When I first started blogging, I was swept away into this delicious blogosphere, and my husband the scientist quickly realized what an impediment this could be to my dissertation. He threatened to create a blog just for my research, and I would have to write in there every time I wanted to write in my real blog. We laughed at the thought, seriously contemplated it for about 20 seconds, and then disregarded it.
But yesterday it came back, stronger than ever. So I started a second blog. It will be fairly uninteresting and you will probably never want to read it, unless you really care about linguistics, grad school, or the process of writing a dissertation. That's okay - that's not it's goal. The purpose of my boring blog is to keep me honest and on track for my degree. Some days I'm quite productive (like last Tuesday) and other days I don't actually do a single thing dissertation-wise (like last Friday). I'm hoping the pressure of accounting for myself every couple days will be that extra bit of motivation I need to at least do something on those days when nothing might happen.
It also really helps me to write things out as I'm thinking them through. That's the way my mind works, which is a helpful thing to know. This will give me a space to jot down thoughts, like a journal, only one I'm more likely to write in (as I'm already sitting at the computer anyway). And maybe when I finish this May I'll print it out and have it bound as a memory! Or maybe I'll print it out and make a bonfire of it. Something to look forward to either way!
So there you have it. And in case you're curious, here's the link to my blog about writing my linguistics dissertation. But feel free to never click on that link - we'll still be friends.