✦Research · 12 recordsDissertation or thesis

A dissertation is a year of work with one deadline, which is the worst possible shape for getting anything done. This breaks it into chapters with their own dates and makes writing a daily routine rather than a phase that starts after the reading.

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Goal

Submit a dissertation I am not ashamed of Month 9

Chapters with their own dates, so there is not one deadline at the end.

Read and narrow Month 3

Bounded on purpose. It never feels finished.

  • Write the question in one sentence and show my supervisorDo firstDay 7
  • Read enough to know the question is genuinely openMonth 2
  • Stop reading and write the literature chapterDo firstMonth 3

Write the chapters Month 9

One at a time, each with a date and a draft sent early.

  • Send a rough first chapter to my supervisorDo firstMonth 4
  • Finish the middle chaptersMonth 7
  • Leave a month for editing, not writingMonth 8

Routines

  • Write for an hourdaily
  • Tidy the referencesweekly
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Write early and badly

Writing is how you find out what you think, so treating it as a phase that begins once the reading is done produces a lot of reading and a very compressed final term.\n\nSend drafts before they feel ready. A supervisor can redirect a rough chapter cheaply and a finished one expensively.

✦ Questions

Dissertation or thesis, answered.

Immediately, and badly. Writing is how you find out what you actually think, so treating it as a phase that begins once the reading is finished tends to produce a great deal of reading and a very compressed final term.
Earlier and rougher than feels comfortable. A supervisor can redirect a flawed chapter cheaply and a finished one expensively, and the plan schedules the first draft submission long before it will feel ready on purpose.
By giving the literature work its own deadline rather than letting it run until it feels complete. It never feels complete — that is the nature of it — so the date has to come from the plan instead.
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Fitness

Health and fitness

A goal with a date, a plan to get there, and the routines that do the actual work.

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