How to finish a PhD thesis quickly | 5 simple tips to write a thesis in two months!

hello my beautiful phd friends so today 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 let's talk about that if you're new to this channel please remember to subscribe because i'm going to talk about everything phd thesis student careers life after a phd post docs everything to help you on your phd career journey i've done it and i want to share that with you so please subscribe okay let's talk about finishing your thesis quickly and all of the things you can do look at this a big old thesis with words and graphs and images that's one of my favorites by the way i made that in word um just so many things so much 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 uh you need to get to here by the little steps 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 have 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 um and it's overwhelming right there's no two ways about it this is a very big overwhelming thing but you really need to just focus and let's talk about that the number one tip um 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 um all of the other stuff you know the data analysis should already be done at this point so at this point we're kind of turning them into nice little graphs we're turning them into nice little schematics and we're writing words about those things so what i recommend you do is produce a day that will get you to your thesis goal which is i will sit down first thing in the morning and write for an hour and a half right first thing then i'll have a little bit of a break and then i'll write again for another hour then i'll have lunch and then i'll sit down and write again for another hour and a half then i'll have a break then i'll sit down again and do another hour right that's what my routine looked like and i did that for two months straight without a break monday through sunday 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 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 and from you i need you to commit to getting me back revisions really quickly and also dedicating time every couple of days to look over what i've produced and just give me some feedback there is no way you can do this without your thesis and the reason number one reason i've seen people delay their submission of their thesis is because their supervisor is still checking over stuff now this isn't in their interest right to get you finished quickly just because that's not they're not marked on that necessarily and they don't get any rewards because of that but you should be you should lead that you should absolutely leave that and make sure that they do buy in to your schedule and they understand exactly what's expected of them before you start writing so that you can finish on time the third thing is is set yourself mini goals so for two 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 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 um it could be as well you know i got i think 10 chapters in here something like that i can't even remember but um 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 if you feel like you need a bit more help with that kind of motivation stuff the fourth thing i would say is forget the little stuff as phd students the reason you're there is because you love the detail and you can hone in on the detail and the detail is what you're all about but in this instance cracking out the words is all that matters i don't care you know my thesis was poorly written at first until i edited it just because until my supervisor looked at it just because i was more interested in getting it out there don't let perfection get in the way of progress and i know as a student and of someone who's done a phd that kills people right because that's not why you're there you're there because you're the best thinker you're intricate you're systematic but now it's about cranking out those words so don't don't let the formatting of a graph get in the way of you writing words there are a ton of excuses that people come up with but please just write the words that's your main thing if your graph looks a little bit weird don't worry as long as it is able to show the data you want it to show that is all that matters so please don't get sort of lost and bogged down in the details just make sure that you um you focus on writing those words every single day okay number five is just make sure you've got some rest built into your day um the reason i say that is because i did two months non-stop right i was in the library six day six hours at least a day and i was writing for the majority of that time and that's what got me to the finish line but when i went home i turned off i switched off i didn't drink alcohol to celebrate i didn't get drunk i didn't do anything like that but i just switched off i spent time with friends and family didn't talk about the phd which meant the next day i was ready to go in and conquer the thesis writing thing all over again relatively refreshed get to bed early look after yourself eat well i did eat a lot of chocolate but when i wasn't eating chocolate i was eating well and drinking well i didn't get drunk i didn't drink alcohol for two months i just made sure that my main goal and focus was this thesis it takes a little bit of discipline but with the right people around you and the right support you better do it easily also some people find that taking one full day off a week really helps and so if that's you i'd recommend taking like a saturday or a sunday but please for me i completely lose momentum if i don't do something every day so that wouldn't have worked for me just look at the sort of person you are you know you better than anyone else and so uh make if you can keep it to like resting in the evenings that's what i did and i found it really beneficial and i finished within two months but if you're the sort of person that just needs a whole day to recuperate lay in bed do whatever you want like make that decision for you but make sure you build in rests to your schedule you are not a machine you are a human being despite what all of those supervisors are pushing you to do um so make sure you look after yourself and part of that is factoring in rest like evenings or mornings or um or rest days full days on the weekend so make sure you do all of that that is how you make sure you finish your phd strong and you have enough reserve energy to edit the stuff um as you're going or you know i would normally write a section send it to my supervisor get it back and in there would be edits not only for content but also grammatical stuff as well it's it's challenging there's no two ways about it so let me know in the comments what your top tips are for finishing a thesis here's mine 2011 university of newcastle in australia it's a beast it's got loads of awesome graphs but this is something that i've never really looked at for a long time but every time i do pick it up it's a sense of achievement and to be honest with you i've completely forgotten about the pain of those two months now i just see a nice body of work that i'm relatively proud of and i would love to think that these tips have helped you get closer to achieving that as well all right so please remember to subscribe hit that bell notification if you want more phd tips tricks and all that sort of stuff and i shall see you in the next video have a lovely day and get writing no excuses

Channel: Andy Stapleton

Views: 46,645

Rating: 4.9783359 out of 5

Keywords: How to finish a PhD thesis quickly, how to write a PhD dissertation quickly, finish your PhD quickly, PhD tips, PhD advice, PhD tips and tricks, PhD how to

Id: hPyeMay32Yc

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 03 2020