Hi everyone,

I thought I'd join in as I'm now in write up and feeling the pressure! My (self imposed) deadline is August 2012 as I have a very pedantic supervisor who will take at least 4 months to approve the thesis for examination (my funding lasts until January 2013).

I think it will be possible to write chapters that need extensive reading in 48 days, the approach I've adopted to significantly speed up my writing is to read then type straight into a document on the laptop. Some of it I'll then cut out but at least it's all there electronically and will just need tidying up. I wish I'd done this from the very beginning as I have reams of paper notes from my early PhD days and I could kick myself now! Ho hum. Anyway good luck to everyone else writing up ;-)

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34 days to go.. struggling through chapter 4.. want to give it my best shot the next 3 days and then polish. its tough.. no kidding. lol. my aim is to have it done and dusted by December 10th. i've added 5 days to the initial Dec 5th deadline to give myself some breathing space. and then chapter 5 by Christmas eve. its just 5,000 words long so am hoping its doable. then 10 days to proofread and do footnotes and formatting. and then i'll be a free bird.. can't wait. that is actually exciting me more than the quality or outcome of thesis- as at this point i just want to move on with life - regardless of outcome. yay!

but before then 30 days of very hard work..

Lindalou - thanks you post is very encouraging. at least you think its doable. i agree with you about typing straight into document. wish someone told me that ages ago. lol.

how is your work going?

I have a mid January deadline that I'm desperately trying to work towards- so I thought I would join you all in the race to meet a January deadline.

I'm post viva, but I'm PAINFULLY trying to follow my thesis corrections which involves loads and loads of re-writes. Not fun at all. I have until August to make all the changes, but I want to finish this monster of a PhD asap. I'm trying to cut out words and reduce everything down. Definitely not easy. Given the amount of changes I still need to make to my literature review chapters (ie need to cut out around 20,000-30,000 words for my literature review chapters alone!), I don't think I'll be celebrating Christmas, New Year or my birthday in early January.

At the moment, I'm working Fridays, Saturdays and part of Sundays which leaves the rest of the week to focus on my PhD thesis corrections. Feels like I'm living in some sort of hell dimension at the moment- and I'm CHOOSING to put myself through this!!!

Anyway, I've been through the stress of producing a PhD thesis ready for submission, so I can totally relate! Best of luck to those of you submitting shortly.
(sprout)

Hi Hailey, Lindalou83 and Pineapple29, and anyone else on this thread I may have missed out,

I just wanted to say that I have joined in as well.... with my post viva corrections.... I have till may. But I am determined to see the back of this thesis by February! It means working tirelessly, but I have found the courage by reading everyones posts on here and strongly believe that I can start ticking of the corrections, whatever comes my way I am sure I(we)will overcome it -Trust and believe :-)

Bon courage to one and all

P.S - pineapple29 - dont you worry we will celebrate christmas after we have submitted we could call it the post thesis extended xmas celebrations ;-) complete with xmas tree and thesis copy under the tree as a present from santa !!!

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Hey Naturalme (great name by the way!)

Agreed- IF I get through this, trust me, I'm going to celebrate :)

Nice to see I'm not alone on this post-viva thesis corrections journey....I've been working on this thesis since the early hours of this morning and I'm shattered! :( Early night for me!

The thought of my examiners rejecting my thesis revisions is keeping me awake though! :S and putting the fear of God in me!

Anyway, I'll keep taking a day as it comes, setting little goals for myself, working on my self efficacy and try and think more positively (ie remember very positive feedback from examiners and viva outcome could have been an MPhil or fail outright)

I initially hoped to finish my thesis corrections by Feb/March, but realistically, I'll probably end up submitting on the summer deadline.... which is a truly depressing thought! However, I still intend to put in serious amount of hours in before my progress meeting in January and show them that I've made significant progress with my thesis.....

Best of luck Naturalme :) With you all the way!

hi all!!! its great to have company and know that am not the only one who's overwhelmed by this thesis writing! my organisation hasn't been very good so i have so much to do in a month. write two chapters. one from scratch - though its 5,000 words. also try not to panic while am at it. lol

am particularly concerned about my efficiency. today i have only added three paragraphs to my thesis :( and read so much. i suppose though that's progress from yesterday. its gonna be a tough 10 days ahead but am prepared to take them on. only managing 9 or 10 tomatoes a day. wish i could improve that.

but either way am happy. tomorrow i will try very hard not to be a perfectionist.

to avoid panicking - am not aiming for a good thesis. just an interesting thesis. ;) (that's a major tip right there. lol)

at pineapple - i know what you mean on cutting words. i had to cut a part of my former draft from 58,000 to 10,000 words. to say i was traumatised is an understatement!

Hello all,

Back today after having a migraine yesterday - I might be mad coming back to working on a screen only a day after but I suppose that's par for the course! Glad to hear you're all doing ok!

Hailey - don't panic! It can be done! You've done really well so far and not long to go now, you can do it!

Good luck for today postgrad peeps!

thanks Lindalou!

your confidence in my ability is making tonnes more difference than you'll ever know.

am very relieved today, one terribly hard section is done today. will proofread and polish (references only!) tomorrow. and then i'll have 9 days of very hard work as its an analysis section. when this chapter is done i will be the happiest girl in the world!

all the best to everyone else writing. hang in there.

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Right ready to face my thesis today. Integrated a new brand new structure into my chapter 2 and planning to finish off my evil social and historical context sections. Strangly productive in the early hours of the morning!

Given some of their positive comments from the examiner reports (although examiners also listed loads of limitations and weaknesses! including ('this thesis is over ambitious in its coverage' :$)I think it would be worth continuing rather than dropping out!

Yesterday was a bad day for me- I wanted to quit soooo bad! I found myself in a loop of very negative inhibiting thoughts- ie 'my examiners will not accept these thesis revisions', 'their going to fail me', 'why am I thinking about completing a PhD, I'm not clever enough!', I'm so behind everyone else, everyone else in my department and people starting a year before me passed with minors, yet I'm still working on it' , my supervisors must be regretting taking me on etc etc....

Anyway, my thoughts for this morning- think more positive, STOP comparing myself to others, FOCUS ON THE STRENGTHS of my PhD, believe I can do this, take a section at a time and 'just keep swimming, just keeping swimming' (Maybe I should search for a motivational poster and place it next to my desk!?!)

Keep going folks!!

Hey Hailey, no problem 8-) glad I've made you feel better! Fingers crossed I can work by your example and get the thesis beast tamed sooner rather than later! I didn't get much done yesterday as I was still in the grip of residual headache but I am going to power on today!

have had a few bad days... but now NO excuses anymore. i have to push til i finish this chapter.

am using the pomodoro technique mytomatoesdotcom.

how may tomatoes have you done today? i usually do 6 on an average day and 10 on a good day.

can i do more than 10? am aiming for 11 today.

who wants to join me?

my greatest distractions are fb & sleep.. i need to cut down on fb and give up the idea that one day i will be an early riser. i have accepted myself and the fact that am created to burn the midnight oil.. not to be the Sir Allen 5am type. lol.

right..

12.40 pm - 1am - lets see how many tomatoes i can do.

have a tomatoery day. lol.

Today's aim is to write 1000 words.

Hello,

I will be joining you after lunch (I'm about to hit the supermarket on an empty stomach which I know is a bad idea but I have a massive hankering for bacon crisps!) I'm aiming to get around 500 words done today as I have undergraduate students to chase which is always time consuming! tsk! I don't think I was this naughty when I was an undergrad!
Good luck!