - I'm using the same technique to get my ass to the gym a lot) and stuff any perfectionist techniques you might have. Editing is so much easier than writing - so you just got to get something, anything, down and this is going to get 1000 times easier.
Also, if you run into a section you're having trouble with, skip it and go on to something you can write and come back to the problem parts later.
If you feel in over your head, don't be afraid to scale back to the parts you do know. You wouldn't be the first graduate student to get in over their head a bit... if my advisor hadn't pulled me back on my thesis (25 interviews! Kids! ESL folks, damn the torpedoes and IRB train the interpreters... yea), I might still be writing the damn thing.
If you don't feel like you can write whole sentences, write bullet points. It's a lot easier to put in whole sentences if you at least have an outline down.
Do you feel like you can talk about the project? Sometimes talking about our stuff is a lot easier than writing about it. Dictate your paper if this is the case (if you have a mac laptop or an iPhone, being able to do this is built in, even) - you can clean up the language later.
Do you have a faculty mentor who could help do some unofficial guidance on your paper? Department chairs are often well meaning but terrible thesis chairs - because as you noticed, they're just too damned busy. Is there someone else that you have a good enough relationship with to help you do some of the heavy lifting?
posted by joycehealy at 5:24 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also, if you run into a section you're having trouble with, skip it and go on to something you can write and come back to the problem parts later.
If you feel in over your head, don't be afraid to scale back to the parts you do know. You wouldn't be the first graduate student to get in over their head a bit... if my advisor hadn't pulled me back on my thesis (25 interviews! Kids! ESL folks, damn the torpedoes and IRB train the interpreters... yea), I might still be writing the damn thing.
If you don't feel like you can write whole sentences, write bullet points. It's a lot easier to put in whole sentences if you at least have an outline down.
Do you feel like you can talk about the project? Sometimes talking about our stuff is a lot easier than writing about it. Dictate your paper if this is the case (if you have a mac laptop or an iPhone, being able to do this is built in, even) - you can clean up the language later.
Do you have a faculty mentor who could help do some unofficial guidance on your paper? Department chairs are often well meaning but terrible thesis chairs - because as you noticed, they're just too damned busy. Is there someone else that you have a good enough relationship with to help you do some of the heavy lifting?
posted by joycehealy at 5:24 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I used the techniques in this book for my thesis. Saved my life. Can be used for writing anything structured.
posted by orsonet at 5:30 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by orsonet at 5:30 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I got a prescription for 60 days of sleeping pills as I approached my big deadline in graduate school. The reassurance of knowing that I would sleep and would wake up feeling refreshed was a huge help, as it meant I had one less thing to worry about. I made sure to discuss a plan to get off them with my doctor, and haven't needed them since.
I also used the voice recording app on my phone to try to talk through my ideas when writing failed me.
Best of luck. It's hard, but then it's over.
posted by monkeymonkey at 8:18 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I also used the voice recording app on my phone to try to talk through my ideas when writing failed me.
Best of luck. It's hard, but then it's over.
posted by monkeymonkey at 8:18 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
What keeps marathon runners going is the ticking down of the mileage from 2... to 1.99... to 1.98... to 1.97... to 1.96... to 1.95... to 1.94... to 1.93...
That immediate feedback where the goal is not to complete two more miles, but to complete one more step. To complete your thesis, you do not need to put together a final published paper – although you do – you need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
One way to do this is to break the process into chunks. This is why writers will have a list of how many words they wrote that day – often with no target. The point is to know how far they came that day. How many more words do they have today than yesterday.
If you can measure progress toward the end result, that's ideal. "I have 2,000 words left" or "I have 3 pages left" or "I have three more experiments to write up". If you don't know the end result, then switch to "I wrote 300 words today" or "I wrote 2/3 of a page today" or "I wrote up one experiment today".
As long as the mind is focused on large, abstract goals, you can lose perspective. After running 24 miles, you just need to keep putting one foot in front of the next. You don't need to go two miles, you need to go one footstep X number of times.
I had a similar experience in grad school – where I was done but had two more classes to go. What worked was setting up an extremely regimented work schedule. 3 hours a day of class. 4 hours a day of work. Then two hours of running and three hours going out with mates. It was two months of work, and pretty much everything else in life stopped for those two months. I got through with the marks I was after and carried on.
I detested every moment of class and every moment of assignment. I was fatigued and tired. I wanted to be done. The run cleared my head. The time out with mates gave me something to look forward to each day. And the regimented schedule meant two things: 1) I didn't have to make many decisions, and 2) I could count the days off the calendar.
Looking back, it is a bit laughable now. I see that really all I had to do was go from staring at the degree on the wall to counting down from 2... to 1.99... to 1.98... to 1.97... you get the point.
posted by nickrussell at 4:15 AM on February 20, 2016
That immediate feedback where the goal is not to complete two more miles, but to complete one more step. To complete your thesis, you do not need to put together a final published paper – although you do – you need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
One way to do this is to break the process into chunks. This is why writers will have a list of how many words they wrote that day – often with no target. The point is to know how far they came that day. How many more words do they have today than yesterday.
If you can measure progress toward the end result, that's ideal. "I have 2,000 words left" or "I have 3 pages left" or "I have three more experiments to write up". If you don't know the end result, then switch to "I wrote 300 words today" or "I wrote 2/3 of a page today" or "I wrote up one experiment today".
