![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This was in her live chat on Friday. I'm posting it mostly so that I have it when thesis time rolls around.
Dissertation, Inertia: Hi Carolyn, I'm writing my dissertation and have been having a terrible motivation problem. I mean TERRIBLE. I sit in front of my computer every day, all day. And surf the Internet, participate on message boards, etc. If I am lucky, I work for an hour or two.
I really want to finish this thing, I really do. I just don't know how to stay focused. I work from home, which is part of the problem - no social contacts at all during the day, so I start to feel depressed, lethargic, etc. Any words of wisdom to get me through this?
Carolyn Hax: 1. Go work where you have no Internet connection. If you have a wireless connection on your laptop, take it out. If you keep getting the urge to go home, get on a train and ride in circles.
2. Schedule your day to include social breaks. Work 8 to 11; go visit somewhere; work 1 to 4; take a walk; from 5 to 6, plan out your work for the next day, quit for the day at 6.
3. And if you have a day when you're really cranking, keep working; use that as permission to quit for the day if you're just not in the right frame of mind. Just make sure the two roughly even out.
Dissertation, Inertia: Hi Carolyn, I'm writing my dissertation and have been having a terrible motivation problem. I mean TERRIBLE. I sit in front of my computer every day, all day. And surf the Internet, participate on message boards, etc. If I am lucky, I work for an hour or two.
I really want to finish this thing, I really do. I just don't know how to stay focused. I work from home, which is part of the problem - no social contacts at all during the day, so I start to feel depressed, lethargic, etc. Any words of wisdom to get me through this?
Carolyn Hax: 1. Go work where you have no Internet connection. If you have a wireless connection on your laptop, take it out. If you keep getting the urge to go home, get on a train and ride in circles.
2. Schedule your day to include social breaks. Work 8 to 11; go visit somewhere; work 1 to 4; take a walk; from 5 to 6, plan out your work for the next day, quit for the day at 6.
3. And if you have a day when you're really cranking, keep working; use that as permission to quit for the day if you're just not in the right frame of mind. Just make sure the two roughly even out.
