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How to Finish Your Dissertation

By  Kerry Ann Rockquemore

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Dear Kerry Ann,

I was hoping to finish my dissertation last year and graduate in May. But it’s August, I’m heading back for another year on campus and I’m nowhere near finishing the dissertation. The sad part is that it’s not the research that is holding up my progress (it is mostly complete) and it’s not my committee (they are supportive and want me to finish). The problem is that I’m not writing. I’m starting to think that I may never finish and will end up another A.B.D. who fades out of the program.

But I do want to finish my dissertation! And yet I’m not making any progress. I need help beyond your usual suggestion to start a daily writing habit (I tried that and it didn’t work).

Need Help Finishing

Dear Need Help,

I am so glad to hear that you are resolved to complete your dissertation, recognize that what you’re doing isn’t working and are open to new experiments for the upcoming academic year.

There’s an important reason that nearly half of graduate students who start doctoral programs don’t finish -- they never complete their dissertations. That means you’re not the only person who has struggled while A.B.D. Over the past year, I’ve worked with more than 400 dissertation writers , and I’ve seen over and over again that isolation, perfectionism and procrastination are the three biggest threats to completion.

So that leaves us with a very simple issue. If you have only one way to finish your dissertation (write it) and you know the three challenges you need to overcome to do the writing (isolation, perfectionism and procrastination), then the key question is: How can you create an environment and support systems this year that will enable you to write on a regular basis? In other words, how can you design your work time to ensure that you have everything you need to complete your dissertation this year? Only you can answer these questions, but I would like to share a few insights and gentle suggestions.

Get Real About Daily Writing

I know I sound like a broken record on this point, so I’ll be brief. You cannot binge write a dissertation over a weekend, over a weeklong writing retreat or even if you hide in a cave for a month. High-quality work takes time to produce. We know that the most productive academic writers don’t write in large uninterrupted blocks of time; they write every day (Monday through Friday) in small increments.

I also realize that it seems like everyone these days is telling dissertation writers to “ write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day ” or that “you should try 25-minute pomodoros .” And as you’ve noted, I regularly advise people to write for at least 30 minutes per day. In response, graduate students tell me “that’s pie in the sky,” “it’s impossible to write a dissertation in 15 minutes a day“ or (my personal favorite) “ Bolker really meant 15 hours a day -- the publisher made a mistake and never fixed it, sending an entire generation of graduate students into a tailspin of self-loathing and misery.”

So let me make two important distinctions. First and foremost, when I encourage you to write at least 30 minutes per day, the most important part of that phrase is “at least.” It doesn’t mean that you’re going to complete your dissertation in one semester by writing for only 30 minutes per day. It’s advice given to people like you, who are not writing at all. In fact, it literally means start with 30 minutes a day, boo. When you’ve got that locked down, work your way up to longer periods of writing.

The second distinction that’s important is about the expectation versus the reality of what constitutes writing. Many graduate students I’ve worked with imagine that writing means producing perfect prose on the first draft. I have observed students spend 30 minutes writing, revising, deleting and rewriting a single sentence. If that’s how you are spending your daily writing time, I understand why you might conclude that it doesn’t work.

Instead, consider that drafting and revising are two separate stages of the writing process. Those initial drafts are where you work out your existing ideas and generate new ones. For that reason, much of what you write is for you, for your own thought process, and may never be shared with your committee or make it to the final draft. This is why we often say “ writing is thinking !”

Win the Battle of the Moment

If you’re like the majority of dissertation writers I’ve worked with, your initial attempts at daily writing fail. Why? Because you experience a repeating and self-defeating pattern that looks like this: you set aside time in your calendar for dissertation writing and you fully intend to write during that scheduled time. Then when the time comes, you experience a subtle but powerful urge to do anything but write. It’s such a strong and seemingly harmless impulse (“Let me just answer one quick email!”) that you follow the urge where it leads you, whether it be email, Facebook, teaching prep, more reading or a snack. Pretty soon your writing time is over and you haven’t written a single word. You promise yourself that you’ll do better tomorrow, but the next day comes and goes with the same result. After a week, you decide the whole daily writing thing doesn’t really work for someone like you.

I call this daily struggle “the battle of the moment.” It’s the moment that it’s time to start writing -- the hardest moment to move through -- and if you can just get going you’ll be fine. It’s truly a battle between your future self and your resistance . One of you will win and one of you will lose. In other words, either your future will win and you’ll start writing your dissertation or your resistance will win and you’ll end up arguing with somebody on Facebook about the presidential election.

