Why Is It So Hard To Write Your Dissertation When You Have “All Day”?
“I was writing more when I was stealing time from my research!” my student, Petra confessed. She was getting her PhD in Biology, and struggling to pull her data into a cohesive Dissertation. In hopes of finishing by the end of the school year, she quit a lot of her extracurricular activities to have more time to write. But, she found herself writing less than before when she was writing her Dissertation between experiments.
Why was Petra was more productive when she only had an hour here and there to write than when she had “all day”? Petra experienced what I call the “time paradox.”
The “time-paradox” of Dissertation writing is that the less time you have, the more focused you are and the more writing you get done.
At first glance this seems very surprising. But, upon closer examination it makes perfect sense.
When we have “all day” to write, we are more likely to waste a couple of minutes here and there with email, social media, and house chores. By the time we sit down to write, we are already too distracted to focus. How do I know this so intimately? Because I have been there! I have blocked out entire days to write, only to finish the day with a tiny paragraph and a bucket full of guilt.
In contrast, when we only have 1 hour to write (or even just 15-30 minutes), we can’t afford any distractions, and we are much more likely to laser focus. We turn off our phones, tell the spouse and kids to not bother us or else, and we keep writing until the timer rings.
Does this mean that we should only work on our Dissertations when we have less than 1 hour to write? Absolutely not! Although you can make progress on your Dissertation in just 15 minutes, I have never met a student who had been able to finish their Dissertation by writing just 15-30 minutes a day. So, what gives?
How can you finish your Dissertation if it’s tough to focus during long blocks of time, but impossible to finish your Dissertation in just 15-30 minutes a day?
The Trick to Turn Unproductive Days Into Productive Ones
The key to consistently write your Dissertation is to be intentional with your time. You can be productive when you have “all day” to write, as long as you have structure in your day and you have clear goals.
Now, you must be thinking: Thanks a lot Dora! What does it mean to be intentional? I intend to work on my Dissertation, but I just don’t get much writing done!
Ahh! I got you. When I say intentional, I mean specific. Imagine the difference between telling yourself to “Work on Chapter 2” versus “Edit and finish 1st paragraph in introduction.” Do you see how the second one is much more actionable? It sounds like something that can be done in less than 1 hour. That’s what I mean by intentional.
In the last stages of writing my Dissertation, I used to imagine that I would need to tell someone at the end of the day what I had accomplished. If I just told them “I worked on Chapter 2” it would get boring quite quickly! So, I had to break down big goals into much smaller actionable goals.
I recognize this is a lot to remember, and you don’t have to! I created a handy Daily Dissertation Writing Checklist for you that can be your loyal companion during all the days when you are scratching your head not knowing what to write.
Why Does the Daily Dissertation Writing Checklist Work So Well?
The magic of the Daily Dissertation Writing Checklist is that it starts the day before you write. Before I had this checklist, I would try to figure out what to write the day of, and let me tell you it didn’t work very well! I would just stare at the screen until finally I distracted myself and somehow forgot to go back to writing. Yep, I have been there. A lot.
Once I decided the day before what to write, or at least where to start writing, everything changed. Even a tiny goal such as “Write one sentence in the Introduction” gave me some writing momentum and a small win to motivate me to keep writing!
The checklist also reminds you to take care of your meals and childcare before you sit down to write. Although I didn’t have children in graduate school, I did have two babies during my postdoc and arranging childcare and meals was always a priority.
Here is another reason that writing “all day” becomes tricky: we can only focus for so many hours before we feel like our brain is “fried.” Regular breaks do help you to focus for longer, but how many of us take regular breaks? You might be more disciplined than me, but I only remember to take regular breaks when a timer rings. And even then, I am tempted to keep writing.
What Are the Lessons From the Time Paradox For Your Dissertation Writing?
Both small and big blocks of time are valuable for writing your Dissertation. Small blocks of time work well because you are less likely to get distracted. Believe it or not, when you have a clear goal you can write a few hundred words in 30 minutes or less. Hey, I even worked with a PhD student who wrote the draft of an entire progress report in less than 3 hours using this checklist.
The most important thing about the time-paradox is to just recognize that it exists. The best way to avoid the trap of getting distracted when you have too much time is to create structure in your day as well as accountability. The daily checklist will give you structure by helping you to decide what you will work on, arranging for basic necessities the day before, taking breaks, and setting goals for the following day.
The time paradox also reminds us that when you have less than 1 hour before a meeting, that’s still sufficient time to get started with something. This was a big surprise for me as well as my students. I remember how many times I used to think “I only have less than 1 hour. It’s not worth starting. I am better off just responding to emails.” That was a big mistake! I could have written half a page in that short amount of time, if I had decided in advance what I would write about!
So, yes, if you have less than 1 hour, it’s absolutely worth starting to write something.
What can you write when you have no idea what to write about?
The answer might surprise you, but it works so well! I recommend that you do some free writing about your Dissertation. Why do you feel stuck? What are your frustrations? What do you wish you got done today if you had some writing mojo?
Funny enough, once I started writing about my Dissertation, I came up with a few sentences that I could put into my Dissertation draft. During the most intensive part of my Dissertation I used this strategy to keep writing whenever I ran out of ideas, which was at least once a week! Use this trick whenever you need to (including when you have less than an hour to kill) in combination with the Daily Dissertation Writing Checklist, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it will be for you to write!
