Moving the Dissertation Mountain One Bucketful at a Time (Re-Post)
Author’s Note: I’ve re-posted this article for your perusal as I am on vacation.
Big projects, like term papers or dissertations or what have you, really freak people out. Sometimes I try to give other people advice about getting s**t done. They never appreciate hearing my exquisitely condensed single line of wisdom, so sharp it sings out like a band of angels with knives: Sit down and get to work (dumbass).
If they’re unappreciative a**holes about it, I shrug and walk away. Their big dumb project is their big dumb problem, not mine. But if they’re all quietly sad and hopeless and ask for some expansion on my awesome advice, I will relent and add one shred more: Set a timer for an hour or thirty minutes or whatever you think you can handle without losing your s**t. Sit down and work on the project until the timer goes off. Take a short break, and repeat.
Little chunks that you can see the end of never seem insurmountable, and it’s actually fairly painless to move a mountain from here to way over there if you do it one bucket at a time.
Peg Boyle Single wrote a piece in Inside Higher Ed about how to change your procrastinating ways so’s you can write your dissertation already. It’s helpful advice (and she’s much kinder in her delivery than I am).
Further Reading:
Write or Die V2.0
Getting Past the Overwhelming Wall
Monumental Tasks
A Writing Routine
Posted by Alexa Harrington
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