The best way to win the battle of the moment is to first understand that it’s normal for your resistance to show up every day when it’s time to write. I encourage you to become aware of it and accept it for what it is . Then set a timer for a small block of writing. ( Even 10 minutes will get you through the moment.) The goal is to win the moment each day. Once you can stack up enough daily wins, you’ll see that you’re making progress on your dissertation.

And it’s important to know that your resistance is strongest when you’re alone because it festers in isolation. But that also means that your resistance is weakest in the presence of other active daily writers. For that reason, I strongly encourage you to consider what type of writing support you can create for yourself this year. Be creative! Dissertation writers use many different types of support structures to overcome resistance: write on-sites , writing buddies, accountability groups, dissertation boot camp , Facebook groups, writing retreats and 14-day writing challenges , to name just a few.

Learn to Analyze Why You’re Not Writing and Design Work-Arounds

If you’ve tried daily writing in the past but were unable to maintain it, then ask yourself why ? What exactly kept you from the single most important activity that will allow you to complete the dissertation, finish your degree and move on with your professional life? What happened (be as specific as possible) when you sat down to write?

For most dissertation writers, the inability to develop and maintain a daily writing practice is due to one of three things: 1) technical errors, 2) psychological obstacles or 3) external realities. While I’ve written about those in detail elsewhere , let me provide a quick dissertation-specific overview so that you can diagnose why you’re not writing and then design a quick and effective work-around.

Technical Errors: Dissertation writers often struggle to establish a daily writing practice due to several technical errors. That simply means that you’re missing a skill or technique. As soon as you identify the error, the work-around is clear. Here are the most common technical errors I’ve observed in working with dissertation writers and a corresponding work-around:

• You haven’t set aside a specific time to write. (A work-around is to designate time in your calendar for dissertation writing.)
• You have been setting aside the wrong time for writing. (A work-around is experimenting with writing first thing in the morning.)
• You struggle to get started writing each day. (A work-around is to develop a writing ritual.)
• You have no idea how much time tasks take and keep grossly underestimating how long it takes to do them. (A work-around is to use a timer to collect data on how long it takes you to complete various writing tasks.)
• You don’t have any way to measure progress because you just have “write dissertation” as your daily writing goal. (A work-around is to set SMART goals .)
• You feel overwhelmed because you can’t figure out what you have to do. (A work-around is to make a dissertation plan that lays out the steps for completing each chapter.)
• You keep writing and revising the same sentence. (A work-around is to try Write or Die to permanently separate the drafting stage from the revising stage.)

Psychological Obstacles: Technical errors can be fixed with changes in your writing habits, but psychological obstacles often underlie dissertation writers’ inability to write daily. The most common I’ve observed are impostor syndrome , perfectionism , disempowerment , inner critics on steroids , fear of failure and/or success and a lack of clarity about your future goals. Regrettably, a quick tip, trick or hack will not eliminate psychological obstacles, but we can loosen their grip by increasing our awareness of their existence, reframing them and experimenting with behavioral changes.

External Realities: Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not recognize that sometimes the inability to maintain a daily writing practice results from an external reality that is beyond your control. The truth is that life events occur that directly impact the amount of energy we have to write. For example, you have a baby, someone dies, you or someone you love becomes ill and you have unexpected recovery/caregiving, you get divorced, etc. These situations can’t be “fixed,” so they require patience, compassion toward yourself, adjusted expectations and the willingness to explicitly ask for the kind of support you need.

Change Your Peer Group

In my experience, people who don’t finish their dissertations have one of two problems with the people they surround themselves with: 1) they don’t have anyone who is actively writing a dissertation in their daily life (i.e., they remove themselves entirely from contact with other dissertation writers) or 2) they surround themselves with dissertation writers who are not writing and spend their time complaining about their advisers, their campus, the oppressive nature of graduate education and/or the abysmal state of the job market.

To state the painfully obvious, neither self-isolating nor surrounding yourself with negative peers will help you develop a consistent daily writing habit. What you need most is a positive community that supports you through the ups and downs of writing a dissertation and celebrates your successes every step of the way. Every small win builds momentum, and seeing other people succeed makes it seem possible for you, too. It’s sharing the daily grind while making personal progress that reduces the isolation, perfectionism and procrastination that got you to this point.

I hope it’s clear from these suggestions that finishing your dissertation is a realistic possibility. It won’t happen if you keep on doing the things that have kept you unproductive. But if you’re willing to get serious about writing, get into a relationship with your resistance and join a positive community of writers, you will quickly start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Peace and productivity,

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Ph.D.

