Anyone else coming into the last months of their PhD and fancy sharing the pain?

[FrozenNorthPole]

As the title says really - I'm due to submit in November. Two children under three. Feel like I'm going mad with panic that I a) won't finish b) won't pass viva c) will never get anything published and d) WILL NEVER FINISH THE PILE OF SODDING undergrad marking that is threatening to overwhelm my desk in order to attempt to do A - C.

That is all. Anyone else near the end of their degree and want to rant?

I'm hoping to submit in January and have a ds(11) and dd(17 months) plus it looks like dsd (16) will ve moving in this summer so lots of stress on top of the phd!

What field are you in? I'm in psychology/palliative care...

Oh and I feel your pain re marking... I have 20 reports to Mark this weekend and no childcare plus I seem to have kidney stones/uti/pain this morning! Arghhhh

I have just submitted (April) with three under 2.5 years. When I started writing I had three under 13 months and it has been alot of dedication, guilt and determination to get the thesis written. I have been studying in the evenings post baby bedtime and have all three with a childminder on one afternoon of bliss a week lol. Hubby has been working away on/off for a few weeks at a time during this write-up aswell. However, I have had no marking to do so I just don't know if I could have done that too. So now i am awaiting a viva date (still) and my motivation has gone as I have no deadline. No doubt I will get short notice and I will be in a panic about prepping in time lol. So I can empathise as I have felt like a) I will never finish, b) can never devote enough time to my children or PhD, c) will never pass my viva as my brain is mush these days. My only thoughts to keep me going is 'that my PhD will all be over soon' and 'my children will hopefully be very proud of me one day' (assuming I pass that is, although they cannot dispute my determination and bl**dy mindedness ).

Well done 2plus1!!

We put dd into nursery 3 afternoons a week but it's still not enough time, I am supposed to be full time! Did you do it full or part time? What tips can you give to get motivated to start writing rather than Faffing about?

Haha, yes it is easy to faff lol. I am part-time so manage about 15-25 hours a week depending on how late out of bed I am. To start writing, I found it useful to draft out my chapter headings, then sub-headings making notes of the content for those sub-headings. Once the format of the thesis was drafted I could then concentrate on one chapter at a time. Basically, by drafting it out in detail you are breaking it down into more manageable sized chunks which are less overwhelming. I have to admit, once I had a format agreed with my supervisory team, I felt quite excited about writing it up. If you get to more difficult areas, break it down more. If you have a bad day (such as writers block) just do mundane tasks such as reference lists etc, that way progress is still being made. I also found it useful to brainstorm on a scrap of paper, and have one handy for those small but significant thoughts that crucially come up when hands are full of dirty nappies lol.

An analogy of thesis writing I read about was to think of the process as four charactors, madman, archetect, carpenter and judge. Each personna has a valid and important input. The madman is responsible for those ideas and thoughts that come out in a random, incoherrant fashion. The archetect is responsible for arranging the products of the madman into a coherrant structure. The carpenter follows on by building the draft thesis by writing it and fitting it together. Lastly, the judge is required to tidy the draft by editing and sifting through the relevant content. So you will need to go through each of these phases in the right order to become efficient.

With babies limiting time, I found having a desk space ready to go invaluable rather than filing everything away. List of things to do helped to pick up where I left off each time aswell.

Hope this helps.

That is fabulous advice! Thank you!!

So funny to find this post - I decided to look on mumsnet to see whether there were in PhDers out there also hoping to submit soon and there you were! I am hoping to submit in two months and it is a very painful process. I am totally over it. My daughter is in nursery pretty much full-time now though as I find I need intense, uninterrupted time blocks in this final stage.

One thing I havent managed to find Yet is a book or something for spouses of us phd'ers about what to expect, how to support us and what not to say 'all you do is sit on a computer/it's not proper work/ you can just fit it in/you are obsessed with your phd!' etc etc... Have you guys found anything?

Atwar - all I've really done is just make sure I leave the house when I study. I go to my office and I work a 8.15 - 4.45 day every day without fail and i insist on getting extra childcare if the children are ill and can't go to nursery for more than 3 days in a row. In short I refer to it as my job. Re: obsession with PhD, can't help with that other than to say that it's essential otherwise no-one would ever finish the darn things.
I hope that you're feeling better

2plus - thank you for the analogy. I think it's fair to say that my madman, carpenter, architect and judge are currently all running around in circles yelling SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!

chaya - wow, close to the finishing line. Stay the course!

Wrote 2000 words today though in just a couple of hours - it's odd that some full days I don't even write that.

I'm in the area of health psychology / developmental psychopathology (looking at predictive factors in eating pathology and body image disturbance in preadolescents). I have all my data, I have half my analyses written up, but I have practically NO clue about how I weld my two projects (one large longitudinal study and one large cross sectional one) together, practically or conceptually. Time to get my inner architect on the case, clearly ...