The end of productivity...

...well hopefully not, but it is the end of Productive June today. At least I'm ending it on a somewhat productive note, as I am in fact at uni today (yes Saturday) working on my thesis - well besides this quick break I'm obviously taking! As it is so quiet in the PhD office on the weekend (usually only 1-2 other people come in, but I'm often alone) I find it less distracting, but also since I know I'm depriving myself of relaxing/having fun I think I may as well use the time properly and actually do work. 

My writing is going reasonably too. Many people gave me the advice "just write 500 words a day", and I have to say, now that I have finally taken that advice it actually works. I've been (nerdishly) plotting my word count in an excel spreadsheet graph, and I find it encouraging to see the progress. It also spurs me on to at least get to 500, and once I do that I usually end up writing more. It's also helped me to worry a bit less about the looming deadline of November 12 (to be henceforth known as "arrgh no more scholarship must hand in dreaded thesis day" ...too long?), as I (also nerdishly) calculated exactly how many words I could have written by then if I write around the same amount most days. It seems feasible I could have a thesis by then! The other cool thing (well cool to me anyway) is that since I'm doing so much thinking/reading/writing about my topic, I'm really starting to enjoy it again. Additionally it's encouraging to re-read things I first read in my first year and barely understood, and find that now not only do I understand it, but I can critique it.

One downside however is the increasing pile of papers and mess my desk is accumulating. I think this PHD comic sums it up pretty well:

from here

Well sorry if this was totally boring but hey this is pretty much my life at the moment - so thanks for calling my life boring :P

Productive June...

... has actually so far been quite productive (no idea what Productive June is?)! Mostly due to the minor freaking out that is going on in my brain about trying to finish my thesis. Even though this past weekend was a long weekend (woowoo), I ended up going to uni to work on Saturday. It ended up being quite successful, and I'm now thinking I'll do it every Saturday from now on (the excitement never ends here people!). 

I think what happened productivity-wise was I just stopped being in denial as to when my thesis is actually due. While November 12th may still seem quite far away (it's actually 5 months exactly today), I have 8 chapters to write, and specific deadlines each month of when each chapter draft is supposed to go to my supervisor. Not to mention the fact that I'll probably have revisions to make once she's read each chapter! At this stage I'm not sure I will be able to properly meet those deadlines, to be honest.

Because I didn't want this post to just be a boring whinge, here's this thing I found amusing. 

[you can get it on a t-shirt at threadless!]

 

So in conclusion, aargh. 

Q: Are you having a Productive June so far?

Uncertainty.

[from here]

There's a fair bit of it in my life right now. Like I mentioned previously, I really have no idea what will be happening after I finish my thesis. Academia is pretty competitive, and I need the experiments that I'm finishing up to have exciting publishable results that will make my CV look impressive so people will consider hiring me. However I have no idea what the results are yet (hopefully in a few weeks...), or exactly when I'll be finishing my thesis (but really hoping it's before my scholarship runs out). Another thing I'm hoping is to get into a short (one week) course I applied for in Wales. It's on neuroanatomy and if I get accepted they'll fly me over there and my accommodation is sorted too!! I'm supposed to find out by the end of May, so of course I've been checking my email every five minutes in case they've decided. If I get into the course, I might also take the opportunity to visit a few researchers in the UK and try to politely convince them to hire me. I still would really (really really) like to work in the UK obviously, however I have no idea how realistic that goal is either.

I've known since I was around 15 that I wanted to study psychology at university, and even knew which uni I wanted to go to. So it happened. When doing psychology I decided I really wanted to get into honours, so I did. This PhD opportunity pretty much fell in my lap too, so I've been pretty used to doing what I wanted and not having to wait long to get it. That is why this whole having-no-idea-what's-next thing is pretty unsettling. Perhaps being at uni for so long has just pushed back my 'quarter life crisis' a couple of years. 

Having said that though, I've received a lot of encouragement the last couple of days, which I've really appreciated. I had a great meeting with my supervisor Monday, where we made a very specific plan of deadlines for writing my thesis chapters. Since then I've been motivated and productive (and it's not even Productive June yet!) - I've completed two more papers that should be submitted to journals shortly, finished marking reports, and worked on my thesis a fair bit. I also had a meeting with another academic involved in my project and he made it clear he thought my thesis would be well-written, and he said he'd speak to some contacts he has in the UK about possible work. Most of all, Husband has been super encouraging. He doesn't seem at all concerned that things won't work out, and it's helped me not to crawl into a ball overwhelmed by all the things I need to do, but rather get to work and make sure I do my best. Because of that, I've actually felt much more positive than I have in a long time - unfortunately that doesn't change how busy I am!

[via]

That's boring. You're boring everybody. Quit Boring Everyone!

Well now that I've prepared you for what may be a potentially boring post I will continue (though hopefully I haven't biased you towards viewing it as boring by saying that - am I over thinking this? Have I had too much caffeine? I'd say so). Anyway...

A while ago I read this article about nesting in the office. Some argue that having a clean and clutter-free work desk leads to more productivity, while others suggest that 'nesting' (having personal items, and work organised in a way that is however you want) can make you feel more comfortable and at 'home' and therefore that is more productive. I personally agree with the latter. I am so glad in the PhD office that we each get our own little cubicle that we can decorate however we want. Here's mine in case you're interested: 

Astute/regular readers will notice my 'motivational' Productive June Poster - Sleeping is for Unproductive Losers.