President, National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity

P.S. I love your questions, so keep posting them on my Facebook page or email me at [email protected] .

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Can’t get myself to work on my thesis for long periods of time - but I’m not ready to give up? ( self.Thesis )

submitted 2 months ago by Appropriate_Dealer50

My masters program is one year long and I finished all the required courses with fantastic GPA. One problem now - it’s been two months since I was supposed to start working on my thesis and I bearly started. I don’t know what it is , short attention span (which even if I have, I faced fine with the million essays I wrote though masters and bachelors) or lack of motivation, I just can’t get myslef to research for long periods of time. I read other threads on here with people battling the same problem and most comments say it’s important to chose a topic you like and start your reaserch with 5-10 minutes at a time.

See, I like my topic, it’s interesting. But I am ashamed to say that i am a grad student who doesn’t like reading… please don’t hate.

I’m also starting a full time job soon, the job of my dreams found its way to me although I wasn’t planning on working this summer and only researching.

I’m not giving up on my masters. I will finish it and graduate but somehow I really dislike the thesis writing and reaserching part… please don’t comment with saying I should drop out because I don’t like research :( i genuinely want to finish this degree and I PUT SO MUCH EFFORT into this degree for the past year…

Want to add to the discussion?

Post a comment!

[–] Big_Safety_5724 2 points 3 points 4 points 2 months ago   (0 children)

I've had some similar struggles. I was supposed to start working on my thesis in July 2023 and then submit January 2024 but I just could not get myself to work on it. I would start reading and zone out completely and just give up. I am also a master's student that has very good grades on my other courses. I never really had issues with writing essays, making projects, or studying for exams. But I was really struggling to get started on my thesis. Just like you, I also really don't like reading academic papers at all so it really did not help that the thesis starts with reading. I also really did not want to drop out since all my grades were good and I have come this far. After having almost no progress in October, I approached the university therapist and these sessions really helped me because she told me that a lot of people have these issues and it's not just me. She told me to break down the thesis in smaller parts so that you are not tackling the thesis as one big thing. She gave me a deadline to have at least part of my literature review done, and this deadline helped me because then I was working towards something. I don't know what will work for you because everybody is different, but if your university is offering free therapy sessions, I would consider this since it really helped me. Back in October I thought I would never properly start my thesis, let alone finish it. I took me a while to get the entire literature review done since it's reading and I don't like it. But step by step I got through it and now I am planning to submit in August. The therapist also told me that talking to university classmates who are also working on their thesis might help because they are working on a similar project so can understand you. You might give this a try, but for me this was not good at all. I basically stopped talking to my friends about thesis because they were all doing better than me and making more progress so it made me feel worse. I think you can start looking for other people struggling and kind of try to keep each other on track.

[–] Thesis_Masterpiece 0 points 1 point 2 points 2 months ago   (0 children)

You need to break it into smaller tasks and set yourself a deadline.

[–] alyrose_96 0 points 1 point 2 points 2 months ago   (0 children)

honestly what worked for me was getting on the same page with my committee chair. there came a point where he also was like, 'we need to get this finished' and so together we would set deadlines for different chapters or drafts. That seriously helped me get through a lot more work!! Knowing I had this pressure where my professor would be expecting to read work or have it available.

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A 5 step program for finishing your PhD (finally!)

Part of the fun of being Thesis Whisperer is the emails I get from all around the world. Many of them outline classic PhD student dilemmas, which are excellent blog fodder, such as this one, from Laura S:

Have you, or have you considered anything along the lines of *actually finishing* writing? I can produce writing like nobody’s business, and get well on my way into a paper. Finishing, however, is agony. I think this is in part because I’m a lateral thinker and a perfectionist. I’m sure you are familiar with these traits! It is also, however (as I’ve recently discovered) a particular challenge for folks with ADHD. Discovering as an adult that I had ADHD has been a real light on a lot of my patterns and tendencies, so when I feel ready (i.e. more research) I would be happy to contribute a couple of blogs on the topic if you are interested and think it would be helpful to others.

Now, I can’t talk about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder specifically because I am not an expert, but I do know a thing or two about finishing a piece of writing. The ‘ Thesis Bootcamp ’ program I run at ANU helps PhD students who have run out of time to complete their dissertation. The program is insanely popular, but it’s expensive to run. We can only take 26 people from up to 100 applicants, so we must choose people who are most at risk of dropping out. We look for people who have done most of the thinking and just need to write. Our selection strategy means most of our Bootcampers have faced significant challenges along the way, such as failed experiments, ill-health and conflict with advisors. Despite these issues, most of these people just need to sit down and, well – write. Sadly they can’t seem to do this on their own because they feel ‘stuck’. It’s almost like they have late stage dissertation constipation.  

