How To Stay Motivated

Try:

Spending a day or two confined to the library, looking for ways to solve your problem, and reading anything that seems even slightly relevant. Reviews can inspire new ideas.
Forget your current approach for the time being, and look at the problem as if you had never seen it before. Generating new ideas can help solve old problems.
Write up your progress to date (WHAT? Write something that nobody will read??) The process of organizing your experimental results in order to present them in writing can reveal new research directions. It gives you a broader perspective on the project.

Tips from Site Visitors

Try this...	Does this work?	Percent who agree
sex	yes no	100%
sex	yes no	91%
Maintain a Healthy Routine with Sleep and Exercise	yes no	88%
Remembering long-term goals	yes no	85%
sex	yes no	81%
Talk it over with a few beers	yes no	73%
see other worse than you	yes no	70%
Talk to your co-worker/labmates, not your supervisor!!	yes no	68%
Coffee	yes no	67%
yogurt	yes no	60%
Sleep on it	yes no	59%
Building cool shit for in your room with lab equipment, then stare at it	yes no	51%
Chocolate	yes no	51%
Change Careers	yes no	50%
Take a break for a week	yes no	50%
Have a long lunch break	yes no	49%
give it a quick wank	yes no	48%
Go for a run around the lab	yes no	48%
beach	yes no	47%
Amphetamine	yes no	42%
pray	yes no	40%
turkish coffee	yes no	34%
Have a cigarette	yes no	25%