Daffy's 'a nice cup of tea cheers you up' diary

Lemon_Tree

was it Karin going for a walk again?

Cheery_Daff

I think Pippi HAS frozen eggs VL! :j :j :j (cracked and whisked a little, I believe, and put into little silicone baking tray things?)

Yay to pancakes and wayward chickens :rotfl:

Yes, all eggs arrived safely Friend was well impressed with the ones we left with him :j :j

Just used dotty timer (thanks Pippi!) to do 15 minutes in the kitchen, which as a complete tip, as we just dumped bags, and rummaged through them all evening turfing out things without unpacking properly :rotfl: My stuff all unpacked now, washing on, books in a pile to go upstairs, washing up done, table cleared, recycling out, sofa sorted out - all in 15 minutes! :j :j :j

Did breakfast/tea/forum in another 15 minutes

Off up into the attic now - no more house stuff until at least a couple of hours of PhD done! :j :j

Karmacat

Thats impressive - your post was nearly 2 hours ago, and your light is still red - and I love the 15minute flylyady thing!

redsquirrel80

Welcome back Cheery - glad you had a lovely holiday, happy new year! x

Lemon_Tree

i've got a chicken timer now which i'm using to get jobs done. It's much easier doing jobs when you have a pretty timer to do them by

Cheery_Daff

Quite right, and I now have a lovely red and white polka dot egg shaped timer, which I am loving very much

Morning's work done :j :j :j I even finished it in slightly less time than planned! :eek: :eek: Amazing what you can do when you turn the internet off :rotfl: :rotfl:

About to get changed and go for a little plod - it was gorgeous out there this morning, clouded over now, which is a shame, but if I had run this morning that wouldn't have been prioritising the PhD, would it?!? A bit of fresh air and exercise will do me good anyway, might even have a shower - haven't had one since I left Pippi's house on Tuesday :rotfl:

Then an afternoon of focusing, hopefully as successful as the morning, and an evening of playing and cheeriness

OOh, forgot to say earlier - there's a major reason my goal setting was successful last year!! I have a little A5 size notebook that I carry around EVERYWHERE, it's always in my bag. Nothing special, and I don't try to be profound in it, but it's where I 'talk to myself' if you like. Last year I worked out my goals by just writing round and round things til they felt right, then listed my goals in there. At some point during every week (usually when sitting on the bus, or the train, or in the hospital (I sat in hospital waiting rooms A LOT last year :rotfl:), or a cafe, I'd get it out, and look at my goals, and see how far I was progressing. I'd usually write the title of each category (so home), then the first goal, then have a think about whether I'd done anything about it, and what I needed to do over the next few days.

That was what made it so successful for me - so many times before I've set goals and just expected them to happen all by themselves! But regular reviewing - with diary by my side so I could write in 'ring builder' or 'run for half an hour' or 'find fabric for present' or 'buy flour' on appropriate days - meant that they kept in my mind, and the little steps GOT PUT IN THE DIARY and ACTUALLY DONE - that's what did the trick! :j :j

Would highly recommend it if you do plan lots of goals, helps you keep on track :j :j :j

(not sure I've put up a list of my goals yet, I might do that at some point but not right now!)

Cheery_Daff

Well, that took a little longer than anticipated :rotfl: but I've had lunch, cleared up, been for a run, had a nice shower, and been through all my holiday photos deleting the dud ones and sorting out what I'd like to put on the blog Back to it now for a while so I can have a break when Mr Daffs gets back from town, see what goodies he's acquired

hypno06

Happy New Year!

Cheery_Daff

Thanks Hypno and to you too! :T

Having a bit of an old PhD panic here Was doing alright this morning, now I can feel myself drifting slowly but surely back into the old panic mode where nothing gets done, because there's just *so much* left to be done... Can't decide what's necessary and what isn't, and supervisors were meant to have got back to me by now with comments on my two final chapter drafts (which were extremely short - which is why I needed guidance - and they've had since 14th December!) <sigh>

Just posting here to try and lift myself out of it a little bit! I'm thinking it's probably futile to make a proper start on these two chapters until I've had their comments, especially as it's just making me feel like I'm going round in circles, so instead I'm going to move to a different chapter, which needs doing, but I know what I'm doing. Should regain a little bit of control

The rest of the week I'm going to be working on it all day, every day, but giving myself the evenings off, as I'm starting full time work on Monday :eek: and don't want to be either exhausted or completely stressed So I promised myself work hard in the day, and relax and be cheery in the evening, rather than letting PhD spill over all the hours and ending up tired and stressed. Next week I'm in the office Mon-Wed, away on fieldwork on Thursday, and working at home on Friday, then off to visit family friday night until Saturday night, so I need the bulk of the writing that's left done before then so I can work on little bits on trains here and there.

I'm just SO fed up of it all! Pah!

redsquirrel80

Good idea to restrict the PhD to 'working hours'. Probably not much comfort but quite a few academics here don't seem to be back from the hols yet. And those that are are being hassled by people like me to get stuff in by silly deadlines

Think how far you've come with it compared to how much there is left to do - you're nearly there