Schedule v2.0

My half-assed report draft embarrasses me, even though only the introductory bits are in (i.e. no data, since that's still being generated). Goodness knows that my supervisor writes worse than I do, but this does need to be solid - correct, precise, concise, mellifluous. That's the idea, anyway*. Here's a complete overhaul schedule - version 2. Hope I can stick to it.

Eek. I only have two weeks left until my work term ends. So the report must be done soon.

Today's pretty much over; I want an outline. A detailed outline. T'aint detailed, but I have an outline. Need to fill it out a bit. Poke around COOPs (crystal orbital overlap population).

Tuesday: Do all the COOP calculations if possible. To nobody's surprise, I did the calculations before I did the outline. Theoretical section. Fortunately, most of the "procedure/methods" part is done.

Wednesday: Experimental section. This thing, it is long. And the data won't be all in till the end of Thursday. And there are no conclusions. Nevertheless...

Thursday: Finish the experimental. Top and tail (introduction, conclusion, summary, preamble bits). The preamble is mostly done, and the conclusion will be short. But the introduction and summary may well take all day.

Friday: Editing. Preferably twice - once just a read-through, second time with checklists and style guides in hand.

Saturday: One more edit. All problems must be fixed by this day. Then go out and print/bind the thing. Try to collate the thing correctly.

Sunday: Bind the report if it couldn't be done in time on Saturday. Fill out forms so the PI doesn't have to.

Monday: Troop into the PI's office, and hand the whole thing in. Then run away and hide (or something). The PI'll have nearly a month to read it, because next term will be starting late. Although it'll be more "politically correct" to let my supervisor read it first, I don't want him to. I don't trust his judgement.

This schedule will not be a problem if I can get away with doing nothing but writing. Unfortunately, I do need to garner data. So this'll be difficult. *Deep breath* 'k, let's go.

*It's easy to impress people who has a lifetime supply of crappy reports to read; I hadn't met an employer who wasn't impressed yet, anyway. However, I'd imagine that it's harder to impress an actual professor.

[Edited]
I spent my entire evening troubleshooting someone else's calculation instead of writing my report. Sigh. It's difficult to write when I don't know what to say. Double sigh.

[Edited again]
@#$%^&!. I thought I finished data collection today and can therefore start (finally) making my experimental figures. But no, *someone* wants more data in the report; I won't finish collecting those until the end of next Tuesday (assuming all goes well). So I can't bind the report this weekend. Damn him.

On the positive side, I'm nearly done all the text part (pre-edit). Just need to do the summary, two subsections (one theoretical, one experimental), and insert all the citations (thank goodness for BiBTeX); I ought to be able to finish them by tomorrow, one day behind this schedule. Also, I finally figured out how to export powder patterns from "weird data file" into plaintext. Small mercies.