Did anybody crash right before the finish line? (How) did you get up again?
Oookay this became quite the rant. Basically I am almost finished with the PhD in Computer Science in Europe, conclusion and polishing left to do but working on other responsibilities against my will put me into a bad mental condition where I barely progress if at all. Did somebody experience something similar? (How) did you get up again?
My PhD has been a long drag with a lot of time wasted on useless projects and non research work I had to do, my supervisor pushing me into useless directions with wrong but confident advice .. you get it. There’s been many ups as well though, successful side projects that got published in good journals.
A few months ago, I finally got the go to wrap my side projects into a thesis and started writing. Got the theory down in a month, plugged in the papers. So far, so good, finish line is in sight. Then, other responsibilities occupied my working time 4-5 days per week but I was energised, powered on and wrote an intro in the little time I had. Only conclusion and polishing left to do.
Then, my PI had the glorious idea that it would be a good time for me to do some grunt work for a proposal, in a totally different area instead of finishing my thesis. I used all my willpower, read into a new topic, pushed through, hated every second of it but finished my part in two weeks to get back to the thesis. I told my PI that I was going to focus on the thesis again, but of course now I was part of the team and they told me they couldn’t finish the proposal before the deadline without my help. So I mobilised more willpower, hated it even more and we made the deadline.
But … something seems to have crashed in me mentally while doing that. I went from juggling diverse responsibilities and projects with passion to barely making any progress on a few paragraphs in a whole day. It feels like I can’t shake of the spite towards work from that proposal time and no deadline is pressing me to push through despite that. Even thinking about my topic or work is repulsive but the finish line ist still right in front of me and I don’t know how to get up and do the last distance. I need enormous willpower to do the smallest thing like open the thesis and research a few references.
Has anybody been through something similar and can help me out with some advice?