At thesis Bootcamp, we use a range of strategies to help people move on from this ‘stuck’ feeling. We are proud that everyone who spends a weekend with us writes at least 5000 words, and many write more. At least a couple of people hit our ‘stretch goal’ of 20,000 words. After watching over 400 people go through this program, I’ve got a good idea of what it takes to finish a dissertation. Below is my patented, trialled and tested 5 step program for drawing a line under your PhD studies and calling it done.

Step one: identify what is holding you back

In my experience, there is a range of factors at play in people feeling unable to finish, but most people are held back by fear. Some people are in a comfortable rut and fear what comes next after their PhD – especially if the job market for their skill set is unclear. Other people are perfectionists – functional or otherwise- who fear the dissertation they are crafting will not pass. Others fear confrontation with their supervisor over the content of the dissertation.  

Unpacking the feelings with a professional therapist is the best way I know to put these fears to rest, which is why we hire at least one for the Bootcamp weekend (sometimes we have two!). Having a therapist on hand while confronting the fear of finishing is amazingly powerful. Some people who have resisted therapy in the past are finally free to share their concerns with an expert who can help them lay those fears to rest. Later these therapy resisters tell me that confronting their fear of writing helped them with other issues too. Some have saved their marriage, others have got divorced, some change careers or cities – some even decide to drop out of their PhD. The program is meant to stop the dropouts of course, but I figure that helping a person move on with their life without the PhD is sometimes the best outcome.

Step two: commit to it

Some people have a habit of restarting their writing (or even their whole project) over and over again. The reason for restarting all the time seems rational until you dig a bit deeper and see a pattern that stretches right back to the beginning of candidature. Restarting over and over is a symptom of perfectionism: if you feel like your writing is misshapen and ugly, working with the text long enough to finish provokes a range of unpleasant feelings. One way to avoid the feelings is by starting again with a ‘clean slate’. Other people have trouble committing to a structure for the dissertation. These people can be functional perfectionists, who are willing to accept their ‘bad writing’ but get obsessed with finding the perfect structure for the whole work. You will never find the perfect structure because it’s an illusion. A dissertation is a story of the research done, that’s all. You could tell at least10 different stories; some will be better or worse, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter because the PhD endeavour is a pass/fail proposition. Perfect is the enemy of done.   Just find a structure and stick with it long enough to get the whole thing written.  

Another good avoidance strategy is to funnel creative energy into side projects. Instead of finishing the (now slightly boring) big project, I encounter people who are getting stuck into journal papers, articles, blogs, podcasts – you name it! There is always another creative distraction if you look for i. It’s easier, in the moment, to go for immediate gratification ahead of long term benefits.

I don’t want to shame anyone for these behaviours – I’ve done many of them myself. There’s no need to beat yourself up. In fact, the shame spiral just makes things worse. If you really want to finish, learning to focus is crucial. In the first instance, just notice and be aware of your behaviour. Noticing helps you develop strategies to counter the unhelpful patterns. When you feel like starting over again because you hate what you have written, put it away for a day or two and then come back. I guarantee the writing isn’t as bad as you thought it was when you come back to it. Self-talk helps too. When the feelings that everything you write is shit well up, say out loud: ‘ok, it isn’t perfect, but it will have to do for now’, or ‘I’ll come back to this later, let’s move on’. Self-talk can help you suspend judgment and just keep writing – which is most of the trick to finishing after all.

Step Three: Write the conclusion before you finish  

In my What do examiners really want? workshop, I advise people who are to write a draft of the conclusion to their dissertation at around the six-month mark. The suggestion always gets funny looks, but there’s method in my madness. Writing the conclusion sometimes helps you think through your methods: what experiments or data gathering would you need to do to prove anything you said? Writing a draft of your conclusion also forces you to surface assumptions and biases so that you can be aware of them as you process your data. People ask whether writing the conclusion early is ‘cheating’. Of course, it would be if you just constructed the whole project to ‘prove’ what you thought in the first place – that isn’t research. My view is, writing the conclusion early is acceptable as long as you:

• consciously write the conclusion draft as a thought exercise only and/or  
• use the draft as part of the development of your project and method, and  
• take the opportunity to examine and critique your own biases.  

