I understand that you might feel very put out by this but I also agree that superficially similar projects can become very different in reality. Within a few months of starting my PhDs, I found out that one of my research team had a PhD student, who had nearly completed, who was apparently doing exactly the same thing as me! Her project description sounded identical, and she seemed quite offended and aggressive. I felt very much in her shadow for a few months until I realised that my area of interest was totally different.

If you can introduce yourself to the new academic, and request to be part of the research group, then you could instantly find yourself amongst an improved group of collaborators, and not competitors. Unless the culture of your department is very destructive, there will probably be far more benefits than drawbacks in having more people in your same area to discuss ideas with.

Sorry for starting another thread, but I wondered just quickly if anyone else felt that they had done nothing tangible by the start of their final funded year? Were you able to pull yourself out of it or did you end up going over your funding time? For me personally, the end of funding is a hard deadline, but I am very anxious about my lack of results (I have all of my data).

Lorna,
Your post made me cringe for you -- surely it is less productive for your thesis to be wondering how to prove you're being productive? For every minute you spend writing Gantt charts and mind maps and the like, is another minute you're not spending on the science. Ironically you're not getting on with it, if "it" is the research.

Have you tried asking her what she means by "getting on with it"?

Hi,

I am in the final funded year of my PhD and I am about 4 months behind. I have all of my data but I have done virtually no analysis on it. My supervisor is very helpful but has been away due to personal reasons and, after this semester will be away on sabbatical until well after I am supposed to submit. My second supervisor is no specialist in my field, and my third supervisor is in a different country. I am also the only person in my lab working on this topic, and few are doing anything even remotely similar. My field is very small and highly multidisciplinary so it is difficult to find others to advise me specifically, those who could help are either overseas, or may become my external examiners so it would be difficult to ask for help.

The work should not be hard... but I am finding concentration impossible and procrastination intense. Just writing fifty, a hundred words is a huge strain, and just analysing one block of data and producing one single graph takes days, if not weeks.

My fear of making a mistake is intense, and I have so many ideas I don't know which to focus on. It takes me so long to do anything and I see so many mistakes in what I do.

I love my topic and want to complete but this paralysis has taken over. I have even been referred to counsellors, but talking about my childhood hasn't helped my PhD! I am supposed to have a full results chapter (50 pages) finished by the end of this month. At the moment I've written less than a page of it.

It would be easy to write a to-do list if I knew what to do. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Do you have any advice for me?