Last Thursday, my supervisor cancelled my weekly PhD meeting and instead requested that we sit down and go through my thesis and decide what we need to do moving forward. Both Pawel and David agreed that I should not be doing anymore lab work and just focus on writing my thesis! There it is "only focus on writing".
Productivity: From Friday onwards, I started writing all my results down. I wrote a lot in the span of 4 days and I felt that if I kept writing then I could be finished by the end of the month.
Unproductive: On Wednesday 23 August, I had a really bad day of writing. By 3 pm, I was on the lounge watching a TV show. I did not attempt to recommence writing for the rest of the evening. It really messed me around on Thursday. At this rate, I won't finish my PhD in time!
A tip to improve productivity: I was lucky this week in my Thursday meeting. I got a few tips from my supervisors about writing. David commented that the best thing to do when you are not feeling like thinking is to write out the methods chapter. He was right. Writing out my methods chapter is a simple way to get myself in the mood of writing and to continue my writing routine.
More unproductivity: This morning, I went driving around Wollongong to try and get a quote to fix my passenger-side mirror of my car. Grant from Fernhill Smash Repairs told me that he would be in touch later in the afternoon. NOTE: the passenger side-mirror is no longer afixed to the car as I nipped it off on the way home from the beach yesterday. Without a passenger side-mirror, I cannot drive my car. This means that I can't drive to North Wollongong beach! I need to paddle in the morning for me to feel fresh for a day of writing! This screwed up my whole day. At 10 am, I gave up on writing and decided to head to Innovation Campus to get some data off the computers. I ran there and remained until 4 pm..... and that is all I did today.
In the evening, Nick and I walked to The Barrel Shephard for dinner and drinks. I felt aweful, like I didn't deserve to be going out after a day of very little work and progress. Note to future self: stop going into the lab, save it for the weekend or afternoons.