Writing the conclusion can work when you are close to the end as well. When you’ve finished most of the other writing, doing the conclusion can usefully narrow the scope of what remains to be written. The conclusion fixes your endpoint and forces you to commit to finishing – sort of like aiming an arrow at a target. Give it a try and see.

Step Four: list it out

When you have written the conclusion, start a list about what you want to achieve in the piece of writing and tick it off as you go. Making a list forces you to articulate a pathway to the end and define what ‘finished’ means. For example, at the moment I am working on a journal article about what non-academic employers want, using job ads as data. Here’s my list of provisional goals for the paper:

• Why is it important to know what non-academic employers want?
• Tell the reader why using job ads is a good approach and how you have used them.
• Explain the key findings – particularly the unexpected ones
• Explain the new curriculum model and how it could be used in research education and policy development.

The list is not a writing outline – I can address these points in any order I want to. The paper will be ‘finished’ when I’ve written about everything on the list to my satisfaction, so I try to keep the list as short as possible. After the first brainstorm, I leave it for a few days, review it (or share it with co-authors) and then finalise the ‘master list’. I then pretend the master list is not allowed to be altered. This forces me to commit. In my experience, this mind game is remarkably effective, but it only works for short pieces, so if you are employing this technique for a dissertation, do a goal list for each chapter.

Step Five: Imagine life without the dissertation

At Bootcamp we ask people to write on a single post-it note a fun, non-work thing they have been putting off doing. The answers range from ‘sleeping as long as I want’ to ‘having a baby’ or ‘riding a motorcycle around Sicily’. We then encourage people to imagine how they will feel when they do those things they have put off. People sit with dreamy smiles on their faces as they contemplate the bliss of a dissertation free life complete with babies, motorcycle rides and endless sleep (well, not all at once – I don’t think those things are compatible really!). We encourage people to keep the post-it note as a handy reminder of the long term rewards they can have if they do the boring, finishing bit first. Some people tell me they hang on to this encouraging piece of paper for years afterwards!

Ultimately, if you decide to finish, you will. And that’s all I have to say on the subject of Taming your PhD. Why don’t you go off now and do it?

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The Thesis Whisperer is written by Professor Inger Mewburn, director of researcher development at The Australian National University . New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me, my podcasts and books. I'm on most social media platforms as @thesiswhisperer. The best places to talk to me are LinkedIn , Mastodon and Threads.

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You Can’t Avoid Finishing Your Thesis If You Follow These Steps

October 10, 2021 by Dora Farkas, PhD 8 Comments

Finishing Your Thesis When You Believe You Can’t

When it comes to finishing your thesis, the last couple of months (or years) are a mental challenge of persistence and commitment:

“How do I force myself to write, when I can’t stand looking at my thesis anymore?”

“I feel so guilty dragging my whole family down with this thesis writing, and I don’t even know when I’ll be done.”

“No matter how much I do, there is always more. Will this EVER end?”

I have seen this cycle hundreds of times.

You start working on your thesis, pick up momentum, make progress, and then you hit a dead-end, or open a can of worms.

Something that was supposed to take 2 days, takes 2 weeks or 1 month.

You feel guilty, maybe even ashamed.

“Why can’t I just get this DONE? Everyone else is finishing up, what’s wrong with me?”

You want to give up, but you are too far along to throw all this time and money away.

So you sit down and start working, and you feel like you are on track until (for one reason or another), you fall off the wagon.

This cycle can happen 10, 20 or 50 times

The bad news is that each time you go through the cycle you get more frustrated, angry, bitter, resentful, and doubtful that will ever graduate.

After repeated disappointments, you really start believing that you will never finish your thesis.

You can’t even imagine what your life would be like without worrying about your thesis.

So, what’s the good news?

The good news is that you have what it takes to finish your thesis.

Once you recognize that you are in this cycle you can break the habits that feed the cycle.

I have seen hundreds of desperate grad students make slight changes to their daily habits and finish your thesis more quickly than they had expected – without working longer hours.

You can be one of these students too.

The only thing standing between you and finishing your thesis is your self-confidence.

That’s right: it’s not just about your time or your thesis supervisor or your thesis committee.

When you have self-confidence and know beyond the shadow of any doubt that you have what it takes to finish your thesis, you can leap over  obstacles. 

“But, how I can be confident when I am way behind?,” you may be asking.

Here is something you may not have known:

Your self-confidence has nothing to do with how successful you are.

You would be surprised at how many over-achieving students, who have published extensively, have very little self-confidence.

They may think that they just got “lucky” when their papers were accepted, and they tremble at the thought of presenting their work at their next committee meeting.

