plugging along

plug along

1. To continue making progress (in some endeavor) at steady, consistent pace, especially in the face of difficulties, challenges, setbacks, etc. We're still plugging along with the project, in spite of all the problems we've had with staff turnover. It's been tough dealing with all the negative publicity in the media, but I just want to plug along and show the world that I can still win this tournament.
2. To get by; to do satisfactorily. Typically used in the continuous tense as a response to "How are you?" or some similar greeting. A: "How you been, Tom?" B: "Oh, you know, just plugging along. Nothing too wild going on around here."
See also: plug
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

(I'm) (just) plugging along.

Inf. I am doing satisfactorily.; I am just managing to function. Bill: How are things going? Bob: I'm just plugging along. Sue: How are you doing, Fred? Fred: Just plugging along, thanks. And you? Sue: About the same.
See also: plug
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • plug along
  • stick at
  • puff along
  • turn out all right
  • work out all right
  • stick with it
  • keep at
  • keep at (someone or something)
  • be still in the game
  • press onward
References in periodicals archive
"I was able to kind of keep plugging along and make a few putts and the rest was history.
she just kept plugging along," said Fein's college adviser, Sheila Rollerson.
Just keep plugging along and try to get that back and I was able to do that.
"It really causes you to look at everything."<br />Clifford at Standard Solar said in its case, the Chinese decision has helped to offset most of the burdens of the tariffs.<br />"I think what's going to happen is that the industry is going to keep plugging along," he said.
And consider that 'Big Little Lies' was supposed to be a one-and-done series but proved so successful that HBO executives " who, like their counterparts at just about every other network, are hungry for content " announced that the show would get a second season Even lesser-known shows are plugging along. 'Fuller House', a Netflix revival of the old ABC family sitcom, released its third season, to little fanfare, last year.
Barware is trending with sets selling well, stemware is plugging along with a single-digit increase over last year, and the lighting business is thriving." Chandeliers have been off the charts.
It keeps plugging along, though, and I'll never regret buying it.
Repeased by RT's Arabic channel Wednesday, the video shows the Russian plane plugging along on a monitor, presumably from an operation room in Moscow.
"We just keep plugging along and hope it turns around," Hanneman says.
There is a tendency to make the barrier section as long as possible to prevent plugging along its length by exceeding the melting rate--i.e., "wedging." Although that can reduce the wear along most of the length of the barrier, it can also result in relatively catastrophic wear near the end of the barrier by undershooting the melting rate and allowing melt to accumulate at the end of the solids channel.
Rowling's instinctive sense of storytelling and her ability to make the reader sympathize with Strike and Robin, two middle-class strivers plugging along in a status and increasingly money-conscious London." MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Brunelle said there have been lots of issues to be dealt with in preparing for the renovations, but he and the other investors are plugging along and hope the people in the local area who want to see some action at the site will get their wish very soon.
Were I drawing a histomap of the world of online information (admittedly, a smaller slice of time), I would show some civilizations that came and went--NewsNet, anyone?--and some societies such as Dialog steadily plugging along since the earliest days.
On the whole, the exercises do seem to be geared toward the reader's own enlightenment, which could be just the motivation one needs to keep plugging along. Writes the author, "Remember always that the solution to any challenge lies within and all that is needed rests dormant, waiting for you to tap into infinite wisdom."