I always have been extremely motivated in my research area and project. My team and I have been writing our current paper over the last 6 months, and since we stumbled upon bugs, the process became quite long, also given my supervisor is involved with other major projects, I think I miss on the time and attention that our project should receive. It seems now that we are in the last lap of writing our paper, and should be done in 2 more weeks. Even though I have followed every development diligently, I suddenly feel tired of this prolonged process. It seems monotonous and unrewarding. Any thoughts on how to take care of oneself and keep being motivated in this scenario?
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1I took the liberty of changing the title to avoid overlap with this: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2219/…– henningAug 19, 2020 at 12:10
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@henning--reinstateMonica thanks for the nice edit, this question is different than that, and I would not have liked this to be closed because of the similar title.– Wandering_AliceAug 19, 2020 at 12:19
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1 Answer
Perhaps you are just pushing too hard and getting frustrated. If you try to force your mind to work, it can get bogged down in the detail letting you miss seeing the bigger picture and options that might let you go forward.
Often the best solution is to take a break and do something different for an hour or three to let your mind clear itself out. Aerobic exercise, even if mild, is good for this. So is going to the coffee room and chatting with colleagues about trivial stuff (not work). "How about those Mets?" (Sorry NYC allusion). A game of Chess, perhaps.
Many people have the experience that when they awake in the morning they have solved a previously impossible problem in their sleep. The mind works even when you don't push it to do so, and sometimes more efficiently.
I can't guarantee that this is the issue, but I'll guess, at least, that it is more related to frustration than motivation.
My own trick, back then, was fifty mile bike rides with a couple of friends.