As long as the mind is focused on large, abstract goals, you can lose perspective. After running 24 miles, you just need to keep putting one foot in front of the next. You don't need to go two miles, you need to go one footstep X number of times.
I had a similar experience in grad school – where I was done but had two more classes to go. What worked was setting up an extremely regimented work schedule. 3 hours a day of class. 4 hours a day of work. Then two hours of running and three hours going out with mates. It was two months of work, and pretty much everything else in life stopped for those two months. I got through with the marks I was after and carried on.
I detested every moment of class and every moment of assignment. I was fatigued and tired. I wanted to be done. The run cleared my head. The time out with mates gave me something to look forward to each day. And the regimented schedule meant two things: 1) I didn't have to make many decisions, and 2) I could count the days off the calendar.
Looking back, it is a bit laughable now. I see that really all I had to do was go from staring at the degree on the wall to counting down from 2... to 1.99... to 1.98... to 1.97... you get the point.
posted by nickrussell at 4:15 AM on February 20, 2016
Hi friend! I'm also in my last semester of grad school and was working FT through all of it until last month. I hope at least it's nice to see that most people in that situation find it really tough to slog through.
As everyone here has said, the answer is structure. I know it seems like that's the opposite of the answer, because you just want to fuck off and be done and know the joy of unstructured time, BUT: here's the thing about not having structure. When you don't quite know when you're going to get to work or how much work you're going to get done or how many hours a day you need to spend, what happens is that you spend every hour of every day thinking about the project, in the background, and also berating yourself because you're not doing it. In other words, you never feel good, you never feel relaxed, and you never feel like you're really having time "off." Not having a structure turns all time off into time that's emotionally and mentally "on." Which is, of course, exhausting.
Set a reasonable goal. Try it for a week. Maybe the goal is something you saw above - pomodoro, set hours like 6-8 pm - or maybe it's your own structure that works for you. Right now when I'm not working, I have "office hours" 10-3 with a lunch break around noonish of one hour. It's pretty productive. After 3 I stand up from the computer, close the document, put away the books and start non-computer tasks. Housework. Errands outside. Workout. Those moving-around things put a nice wedge into the end of the workday. Then, I can devote some of the evening to R&R. Obviously, that schedule can't work on your part-time days. But find a schedule that does.
Second, maybe try scheduling easier and more discrete tasks on the days you have to work part-time. I don't know if those are full 8-hour days or 4-hour shifts or what, but be wary of trying to get major work done on the days you're working at that other work. There's been a lot of research recently about focus and willpower, and the consensus seems to be that we all have a certain amount of decisionmaking energy/focus/willpower each day, and that the tasks required in a workday run through a whole lot of it. So this means that on a workday you won't have much left over to dig into harder projects such as writing section drafts. So, save up the simpler, more straightforward tasks for days you have to work, if you must do thesis work on those days. Maybe that's cleaning up citations, or taking notes on a single chapter of a reading, or sending an update/questions to your adviser. Make sure they are time-limited and the kind of thing that when you're done, you're done. Don't expect too much of yourself on days you are already having to work.
posted by Miko at 7:18 AM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
As everyone here has said, the answer is structure. I know it seems like that's the opposite of the answer, because you just want to fuck off and be done and know the joy of unstructured time, BUT: here's the thing about not having structure. When you don't quite know when you're going to get to work or how much work you're going to get done or how many hours a day you need to spend, what happens is that you spend every hour of every day thinking about the project, in the background, and also berating yourself because you're not doing it. In other words, you never feel good, you never feel relaxed, and you never feel like you're really having time "off." Not having a structure turns all time off into time that's emotionally and mentally "on." Which is, of course, exhausting.
Set a reasonable goal. Try it for a week. Maybe the goal is something you saw above - pomodoro, set hours like 6-8 pm - or maybe it's your own structure that works for you. Right now when I'm not working, I have "office hours" 10-3 with a lunch break around noonish of one hour. It's pretty productive. After 3 I stand up from the computer, close the document, put away the books and start non-computer tasks. Housework. Errands outside. Workout. Those moving-around things put a nice wedge into the end of the workday. Then, I can devote some of the evening to R&R. Obviously, that schedule can't work on your part-time days. But find a schedule that does.
Second, maybe try scheduling easier and more discrete tasks on the days you have to work part-time. I don't know if those are full 8-hour days or 4-hour shifts or what, but be wary of trying to get major work done on the days you're working at that other work. There's been a lot of research recently about focus and willpower, and the consensus seems to be that we all have a certain amount of decisionmaking energy/focus/willpower each day, and that the tasks required in a workday run through a whole lot of it. So this means that on a workday you won't have much left over to dig into harder projects such as writing section drafts. So, save up the simpler, more straightforward tasks for days you have to work, if you must do thesis work on those days. Maybe that's cleaning up citations, or taking notes on a single chapter of a reading, or sending an update/questions to your adviser. Make sure they are time-limited and the kind of thing that when you're done, you're done. Don't expect too much of yourself on days you are already having to work.
posted by Miko at 7:18 AM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by FireFountain at 4:21 PM on February 19, 2016 [3 favorites]