Working as a PhD can be very different from what you are accustomed to as a student. Here are a few things to keep in mind or to try.

• Don't hold back from asking for help from or discussing your work with people in your group other than your supervisor. Sometimes supervisors are diffcult to get a hold of, or your question may seem too "basic" to ask your supervisor. Colleagues are usually within reach and may well have experience from their own work with what you are looking at! You are after all working in the same research group.
   
• The time scale of the work done in a PhD project can easily be months or even years!
  Don't worry too much if completing some part of your project seems to take forever or writing an article is suddenly work for months. If you're in doubt, discuss it with your supervisor; it's also their job to make sure you're not spending too much time on one thing or digging yourself into a hole.
   
• Be careful not to negatively compare your work, or your own assessment of your work, with the work of other PhDs. It's very easy to think you are not getting anywhere or that your own work is somehow more "trivial" than that of others. Your own work only seems trivial to you because you are the expert! Take responsibility and control of your work and make your project what you want it to be.
   
• Don't worry if you find that the work you do is quite different from the project originally planned. It is in the nature of research that it changes according to what you encounter, and it is very common for the final shape of your PhD project to be very different from the original idea!