Hi Everyone,

I'm running the risk of breaking my computer during a tantrum...... (!)

I've been tidying up data collected from a bunch of papers, trying to normalise it into formats I can use for my own purposes. I've done it before a few months ago but I wanted to re-do it now that I know more than I did then...

...But I've ended up spending the last 5 days redoing bits here, filling in discrepancies, looking up missing data in this-and-that database. Checking, rechecking yada yada yada.

I've just done another summary of what I've got and I'm pretty much where I started, proportionally. In my summary I've found more stuff that's missing, more stuff that I need to tidy. I can't quite believe it (nor do i understand what's happened).

All I know is that I'm cutting my losses and realising that it's been a remarkable waste of 5 days of my time (It's not like I don't have a million other things to do).

Not sure whether to laugh or cry. Feeling like a colossal looser :)

Please tell me you all have this "running around in circles wasting your own time" thing.


-InaPickle

What, only 5 days? That's nothing...

:) *chuckles*
Five days this time.

This has SO happened to me - and over and over. I've learned to go into a kind of zen space when I realise it has happened again. Have you seen the movie 'Ice cold in Alex?' All PhDers should see it. At one point, after a gruelling time pushing the jeep up a sand dune, the hapless female crew member accidentally lets it roll to the bottom. She wants to cry. The plucky captain whatsit just grits his teeth and tells them all to start over again straight away. I love this movie!

I will try and find the movie. That would be a good thread to start "Movies to inspire/motive/prevent self harm in PhD students"!

Did I mention that the work was an exercise in sheer tedium? :) Nice to hear it's happened to you too. Smilodon, are you doing a sciencey PhD? Does it still happen when you're further in?

It's sciencey and this is my final year and it still happens. I just wasted a couple of days trying to make a dummy-data set and I keep changing my mind about how to do it.

Hi Inapickle,

the feeling of going in round in circles is something which I recognise very well. I think most of use know the feeling. I think it is frustrating, yet probably also part of the research process, in which yout constantly re-interate and in which you are frequently reminded regarding how little you actually know. Progress goes in small steps.