Much to my surprise, that plant (named Artemis Esq.) has been alive in my care since 2008!

This is Percy. He is my favourite solar-powered toy. His little head and feet move and everything!

As you can see, when it comes to decorating I am a seven year old child. I like lots of bright colours and toys. Some people may find it distracting to have all this stuff on their desk, but it just makes me feel like it is my place. Most of the time I forget it's there while I'm working, but it's a good quick mental break (and eye exercise people!) to look around at a variety of fun things.

What do you think? Is 'nesting' productive or unproductive? 

P.S. Thanks to those of you who submitted questions for my valuable 'advice'. I will work on answering some soon! There's still time to ask questions also - HERE!

P.P.S. I have a facebook methingy now! Take a look and be my friend please :)

Productive June Recap

[this is a pre-planned post as I'm currently in NYC being super productive at a conference!] 

click to enlarge

As I've mentioned earlier, it's become somewhat of a tradition in the PhD office to have 'Productive June' - a time of attempted increased productivity to make up for the lacklustre efforts of the preceding months. It involves guilt-inducing propaganda posters and everything. Since it's almost over, I thought I would give a bit of a recap of how it went for me, as well as give you some productivity helpers and hindrances. For me, Productive June went fairly well; I did a lot of work on analysing results for my experiment, and putting them together for my conference talk. There were some less-than-productive days in there too, but I feel I made up for that somewhat by working on the weekend a couple of times. How was your Productive June?

Now onto some productivity helps and hinders:

My Experiment Worked!

...well kind of. I haven't finished collecting data yet (stupid saliva being a biohazard delaying my experiment), but since I have to present what I've got so far at the conference in NY I've had to analyse it already.

Professor Frink, my favourite nerd

And things actually happened! While you might expect that when you have a reasonable idea, and test it, that it should work out as expected, this actually happens a lot less than you'd think. Then you have to set out to look for why things didn't happen how you wanted. So for this to work is very exciting (well for me at least). In short (see here for longer explanation of my experiment), people that experienced a greater cortisol (stress hormone) change following watching a film, were more likely to have false memories of the film a week later. Also, those who experienced a greater cortisol change were also more likely to report more distress symptoms in the following week too. HOORAY! Well, not hooray for people having distress symptoms (nothing too bad don't worry), but considering I thought they'd be related and they are, I'm very happy. Hopefully that made sense and you can see why I'm excited.

Or you can see why I'm a giant nerd.

An update of sorts.

I don't have anything particularly gripping to share today, but more just a combination of tidbits of information (I don't think I've ever said tidbit in my life, so there you go).

So attractive...

If you look over at my 30 before 30 page, you'll see I've crossed another thing off my list! I vowed to wear my horrible banana coat out in public, and the other day I did. Husband and a few friends had quite the laugh, especially when I matched not only some road workers with their high visibility vests, but also the curb at a service station, which was painted yellow to make sure people don't fall. It was fun though. Still not sure I'd wear it seriously however.

Secondly, I've lost my wallet (I know I was joking about being an absent minded professor not that long ago, but this is a bit much)! Somewhere over the long weekend it must have fallen out of my bag. I didn't even realise until Monday. Pretty crummy since I have to get replacements of all my cards etc., and particularly bad timing since...

I'm going to NYC next week!! Next Friday, to be exact. Hooray, but also, AARGH! It is very soon and I'm still working on my data and talk (and trying to make sure all my cards get replaced). I'm still not really looking forward to the flights either. However stay tuned for a post soon about getting over fears of flying... it's probably mostly to convince myself but maybe it will help some other people too! 

Lastly, I have a Productive June update for you. June has been very productive so far, I really only have one day of procrastinating to report, and that was the day before the long weekend, which everyone pretty much just phones in anyway. Also, I was very excited to find out that Productive June has now taken off in a whole different department in the uni, thanks to a friend over there. They're displaying guilt-inducing posters and everything! HOORAY! ...how is your Productive June going?

OK that's it for now. Sorry if that was particularly dull, but hey, the posts can't always be about the zombopocalypse (or can they...)!?

Productive June Starts TOMORROW!

So May was particularly unproductive in the first year of my PhD (that's sooo 2009, but anyway). Only being 2 months in, I thought that I'd be still madly reading and coming up with awesome ideas for my thesis, but the procrastination had already set in. Another PhD buddy and I even bought a whole-year pass to the uni gym as a way to get out of the office. Bad news is we procrastinated from that too and actually wasted a lot of money by not really going ever. Oops.

So as a way to get back on track, 'Productive June' was born. Basically this meant we put up propaganda posters to try and motivate/guilt us to do more work. It wasn't overly successful - because mostly we spent June making posters and running around to see if other people were being productive. Yet it somehow stuck. Last year was yet another 'successful' Productive June.

This May has actually been (well mostly) productive for me (read: me going AAARGH and running around like a crazy person because of all the deadlines I had to meet). So hopefully that will spill over into June. At the very least, the conference at the end of June (in NYC woo!) will be good. 

So without further ado, behold my propaganda posters (and mad putting text over clip art skillZ) - feel free to use them if you also need to be guilted into doing work this June.

Click to enlarge; Feel free to use these (with credit)

Any creative Productive June slogans you can think of? Let me know and I might make more posters (after I've finished being super-productive, of course)! :)