A dip in productivity: Another review of my project

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   This month I took a break from my EPQ project (half intentionally and half unintentionally). I cannot say that I am happy that I did so as I am disappointed that I broke the structure of time management and planning that was working so well for me. 

    I ran into a few minor problems this month that really affected my productivity and made it difficult to use my time effectively across my range of subjects including this project. This  all sounds like a feeble excuse, which in fairness does hold some truth, but tackling my procrastination has to be done if I want to progress and not let this month off affect my progress. 

    Firstly, due to Covid-19, we are no longer attending school which, at first, I coped with very well, especially since I temporarily had more time due to not working my part-Time job. However, going back to work with increased hours as well as my mounting at-home school work made me quite stressed which subsequently made me lose motivation. Not attending school also meant I‘ve lost out on the EPQ contact hours which really drove me forward and helped me improve the way I worked. 

    To excuse my lack of work, I reverted back to my original long term plan which was to have a break in May to focus on my A-Level exams. While I had no exams, I have had to adapt the way I work for school which has took up just as much time and effort as revision would have. 

    I believe having this short break has given me time to re-evaluate how I manage time and allowed me to build up a better routine so I can now once again put my full focus on EPQ and research the things I am passionate about. I believe my project reviews with long and short term plans are a good idea for me personally and were not a factor in my lack of work this month. 

    I haven’t been completely inactive, however, as I am now completely up to date on my source evaluations and am proud of the depth I have gone into to research how and why these sources are reliable and vital to my project. 

    Any plans I had for May, I have shifted over to this month so my plan looks very similar to last time: 

Long term plan:
May: Continue research (No need to take a break in research anymore as exams are cancelled)- I did, in fact, take a break.
June/July: Finalise research.
August/September/October: Work on and complete first draft of dissertation. 
November: Complete final product.
December: Prepare and complete presentation.

Short term plan:


Blog posts to complete chronologically include:

  • The case of George Franklin : a longer more in depth research task.
  • Tips for writing a dissertation.
Both to be completed by 01/07/2020

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