is that it doesn't really feel like I'm achieving anything.
There's no real end product after spending this morning and on-and-off my evening going through papers making notes and re-reading old ones. I already know and understand most of the conceptual ideas, I just need to fix some more of the dates into my head.
I can't focus on working properly when I not really producing anything. Obviously come 5pm on Thursday I'll have produced three excellent papers on international relations theory, but for the moment it feels like I'm spending minutes on end treading water waiting for Thursday to come.

anyone else unable to really apply themselves to this sort of thing or got any mental discipline tricks I can use?