Day 1 - "Be clear about what needs to be done!"

No, No.. Not Day 1 of PhD but Day 1 of this blog.. the day I am officially becoming serious for my PhD and plan to share all my experiences (Haha I know official is a funny word here, but I seriously wont let the procrastination phase come back! - Shhh don't laugh :P)

Background: A 4th semester PhD student who has done everything but PhD work in the last semester and is extremely stressed.

Day 1 begin and my alarm couldn't wake me up at a time I wanted to - 2 hours of delay already! So now after finishing today's newspaper (I tend to skip newspapers whenever I am stressed, so this is indeed an achievement) I am now sitting with my little dairy to pin down everything that needs to be done. Why? because my supervisor has been telling me "Shalini, do one small thing at a time, finish it and then proceed to the next", but I never seem to keep a track of what was the target and did I finish it or not? So I guess writing a to-do list is a must for a PhD student. But be careful about 2 things:

1. Don't rank them in order of priorities - that ways you'll always end up picking up the big tasks that take more than usual time to complete and make you even more demotivated!
2. Make sure not to write any "Finish PhD" kind of overambitious impossible-in-the-near-future kind of tasks!

I am now writing everything from simple small things that would not take more than 5 mins of my attention (but have been pending since ever) to things are are huge enough to take more than just one day. I don't deny that the tick marks after completing these task are great motivational drives but the problem is I don't make these lists often - So this becomes my first task. PhD seriously makes me behave like a kid - so happy when I achieve these small targets, and scared when I even think about the big ones that never seem to end.

For now, the list is done and I now I am trying to figure out a task that is easiest so that I win the first tick mark soon.  

More to come everyday!

P.S. for those who aren't comfortable maintaining a dairy can resort to "Google tasks" if you have a Gmail account. Visit mail.google.com/tasks for more details.