Hi everyone,
I am new here. I am a phd student in my final year. I have extended for the second time. I have to submit in November, I do not know if anyone have the same issue or is it just me. Every time I wake up with the intention to do some work I free I literally free and I do not want to do anything. I know what I should do it it not easy but it is pretty straightforward but I do not why I panic and I feel like a total loser. any advice?

Amal

The truth is that you simply need to get moving on this,
I started my thesis by writing down all of the headings and sub headings of the things I wanted to write about. From then on I knew I only needed about 3 pages per sub heading. That allowed me to break down the problem into manageable chunks, keep to the overall flow of the story of the thesis and make progress. I ticked off each sub heading once I had written the core of it. That allowed me to see how things were progressing immediately, helping with my motivation and belief.
I have never had a panic attack over work so I have no idea how to advise you on how to calm down and get motivated. Someone else may be able to help there but honestly if you have already had two extensions and to harbour any ambition to finish, you are bang out of time for doing anything other than getting started right now.

Hey,

I felt a bit like this recently - I really didn't want to do any work - I felt sick of it and had to move all my deadlines further away. I took a bit of time out and then returned to it. Since coming back to it, I haven't really allowed myself to think much about how good it is but rather have just focused on getting it done. A friend once told me to aim for "dumb but done". It really helps!

It could be a bit of perfectionism / fear of it not being as good as you want it to be / something similar that is stalling you. Maybe you think that the amount you have to do isn't actually doable in the time you have? Have you adequately planned - breaking down each section etc and designating time for writing it? Procrastination comes in many shapes and sizes.

Hope this stimulates some useful thought. You'll get there in the end!

Tudor

I have been in your exact situation for a while and only recently have I started to get myself out of it.

I have so much to do that the very thought of it puts me off, I think to myself that there's no way I will get it done in the time I have today so it can wait until another day.

However, I recently spent a few days breaking down absolutely everything I have to do into smaller tasks, instead of thinking I have the data of 100 surveys to input into SPSS I wrote down "input 1-10", "input 11-21" etc and thinking of doing 10 at a time is a lot less scary than thinking of doing 100 and I have actually managed to get the whole data set input in less than a week by doing it this way. The main reason for this is because in my head I have had 10 to do and it has got me to actually sit down and focus and I ended up doing more. Plus on the day that I did only do 10, I still achieved what I had set out to when I sat down so I didn't walk away from my desk feeling like I had let myself down by not doing the whole lot.

pm133 and Tudor_Queen have both mentioned breaking down your to do list into smaller chunks and trust me, it honestly does work.

Update:

Thank you, all, for your advice. I ended up being diagnosed with MS. I suffered from cognitive fog and I felt like a failure because I just could not think. I got a chance to finish my phd. I'm still working and I followed your advice of breaking down my tasks.

Don’t be hard on your self. MS might impact on your whole life and this is something out of your control. As they said try to break tasks and dont exhaust your self. My sister is a neurologist specialized in Ms and she always talk about her patients professional success so you can do it.

Thank you and good luck with your VIVA.