On the other hand, there are students who have encountered every obstacle you can think of: dead-end projects, change of supervisor (if their previous supervisor moved), limited funding, family commitments, personal challenges, but they are still confident that they will find a way to finish their thesis.

Who decides how confident you are?

Self-confidence is the antidote to the stress, anxiety, and writer’s block that are holding you back now.

You can be confident no matter what.

Your self-confidence does not have to be shaken up after realizing that you messed up (again) or that you just lost 6 months of work.

I know, because this happened to me.

I was supervising an undergraduate student, and after we had been collecting data for 6 months we realized that the labels on bottles used in the experiments had been switched.

Six months of work…literally down the drain.

I expected my supervisor to be very disappointed in me for not noticing this earlier, and wasting so many lab resources.

Instead, he put his hand on my shoulder and said:

“Dora, have you seen the sign on my door that says: Crisis = Danger + Opportunity? Now you know why it’s there. You just learned one of the most valuable lessons about mentoring others.”

On a scale of 0 to 10, my self-confidence went from a 0 to a 20 in that instant.

There was no way to save the data we had generated previously, but I could change the way I mentored students.

Needless to day, my undergrad student felt very guilty too, but we rewrote the protocol to minimize the chances of mistakes in the future.

In fact, after this experience, we developed a deeper level of trust, which helped us to turn the data we generated later on into one of the chapters in my thesis (and a publication).

Your self-confidence is your most important asset in grad school.

Without it, you will feel like a victim.

With it, you will become unstoppable, and you thesis will be DONE too.

5 Steps that Will Inevitably Lead to Finishing Your Thesis

Step #1: get a crystal clear vision of what is expected from you.

It is impossible to hit a target that you don’t have, yet that is what many grad students try to do.

They plan on graduating in 6 or 12 months, but when I ask them what they need to do to finish their thesis they reply something like:

“I am not entirely sure…” or “I haven’t brought it up with my committee…”

I know how intimidating it can be to have the “talk” with your supervisor or stand in front of a committee.

But isn’t the uncertainty of your future more intimidating?

How can you plan on finishing your thesis if you don’t know what to do?

By definition, research is uncertain, and the requirements for your thesis will change as you collect and analyze data.

However, you can only adjust your trajectory when you are in motion.

You cannot make adjustments if you are standing still.

You need a vision, a starting point, that will help you to pick up momentum in your thesis.

What if you thesis supervisor or committee is evasive, and you cannot get a clear answer?

Then, go to step 2 below.

Step #2: Don’t take “not now” for an answer from your thesis supervisor or committee

It is never too early to get clear on the requirements for finishing your thesis.

I worked with several students who, for personal or financial reasons, had to finish their thesis in 4 years in a department where the average time to graduate was 6-7 years.

How could these students finish their thesis  so “quickly”?

They weren’t smarter, nor did they work longer hours than their peers.

What set them apart from other students was a sense of urgency, because they had a firm deadline for their thesis.

These students started thinking about the requirements for their thesis in their first year.

They didn’t take “not now” for an answer if their supervisor was too busy to meet with them.

They were persistent starting on day 1, and got clear on the requirements even as they had to make adjustments along the way.

While I did not have a similar sense of urgency, I had to apply this principle in my last semester as well.

I had three very busy professors in my committee and  there was literally only 1 hour during the entire month of April when they could all meet for my final committee meeting. 

They gave me the green light to defend, but then I needed their signatures on my thesis so I could submit it officially.

It took me several weeks of persistent follow-ups (by email, phone, and in person), until I got all three signatures – just a few days before the final deadline!

I couldn’t take “not now” for an answer if they were too busy.

I needed a signature from each one of them so I wouldn’t need to stay in school for an extra semester.

You may feel guilty about taking up your professor’s time, especially if you need to “hunt them down.”

But, keep in mind that it is also in their interest that you do good work and produce publishable research.

Also remember that being persistent does not mean that you have to be rude.

You can be “politely persistent” until they give you the answer, feedback or mentoring you need.

Or, if you already have all the help you need, you are ready for step 3.

Step #3: rise and grind daily.

I wish there was a nicer way of saying this, but there isn’t.

There is no substitute for taking action daily.

If you working full-time or if you have a family, then working on your thesis daily may seem impossible.

It isn’t.

I work with students who have multiple jobs, or several kids, yet they found a way to work on their thesis everyday.

They didn’t necessarily work on it for hours, but they made a commitment to work on it at least a little bit every single day.

So, what is a “little bit” of time that you need to commit to your thesis daily?

