Hi

I'm new to the forum and to PhD life

I'm finding it difficult to get anything done because I have lots of things that seem to need doing all at the same time, so I'm flitting between things and basically not being productive. So hopefully this one goal thread will help :)

I'm starting my Western Blots tomorrow, so this afternoon I plan to:

- Go over the lab protocol
- Prepare all my buffers etc.
- Find out where everything is in the lab
- Work out the amount of protein in my samples and work out how much ill need to load per well
- Write up lab work from yesterday

Done the majority of my christmas shopping already, the joys of Boots and Amazon :D:-)

Good for you! I'm finding it hard to get started, with my
supervisor suggesting lots of things to look up etc. I think setting
weekly/fortnightly goals will make the whole process go a bit smoother for me.
Going to give it a whirl :)

Welcome Teaspoon!

I would have appreciated knowing about this website from the start of my PhD so I hope you make good use of it!

My days haven't been as productive as I would have liked this week, I was demonstrating for two classes so between that and travelling I have not achieved what I would have liked.

So for the rest of today I aim to do some of my data analysis so I know how to approach it and lay out a plan of action to show my supervisor next week.

Hope everyone has a productive day!

Thanks Xtiny for your encouragement. It's nice to have it, esp. when family and friends just glaze over at the mention of the thesis :)

I think I achieved my last goal just then. Ive put together pdf file letters and information to go out to the Principals of the schools, that I hope to collect data from-after having received both ethics permission and a permission from the Director of the system. I've activated my survey and embedded the link in the participant letter for the first round of data collection and case study participant recruitment.

So even though it is late in the year for Aussie teachers, I'm hoping that those who have lost their senior classes and have a bit of time before we break up, might have the time to do the survey. If not, I will send a similar one round early in February-but it would be great if I had some responses before the start of next year.

So Monday, I contact the personal assistants, get a bit of support and then send the email info packages off to schools-hopefully for the Principal to distribute and then I sit and wait in hope.

After that, it is back to work for three more weeks (employment that is) and then a solid month on getting the lit review sorted. So next goal (after Monday) is the lit review draft in earnest. But I will probably break this down into smaller goals -as are on concept map- and focus on these over Christmas and the summer holidays. Ive booked myself a 'desk' in the research office for a week over the holidays, just to become a little more of the community, while I have the chance.

Good luck to everyone else(up)

That sounds like a brilliant plan! Especially using a desk space to become part of the community, I think that is a very important to try get involved. I have just started my 2nd year of my PhD and it was only last week I made the effort to go to a social night and I met people who have been in the same building as me all that time!

I had a very large list of things that I wanted to achieve today and this week which has been thrown out the window after I started feeling ill yesterday afternoon... Turns out my body will not let me leave the flat today. I am hoping that I feel better enough by this afternoon to be able to at least finish marking lab reports I have from demonstrating and restructure my plan for the week now I am not in the office today.

Good luck for today everyone.

Good luck today xtiny, and hope you're feeling better soon - it sounds like you have a good plan for progressing the work, so hopefully you'll throw off the illness soon.

And welcome to the thread teaspoon.

I've got new impetus to get my thesis finished before Christmas now - I've got a job!! Had the interview on Thursday and they phoned me on Friday to offer the job. Research associate in a very highly respected university, looking at exactly what interests me. I'm so happy about it - and relieved, I was sure after the interview that I hadn't got it, and was starting to wonder if I'd ever find a job. Yay! They want me to get my thesis out of the way and start in January - so no excuses for not finishing the thesis now!

Today I'm trying to power through the last bits of my difficult data analysis. So far so good!

Congrats on the job BatFink! and Xtiny I hope your feeling better :)

Right this weeks plan of action:

- Stripping western membranes and reblotting (because one of my antibodies is officially rubbish!).
- Prepare protein lysates and run another western ( is my cells have grown enough).
- Finishing the paper review I have been putting off for over a week. :S
- Organise journal club for this friday (even though I can't attend).
- Attend a full day seminar series as suggested by supervisor.
- Make up SOPs for methods not covered by SOPs or update the SOPs are overdue for updating.

