Extreme PhD skills – for pregnant mums!

It’s been a while since I posted. First trimester fatigue will do that to you! Yes another sproglet is on the way, and somehow I survived four months of wanting to crawl back into bed after two hours, intractable nausea and reflux, and looking blankly at patients and supervisors. But I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that being a pregnant working mum of a toddler is one of the biggest challenges I’ve had to face, but hey I’ve now adopted a new attitude – just shut up and get on with it. Which brings me to the topic of my current post – skills to make it through this PhD. We had a Thesis Writing Circle yesterday (haha – Thesis writing – what’s that??) and the main problem that emerged was that of time management. Apart from wishing we all had more time (all of us but one somewhat frightened student were mums of one or more small children), we realised we just had to do it, and be more efficient about it. Our facilitator introduced us to the Pomodoro technique, and also the concept of being a Binger or a Snacker when it came to tasks. I’m definitely the former, although realised yesterday that I will have to change to become the latter, if I am ever going to get anywhere with what I want to do. I also realised that early morning writing/working must be a part of my life if I am ever going to complete my 10,000 word Confirmation report. This morning I started at 7:30am (Star sleeps in til late on weekends) and completed 2 Pomodoros = 844 words. Hooray! It’s working already! I love this instant feedback. It’s Saturday morning and I have the rest of the day for toddler and family shenanigans. Go Pomodoro!