Overwhelmed. Again.

I'm a slow learner, I guess. Last Monday, after receiving suggestions from my dissertation director, I sat down to begin the process of revising my dissertation. I was pumped, and I worked hard all day long--until my brain refused to cooperate and informed me the work day was over.

Tuesday morning, though, I started thinking of all those pages of work ahead of me, and I simply could not force myself to sit down in front of the computer and start. I exercised, cleaned the kitchen, read the paper, made up the bed, checked Facebook, dusted the living room, read some blogs, did laundry, all the time promising myself I'd get to work on that pesky dissertation just as soon as I finished __________. My procrastination went on all day.

That night I decided that, if I ever hoped to finish this thing, I had to have a plan. I divided my dissertation up into a very manageable number of pages per day. Then, all that I had to ask of myself each day was to revise those pages. If it took an hour, I had the rest of the day to do whatever I wanted. No guilt. If it took all day, well, then at least I'd know that every day wouldn't be that bad. I'd be making measurable progress but still be able to have a life along the way. For the last week or so, my plan's worked. (Although I haven't had a day yet where I finished my work in one hour. I couldn't be that lucky.)

Sure seems like I've been here and done this before.