How to Spend the Day?

So I’ve been taking classes for so long that adjusting to this new freedom is really difficult.  I’m still a graduate student, but now I don’t have all of the required work to keep me constantly working on stuff.  There’s a lot that is now up to me, in how spend each day.  This freedom is terrifying for someone who’s got the classic unwillingness to fail at anything, and so has the inability to commit to anything deeply.  As a result, I’ve found myself sitting idle with a building sense of unease, and no clear idea why.  Searching for the reason has led me down all sorts of paths, from reconsidering my degree plan (many times) to fretting about jobs and so forth.  The problem is that I still need to finish my degree, which means I really need to focus on making progress on my research.  So it becomes an issue of committing to the topic laid out.  My real issue here, and the reason for the title, is that I am now in control of my days, and so if I don’t make a plan, there’s no homework or studying to do to keep me busy.  I’ve got control over my time now, and figuring out how best to exercise that control is difficult.

I’m not sure how professional researchers are able to juggle life and career effectively, taking on productive projects, and spending a good amount of time on each project so as to produce papers and write grants and so forth.  I just have one project, and it’s difficult to parcel out my time effectively.  This includes reading books and papers that might have solutions to my problem, as well as trying to apply the methods in these sources to my specific problem.  For anyone who hasn’t read a technical paper or book, the first is the real time eater.  It’s making more sense to me now why people specialize, because just learning all of the background for a problem is incredibly time intensive.

Moving forward, I’m sure this will all work out fine, because I’ve got a goal riding on my progress, namely getting my degree and (hopefully) some sort of job.  Now I just have to figure out a plan and put it into action.