NB. when I started making the list I didn't think I was going to have that much to do this week... I was wrong!

Congrats on the job Batfink! That is great news and hopefully the final motivation needed to get completed before christmas. What type of data analysis are you doing? I have currently been putting off mine for a while now as the task is so daunting!

Teaspoon, I am impressed with your weeks to do list... I also have one as long but realistically I expect to achieve maybe half! Good luck getting everything done and I hope your cells grow!

I am feeling much better today apart from the regret of missing out on a whole day of work. So back to it today! My main goal is to trouble shooting some statistics problems I have been having and if I cannot work it out myself I am going to force my Supervisor to see me at some point this week. I have definately not been asking for help when I need it but if I want to make any progress I need to bite the bullet. I also aim to map out a diagram I need to make for my thesis which I have been putting off for too long.

Hope everyone achieves their goals today - as Abraham Lincoln said "A goal properly set is halfway reached".

Thanks, both of you, I'm very happy about the job! (And a little bit daunted, but I'm sure it'll be fine....)

Today I'm pressing on with my last bits of stats again - it's Structural Equation Modeling, which I've been very slow to really understand but I think I'm finally getting there. I'm hoping that I can finish the last of this analysis this week and then I'll have a clear run for nothing but finishing the writing up.

Good luck everyone with today's goals! I like the quote about a goal well-planned being half done, that feels like a good maxim to live by!

Hi all!

Batfink congrats on the job- that's great news!

I've been busy on non-related PhD stuff again, mainly teaching and marking. That's finally done, but I now need to tackle the revisions for a journal article I've just received feedback on. It looks like it will be a long process, eugh, but I really want to get it done to the best that I can. Which means delaying working on my thesis, but hey ho, that can wait!

That must be pretty exciting to possibly be in the last week of analysis Batfink...? After all the hard work the end is almost in sight!

Button, sometimes you need to spend time getting other things out the way first then you can really concentrate! That is my problem, I end up worrying about all the little things I have to do rather than just getting some of them out of the way!

I think I almost achieved my goals yesterday, though I didn't arrange a meeting with my supervisor. Today I aim to tackle my stats and make note of any areas I am stuck and move on, rather than spend all day trying to figure out myself how to fix it. THEN I will arrange a meeting. I also hope to complete the diagram I started yesterday and decide the best way to lay it out for the final drawing.

Have a productive day everyone!

Thanks Button. Hope you get your paper revisions done okay!

And yes, xtiny, it's a relief to be near the end, though I'm still daunted by just how much I need to do by my 20 Dec deadline.

Today, I'm pressing on with my data analysis. I've started writing up some of the analysis so I'd like to complete the next stage of analysis and get it written up if I can.

Good luck everyone!

Hi Everyone.

The dreaded bombshell that thows the majority of your to-do list into the 'next weeks' to-do list! A paper review which I thought was for next week was due on monday :s whoops!

Although, done half of what I said on my to-do list for this week (SOPs will be put on the next list) and will hopefully taking charge of cell culture by next week :D

Hope everyone has had a good productive day, so far.

Morning all!

It must be daunting Batfink but the final push is always going to be hard and a lot of work. I reckon we would be suspicious if the final month was easy! Good luck with it all.

Teaspoon, unfortunately unpredictability in the PhD results in some to do lists getting rearranged sometimes. Congrats on getting half way through it anyway and hope you get your lit review sorted.

Today I hope to try interpret a little bit of data analysis I created yesterday and see if I can relate my findings to any other studies etc. Then I have a seminar at 2.30pm for the rest of the day at which my Supervisor is presenting so I am ready to take lots of notes on style etc so next time I present I might be able to impress him!

Good luck today and just think, only 1 day until Friday!

Hello all, good to see you're all getting on with stuff.

I'm on campus today so decided not to lug all my data analysis books and folders with me. Instead, I'm going through my draft thesis filling in gaps and addressing notes to myself that I've left scattered throughout. It feels good to be making progress on the actual main writing, though it's slow work. Ah well, I'll get there!

Good luck with it all today!