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Procrastinators Dissertation Help!!!

Throughout my entire university life I have been a procrastinator from the very beginning to the end. Every time I have attempted to plan and write weeks in advance nothing ever seems to work. I will sit for hours and be unable to produce anything. Instead I rely on the deadlines to create pressure and stress but so then I have no choice but to write and I won't become overly critical of my work. I have finally got to the end of my course and now it's all about the dissertation. 15000 words due by August 20th and I haven't got a single word on the paper. It is so overwhelming and scary all at the same time. How did you fellow procrastinators deal with your dissertation?
Original post by Anonymous
Throughout my entire university life I have been a procrastinator from the very beginning to the end. Every time I have attempted to plan and write weeks in advance nothing ever seems to work. I will sit for hours and be unable to produce anything. Instead I rely on the deadlines to create pressure and stress but so then I have no choice but to write and I won't become overly critical of my work. I have finally got to the end of my course and now it's all about the dissertation. 15000 words due by August 20th and I haven't got a single word on the paper. It is so overwhelming and scary all at the same time. How did you fellow procrastinators deal with your dissertation?


Hi there,

I completely understand sometimes it can be hard to do something when you know that you have quite a lot of time left but this time will fly pass. I would try these couple of things to help-
1. Write a to do list- break down what you need to complete into smaller sections as then when you feel a sense of accomplishment more often
2. Start each list/ day with one big/ important task that you have to complete within a set time period
3. Create an ideal environmental- This will reduce distractions and make sure you are in the ideal frame of mind to do some work
4. Just start- This is the hardest thing but sometimes you need to just start typing and then something will come of it

I hope this helps and good luck with your dissertation

Loren Snowden
Official UoP Student Ambassador
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weird0
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My master's dissertation is due in a couple of weeks and I totally understand your stress. I have been much of a procrastinator myself on this dissertation so I can share with you what helped me getting started and getting things done. The first thing is to evaluate where exactly you stand in the dissertation process:

- If you've done your readings and have enough idea of your project that you can explain it to a friend who knows nothing about your field, then writing it is all you're left to do. You can try the following idea:
I open up my text editor and start a "conversation" to explain my project to it (the text editor gets no say, obviously). After I've spat all my thoughts out on the screen, it feels like I've finally got a draft going (dopamine!). From there all I need to do is read through the ideas and restructure them. If I care about my sentence structure and grammar while explaining my ideas, it interferes with my thought process and makes it difficult. So putting the ideas out first and structuring them later helps me. You should do it one chapter/section at a time though.

- If you feel like you are not yet done with your readings, then it would be better to not dedicate an entire day to it. In my opinion, you should start writing the chapters you think you can and dedicate some time to reading when you're done with one section/chapter or feel like you require additional information.

It's important to remind yourself that your report will be marked and not your notes or highlighted literature. This keeps you from falling into the trap of making extensive notes but not spending enough time on writing a report, especially when you don't have a lot of time. Going to a new environment helps generate new ideas. You can go to a coffee shop nearby or someplace that is new to you and does not have a lot of distractions.

Hope this helps.
Good luck!

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