We’re going to talk about how to finish a PhD thesis quickly. What I did to finish this beast of a book in two months and you can do the same just takes a bit of discipline. We are going to discuss everything about the PhD thesis student careers life after a phd post docs everything to help you on your phd career journey i’ve done it. Let’s talk about finishing your thesis quickly and all of the things you can do. Look at this big old thesis with words and graphs and images. That’s one of my favorites by the way, I made that in words with just so many things to do and it can feel overwhelming to get to this. Remember i write one page at a time, one word at a time, one letter at a time and so, you need to get to here by the little steps.
Introduction :
So, let’s talk about that writing a PhD thesis normally happens at the end of your PhD sort of career and that means maybe in the source two and a half three and a half to four year mark that’s when you’re like okay I’ve got enough data. Now, I need to write a thesis, if you haven’t already you should kind of have an introduction. Which is kind of like a literature review, which is done early on but over the three years that you’re doing your phd that kind of moves on a lot. So, you really have to revisit that again but yeah there’s so much that you can do and so much you have to do to get a phd thesis finished and it’s overwhelming, there’s no two ways about it. This is a very big overwhelming thing but you really need to just focus.
How to write a 10-page paper in 2 hours ? :
Let’s talk about that the number one tip that i’ve got is to absolutely own your day right when you say okay i am ready to write a thesis, i am ready to um put down the words write the graphs do the things you have to create a day that will get you there right there’s no good sort of waking up starting later you really have to take this seriously and that is something that i did when i was like okay now i finished my experiments i am here to write and write is the only thing that will get me to the end of the kind of thesis writing stage and the end of my phd which in itself is very exciting so here’s what i’ve got first of all you have to be disciplined with yourself. Okay, so what I recommend you do is look at an average day, look at one of your days and say what do i need to do to get to a thesis and the answer is very simple produce graphs produce images and write those are the three things you should limit yourself to you.
The main one being writing right you have to just write words out about the graphs about your data about your results all of the all of the other stuff.
I just wrote words and that’s what i did so you need discipline you need an accountability buddy you need a way to keep track of those things and look having a calendar and just marking it off on a calendar will be your biggest friend here number two is you have to get buy-in from your supervisor supervisors are really difficult to work with in general. I was incredibly unfortunate my supervisor was just phenomenal. She got me back all of the stuff I needed on time without any fuss. It was just incredible and I thank her so much for that but i’ve had other people other friends doing PhDs who just have so much issue with their PhD supervisor. They disappear and they don’t get things back on time so the thing you need to do is sit down and have a hard chat with your supervisor and if you need to get the head of school in as well sit down and say right my goal is to finish this thesis within this time frame you know three months. If you were to say i’m gonna sit down and write this you know it’s bloody intense it’s so hardcore but setting yourself little goals to get you to get you there so for example my goal every day was i will produce a graph i will turn that graph into an image put it into my thesis and write about it. I’ll write about it in detail. That was really it. As long as I did that during a morning and an afternoon I knew I would be on target, so this is about 200 words long, super hardcore.
I loved finishing it i didn’t enjoy writing it but because of the little goals i set myself up for success along the way and that’s so very important you need to set up and break down your thesis into little goals so that you can enjoy and celebrate the milestones you’re reaching to build up momentum for you to get to the final bit because if you just go when the thesis is done that’s when i’ll celebrate you’re in for a world of hurt and pain so break it down little goals and then you’ll see significant motivation as you tick off those goals. It could be as well you know i got i think 10 chapters in here something like that i can’t even remember but after each chapter i would you know be like okay i’m going to tick off something in atomic habits they talk about making it obvious and visible and if you’ve got they say paper clips in two jars and you move 10 paper clips from one to the other after you’ve finished each chapter so you move one across so it looks visible you see your progress that can be a great motivator so read atomic habits.