Preparation for Thesis Proposal

As we have submitted our final paper for this year's first half, I am preparing my thesis proposal.

To those of you who wonder what the proposal is all about:
It is as well intended for my supervisor as for any other skilled mind which does not come from my certain area of research. It shows what my idea of what I have been working on so far and explains what the drawback of related work have been. It ends with a kind of roadmap to reaching the final part of the PhD student's life: The dissertation.

In short this means I am structuring my research findings to cover 6 important points I have to address with the proposal.

1. A statement of the problem and why it should be solved (is there a problem at all?)
   
2. Reference to and comments upon relevant work in this area (what have the others done so far?)
   
3. My ideas and insights of how to solve the problem plus results I have already obtained (this is how i role! And yes, I can do it ...)
   
4. Characterization of the solution that is being sought after (when do I want to stop and insist on the piece of paper they call degree)
5. A plan of action (what else is there to do besides writing it all down? Often many hours are buried in evaluation)
6. A rough outline of the thesis (well, what the little book gonna look like?)

Besides that, I still have to prepare the presentation for the SEKE 2009 conference.
But as you can see, this should be enough work for the next 2 months.