Hitting the Wall

So, almost four months have passed since I registered for PhD. It has been a whirlwind experience thus far.

The first two months was okay coz work demand was lesser. My workplace and my uni does not have the same semester time. So, when I started in UPM, my the semester at work is just finishing and entering the study week. Good timing in my opinion.  I get to focus on my class in UPM, meeting my supervisor and just channeling my free time for PhD.

But, things started stalling a bit when the new sem starts at work. It has been a crazy balancing act for me. Almost all the time I feel like I'm neither here nor there. When at work I think of my study, when in class at UPM, I think of the backlog of work that needs to be done. So..I'm in this state of daze. It's tiring to say the least.

Not to mention the school holiday that is now. Which overlap with the final weeks of my class in UPM (read; trying to finish up my assignment before the due date), and the new semester at work (read; meetings, final exam setting, etc, etc). I'm torn between wanting to take leave (which I still have a lot) to spend time with the kids, and to want to focus on my study (critical time now) and work.

My mojo has been lost for a while. I feel like there is this huge mental block hanging over my head that stops me from being productive. Like, whenever I want to focus on something, my mind think of the other millions things that I need to settle too, and in the end I did nothing.

I'm still thinking of ways to keep on keeping on. To be consistent in my work/study/life in general. Some sort of flexible structure that can keep me in check of what I need to do/accomplish on a daily basis. Something that can work for me instead of me worrying about it (you get what I mean?) Sighhh...

Alright, enough rant for me. I think I just need to let it out to feel better. I'm gonna list here things that I plan on doing to help me be consistent.

1. Plan the day ahead. As in, write my to-do-list the night before. So I can mentally prepare for it.

2. Divide the to-do-list to smaller chunk of work, instead of general task. (Eg, write; Finish 2 paragraph of assignment 1, instead of finish paragraph 1). It'll make the list more doable and realistic.

3. Set aside at least 1 hour to work on my proposal. Can be divided into; researching materials, updating the mendeley details, outlining ideas, etc, etc)

4. Ask for help. Don't stay in the dark for too long. Try to recognise the symptom of feeling blue/unmotivated, and quickly find ways to overcome it.

That is I think for this time. A lot of things already. I'll try to practice the above list and be more focused, motivated and productive inshAllah.

Pray for me dear friends.