The Rut

Things have been progressing a lot more slowly over the last month- two months ago I wrote with all the excitement of a giddy teenager's first crush about productivity. I'm now experiencing the flip side of that - full cognizance of my lack of productivity. Having a weekly schedule of what I need to do means I'm much more aware of what I'm not doing.

In a sense, I'm not too worried (though maybe that's a symptom of my malaise). I know what is causing this rut:

1. Work-related stress: my new role at work means I'm learning a lot of new things, and management makes me feel like I'm failing a lot. The annoying thing is that I don't think they'd satisfied regardless of my actual performance; it's just that their motivational method is to tell you you're not performing well. Sadly, that's almost the ideal way to make me feel awful all the time. It's exhausting, and I've felt ill for most of the last three months because of it.
2. The lack of uptake my students of my system:
   that's right, no posts for four weeks. The download graph is a little less depressing, but not much.
3. Oddly enough, my annual progress review (about a month ago). It felt good as I did it, as my productivity systems were working well, and I could report that I was making good progress. In actuality, I am making good progress; I'm the equivalent if 1.1 years into a 3-4 year PhD, and I'm gathering data, I've passed my Thesis Proposal, completed ethics etc. Technically, that's good progress. It just doesn't feel that way
   

So, it feels like I'm in what The Thesis Whisperer calls the Valley of Shit. I seem to be struggling my way out (I've had two productive evenings of the last four, and I'm PhD blogging for the first time in a month, even if it is just a giant whinge). I've got better data analysis happening (though I'm way behind where I'd hoped to be). Hopefully, I'll be posting here in another week. I've got to go and plan the next release of my software.