It depends – the closer you are to finishing it, the more time you need to spend on it.

However, there is something magical about devoting at least 15 minutes a day to your thesis.

No matter how busy you are you can always find 15 minutes somewhere during your day.

It may be first thing in the morning, during your lunch hour at work, or in the evening (instead of TV or social media).

Why 15 minutes?

Fifteen minutes is long enough that if you are focused you can make measurable progress (write several paragraphs), but it is a short amount of time,  so it seems doable every day.

Spending only 15 minutes a day on your thesis will probably not get you very far in the long run.

Most students with jobs or families spent at least 15 minutes a day on their thesis during the week, and then a longer block of time on the weekend.

So, what’s the point of these short work sessions during the week (5 x 15 minutes is barely more than 1 hour)?

The point of daily commitment is continuity.

Continuity helps you to pick up where you left off, so that you don’t have to spend 15-30 minutes trying to figure out what you are supposed to be doing.

When you spend at least a little time on your thesis every day, you get more creative, more ideas, and more insights that will help you to resolve problems that may have seemed impossible before.

Step #4  Focus on results, no “to-do”s

Do you feel like you are being pulled in 47 different directions each week?

Most grad students (and people in general), operate from a to-do list.

They write down all the work and non-related things that “should” do, but they give little thought to the tangible result they want to see.

When you let a “to-do” list run your life, you will always feel exhausted, and playing catch up.

In fact, the more to-do’s you cross off your list, the more to-do’s you realize you need to get done.

As long as you live your life by a to-do list, you can’t win, no matter how efficient you are.

It’s time to try something new.

Instead of following a to-do list and cramming as much as possible into each day, write down what is the end result that you want.

For example, instead of writing in your calendar “Work on slides for committee meeting”, write “Create an outstanding presentation for committee meeting to show them that my data is solid, and I am ready to move onto the next phase  of my research.”

Then, you can list the actions necessary to achieve that result.

An action plan with a well-defined goal for finishing your thesis is much more motivating than a random list of chores.

With a results-oriented action plan you will be able to prioritize better and take the actions that will help you to make the most progress in your thesis.

After all, you don’t want to become a slave to your to-list – you just want a finished your thesis!

Step #5 Soak up the energy you need from a support group

The number one complaint of grad students is that they feel isolated and lost their motivation to do work.

In college there are support groups in the form of study groups, office hours, and the residential community.

In graduate school many student do not have any type of support.

First-year students usually start out with enthusiasm, but due to lack of accountability they lose track of time and fall behind on their milestones.

In contrast, the students who did join a support group thought that being part of a community was one of the best ways to  keep themselves motivated.

There is no shame in getting support, whether it is academic or emotional support to help you focus on finishing your thesis.

Don’t take my word for it.

The #1 advice from PhDs for graduate students for finishing your thesis is to join a support group.

The more people you “worry” with, the more perspectives you get and the smaller your problems seem.

When you live in your own head you can blow a minor issue out of proportion.

Suddenly, taking off two days from work because you didn’t feel well may seem like a huge setback until you hear from others that what you are going through is normal for a graduate student.

There will be times when you feel so burnt out that you will not want to work for weeks.

Or, you may start doubting the point of grad school when you don’t know what you’ll do afterwards.

Without a context, these situations can rob you of your self-confidence and your motivation.

How could you be motivated when you identify yourself as “lazy” and think there is no point in finishing your thesis anyway?

You can sort out these sticky situations by sharing with others, especially graduate students who are going through similar experiences, and feel better about your experience in grad school.

So if you are wondering how to get motivated to write a thesis, when you would rather do anything else, a support group with  other graduate students is one of the best resources.

Just knowing that you are not the only one going through these tribulations, can already take most of the pressure off that has been keeping you from being motivated to work on your thesis.

No one writes their thesis alone. Get support. You have what it takes.

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I don't think I'm going to finish my dissertation on time...

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Can't finish master thesis

Posted Jun 25, 2022 14:14 by anonymous 24 views | 0 comments

I am doing my master thesis. First of all, it turned out to be really boring. I thought it would be interesting, but it's not. Second, my PC is slow and it takes forever for the simulations I need. And the most frustrating part, my mentor is really busy and os not interested in helping me at all. I don't have any communication with her. She left me to deal with this on my own. I can't belive I chose to do this. I am a very good student and there is possibility that I will never complete my thesis and this fact makes me want to cry.

