Catching Up

I've had a very busy 2 weeks and therefore missed last week's blog post. I did watch the classes on time but didn't have much opportunity to further develop any ideas that came up whilst watching it. 

Having finally caught up on everything, I felt very overwhelmed (again!) by the workload. I felt behind, especially after hearing that quite a few of my classmates had already started working on their essay. I still felt quite lost and unsure of where to start. 

The last class with Pedro helped me a lot. Hearing what other people were doing and creating a timeline has helped me immensely. I created multiple lists (because that is how I function best) and organised and reorganised the different things I had to do within the time frame. I set myself goals and have already been able to accomplish more than I was expecting. I still feel like there is a lot to do and I'm still very worried that there isn't enough time to do it all, but I feel much more on top of it now. I feel like I've taken control again, whereas last week it felt like it was all slipping away from me a bit. 

My biggest concern at the moment is finetuning my 3 areas of learning. I have a few very vague ideas of what I might talk about but nothing concrete. I have spent more time researching and finding references for some topics compared to others, and I'm certainly feeling overwhelmed by trying to find evidence for everything I want to say. 

Last night I was feeling so overwhelmed that I forced myself to just sit and write for a bit. I tend to enjoy writing anyway and find it can come quite naturally to me, and before I knew it it was past midnight and I had written over a thousand words. It felt like a very solid start and I probably could've kept going but forced myself to get some rest before a long day today. 

It's nice to feel motivated and it's nice to feel like I'm on the right track, but it's also worrying to think about how much I need to do in the little time I have. I don't like leaving things to the last minute and I'm concerned that that is what is happening already. I need to be stricter with myself and set my own deadlines to increase the efficiency of my study and research. 

Having written all this makes me realise I might be able to talk about this in my essay as well - the benefits of deadlines and self-discipline. Just another thing to think about!