How I wrote my PhD thesis in just 3 months

0:00 Introduction
1:00 Reducing stress
2:28 Limiting time, adapting and acting decisively
4:12 Finishing research before writing
5:35 Preparing to write
6:41 Targets and consistency
8:26 Routine
9:27 Setting my own syllabus
10:18 Solving problems of expression
11:43 Finishing each section before moving on to the next

[babyroo]

I'm meant to submit my thesis in March, but because English is my first language - and let's ace it, I'm a last minute student - that's not happening. I'm happy I bookmarked this, James. Will subscribe to your emails again now - it's the right time. Thanks, from Melbourne.

[taediumvitae]

Hi James, just wanted to thank you for this video which did A LOT to give me the confidence to start writing! Long story short, I have been working on my PhD in the humanities for several years and was just stuck in the reading and drafting phase without producing actual results. Then came a traumatic life event which almost made me give up on myself and the thesis. Now I have set my goal to finally submit the thing in mid-October, so I have about 5 months.
Your video not only gave me faith that it CAN be done in such a limited amount of time, but also provided me with a bunch of practical advice that helps me organize my days.
I'll come back here in mid October to let you know if I made it!

[finemeyday]

Really enjoyed this video. I just submitted my thesis - literally yesterday which took longer than expected but I had a covid extension. I really wish I had known some of these tips earlier. I completely agree about the writing being much more straight forward when you're confident with the material/results, I have so many unused drafts because I felt like I had to just get something down. I feel like if I had taken the time to slow down and really think it might not have been such a laborious process of rewriting. Walks saved my PhD life too!

[rajaniram]

James, You are a true motivator. I kept following your tips and I feel confident about my work. I have started to write my thesis. Thank you

[hoddy]

This is great! Thanks James. I'm in need of motivation like this as I'm a bit over the whole doctoral journey! 🙂

[stevenedwards]

Great video. Thanks for the effort you put into it. I'm in the middle of writing my dissertation and have faced some of the difficulties you discuss here. This helps.

[lauramarcelaqs]

OMG I am more anxious now... I only have a month to write it! :(

[komteera]

Thks James, I'm at the stage where I've the final 6 months in stressful time of my PhD life. Many good things to know and realise, esp. relaxing from writting-stress, walking&trying not to expect the final best Thesis. So will keep pacing slow&speedy at my best knowledge and skills... / Thks indeed for the clip. Will follow your advise. /cheers! 😊😊😊

[todddunn]

I agree totally about setting daily progress goals. I set a goal of 3 pages per day. If I hit a block, I worked on the details - references, drafting figures, writing up procedures, literature review, etc. That allowed me to meet or exceed my productivity goal even if what I produced was very mundane. Actually typing up references to the correct format made me rethink the references I cited because I hated typing up the citations. I wrote before the internet so that wasn't a distraction. In addition, my first draft was hand written, so my first revision was done when I went to the computer center to use a terminal to type the material into a computer file. I donated a day to that about once a week. Typing the hand written material into the computer gave the opportunity to tighten up my presentations. I got a third opportunity to make revisions when I did the formatting for the word processing software - Things were different then since you had to enter codes for fonts, print size, blank space on pages, paragraph ends, etc. The final review came when I went over the first printed draft. Note that back then I printed what I had typed in as soon as I finished the formatting so I would have a hard copy because computer tapes did fail now and then or the computer systems nightly backup sometimes deleted files. I then let that sift or a week or so before I read through it again.

During the writing process I spent a couple of evenings a week in the library reading the newest papers to keep my thinking up to date. Remember that the internet didn't exist then, so we had to read physical papers in the journals and make a photocopy for our individual files.

I used to advise my grad students to set goals like yours and to work around blocks by doing the mundane stuff.

I actually found it harder to write up research after grad school because as a prof it was really hard to get clean blocks of time
without interruptions.

[amandac]

I'm a Physicist and writing my dissertation right now--- I needed this so much!!! THANK YOU!!!

[mariarosarodner]

thank you. I'm in the slump period. Finished my data collection, but overwhelmed and unsure on how to write up all the information

[sashanealand]

well thanks for video, Im at the end of 6th year in USA and was having a severe psnic attack freeze for several months about writing thesis I knew I had to write it but couldnt figure out how to go about it and just sat at the desk reading papers and writing random pages and distracing myself by planning and doing more and more experiments. It was really making me ill that after all this time I havnt even got much good data IDK thete were so many challenges, getting permits to import bacteria which took a whole year and took so much time just to repair stuff, come up with procedures and get them working, source materials cuz my lab didnt hsve miney to buy anything. Trying to deal with advisors disparaging comments throughout and not get too depressed also having to wirk part time. IDK if I have enough data to write a decent thesis but at least your videos cleared up some of the confusion and got me unstuck.

[terrys_world]

I am encouraged to do this. Still doing my PhD. Course work. I pray when I get to my dissertation writing period that it doesn't take too long. Love from Kenya.

[jonathanbambokela]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It really encouraged me.

[cheflamaman]

thank you, you made it feel possible really

[thegirlchild]

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏👏👏👏👏👏 so helpful. Thank you a million times

[melaniebatista]

Hi James, thank you for putting this together. I have a question that I’m really curious about, I struggle with this a lot:
You say that when writing your thesis, you set the target of 500 words/day, and you planned two weeks per chapter. Which results in a chapter of 6000 words - perfectly reasonable to me :)
My personal struggle is to write 500 words a day.. the selecting literature, reading and annotating, making mindmaps or tables to compare papers, the, so to say, finding out what actually I want/need to write. How did you account for this time, or how did you make it work fast?

[jasminepercha]

I am a phd student and I have only a month and a half to finish my phd thesis (just ti mention I already have the most of the needed data and still have to search some of othors and too I have to translate some data to a writing but I don't know how to do it especially by not having any help from my supervisor because she is a narcissist

[ajaynayak-qkvb]

I have hearing problem I cannot even talk on phone I have lost profound hearing ability in my both ears so can I get admission in PhD plzzzz help me

[fatimaozcan]

Thank you for your videos. Also I really enjoyed reading your book . One question. Is it sensible/possible to write a PhD in a year in social science? (No lab work or data collection needed) I’ve already written 30k but I feel like it’s rubbish and I’m coming towards of my 3rd year. I’m wondering if I can do from scratch in last year?