What more can I say? This is the beginning of the end. Feeling nostalgic I thought I'd look back and read some of my blogs.... this one had a high number of hits. It was entitled How to do a PhD, work full-time, and still have a family life. Obviously it resonated with PhDers out there. After six years I can say my 'small chunks' plan worked.
When I began my PhD my good friend R2 (that makes me R1 as in Scrabble) suggested twenty hours a week was the requirement for part-time PhD so that's what I do. I kept a log for a while to make sure I was on track but as with all procrastination activities the excel spreadsheet eventually gave way to a similar time waster. Here's my grand plan. Not particularly innovative. Small chunks. Bit by bit. Nibble away. Concentrated effort at times of low work pressure; full-time for 50% of holidays and whatever-whenever for the rest. At least 4-5 hours on the weekend if full-time work is full-on and nothing can happen during the week. Bite size bits....research via TROVE, reading an article, writing a paragraph, interviewing by phone... can all be done in chunks. A hour here. An hour there. Chunk by chunk it is coming together. 30000 words and six folders of research and only 50000 to go. Of course, there are Saturdays when it takes 3 hours to get started and it's 3pm before I manage to formulate a single useful sentence.
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