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Is it possible to write a masters thesis in 10 days? [closed]

Was it ever possible for anyone to finish writing a master thesis in 10 days? I've been struggling for a long time now to focus on my writing due to several personal problems and I'm running close to my deadline so I'm starting to freak out. I welcome any suggestions at this point.

• time-management

• 1 Can you push your deadline to next semester? –  HEITZ Commented Nov 30, 2016 at 22:43
• 4 I think that really depends on your field, how comprehensive the exact subject of your thesis is, how knowledgeable you are and how well skilled you are in academic writing. I wrote mine in a little over 25 hours in total, but this excludes reading literature and the time required for doing experiments. –  pbond Commented Nov 30, 2016 at 23:41
• 1 What @pbond said with the additional question of what the requirements of the actual thesis are. –  Raydot Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 0:44
• 1 I hope you are holed up somewhere working hard on your draft, instead of reading this comment. But if you are reading this comment, go get started! Promise yourself a little reward after a good day's work. After a few days, when you are really on a roll, THEN you may contact someone official to ask for an extension. –  aparente001 Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 2:18

4 Answers 4

If by "writing" you mean to do the research/experiments/studying and then write the thesis then no .

If by "writing" you mean transforming your well organized notes into one document, then yes , maybe if you have great discipline.

If by "writing" you mean to start to write-up from not-so well organized notes, then most probably not .

If you want to try to make it, stop hanging around on the internet and start working.

• 2 This made me laugh, which was much needed. –  NZKshatriya Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 1:28
• Concise yet precise. –  Ébe Isaac Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 4:05
• Great last sentence. –  Pere Commented Dec 22, 2016 at 19:51

It can be done, but I would be dubious of the quality. That said, I can't recall a Master's thesis that set the world on fire, so I suppose quality is a poor metric.

Here are some suggestions:

• Make sure you've got all the material you need to write because that's what you need to do -- write. Find a nest and keep all the distractions out.
• Set minimum targets for your writing. Then, meet and exceed it. I suggest setting targets that allow you to finish writing in eight days, not 10. This gives you some padding in case life gets in the way. To be clear, there are 192 hours in eight days. Allowing for a 12-hour work day, then you need to write 15,000 words in 96 hours or about 156 words an hour. Set a target of 400 words an hour.
• Make sure you have time to edit your work.

Good luck to you.

• 3 Just to nitpick: Shannon's masters thesis was actually quite groundbreaking, more so than his PhD. Apart from that, I agree with your advice. Start now. –  Captain Emacs Commented Nov 30, 2016 at 23:41
• I would love to read it. Do you have a link to the thesis or perhaps some papers that have been produced from it? –  user65587 Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 2:42
• I think it should be googleable, I do not know whether I can link it here. It is essentially how to use Boolean algebra to simplify circuits. Retrospectively obvious, it wasn't at its time. –  Captain Emacs Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 11:43
• @Captain Emacs: Although a bit old, there's the case of Luzin's Master's thesis: . . . he completed his thesis The integral and trigonometric series which he submitted in 1915. After his oral examination he was awarded a doctorate, despite having submitted his thesis for the Master's Degree. In fact, even for a Ph.D. thesis, Luzin's is one of the strongest ever written in mathematics --- probably in the top 10 to 20 of all-time for its influence on later developments. –  Dave L Renfro Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 14:48

Yes. You can write it in 10 days though the result won't be good. Make sure you write 1000 to 1500 words a day. So, rather than starting to freak out, you can start writing now

If it's an MFA thesis (average length: 2-3 pages) yes. If it's a science one where you're reporting on results and my impression is that the length isn't too terribly long, maybe. If it's a humanities one that's in the 100-150 page range, it's unlikely (I've written 10-15 pages in a day before, but I doubt I can keep that pace up for ten pages).

You should look into extending into next semester, even if it's just shooting off a quick email while continuing to work. If you have had a large number of personal problems that have negatively affected your ability to complete your school work (and are in the US, not sure how it would apply elsewhere), you should (a) speak with the counseling center on campus and (b) consider a withdrawal under extenuating circumstances (typically called a medical withdrawal, but at least at my school they are allowed for other reasons). If there's no penalty at all for extending into next semester, (b) might not even be necessary — it's super common for both master's and PhD students to miss their expected graduation date by a semester or two because of the thesis/dissertation.

But if you're running up against a hard time limit, the withdrawal would gain you an extra semester. If withdrawal isn't an option, at many schools you can also (c) petition the university to waive the time limit given your circumstances. I don't think I've ever really heard of those petitions being denied if the reason is even halfway reasonable.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged thesis masters writing time-management deadlines .

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