I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
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I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
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Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#2If you're not just making slow progress but literally unable to make a single bit of progress, my goto strategy is similar to what writers call a vomit draft.
For writing it conventionally means means writing words without stopping to plan or edit, no corrections allowed, the rule is you just have to keep typing, no matter what. It's about something being better than nothing, creating momentum, and also avoids being too critical because you literally can not stop and make edits to old work.
Remember the only rule is keep typing. Even if it means typing random nonsense for awhile.
I do all that but I sometimes make it even more extreme. I make it the goal to produce truly terrible version of the the thing I'm trying to make. Full of cliches and tropes in writing. Amateur coding mistakes if it's a technical project. Not just bad but legit so awful that I would truly embarrassed if somebody else saw it. Like literally, what would so shoddy I'd be afraid to have someone look at my screen right now. I mean literally ask yourself what work is so bad you would be humiliated if your advisor saw it. Make that your goal.
But it still works. After you have something even it's an abomination, it gets your brain thinking about it and working on it, and it's so much easier to make the obvious improvements, and then more, and eventually you are just doing things normally.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#3If you're not just making slow progress but literally unable to make a single bit of progress, my goto strategy is similar to what writers call a vomit draft. For writing it conventionally means means writing words without stopping to plan or edit, no corrections allowed, the rule is you just have to keep typing, no matter what. It's about something being better than nothing, creating momentum, and also avoids being…
DO THIS. I have a friend that was doing a PhD and procrastinated and they kick him out after the ten year time limit. True they gave him an MA for his work, but still that was ten years of his life wasted stressing out about procrastinating about not doing his PhD, that could have been spent at the beach with a martini and a girl in a bikini.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#4Memorable, for the last year two years I've been working on identifying structural causes of procrastination caused by working from home and working on a digital device.
While I'm sure there are personality factors that are affecting your productivity, there are a number of factor in play that are beyond your control.
I've worked closely with a number of CEO's and thesis writers helping them out of the slump.
I'f you DM me, I'd love to have a call with you to give a number of pointers how to get more productive immediately and also to help you find professional help to ease the possible underlying factors that tend to cause procrastination.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#5If you're not just making slow progress but literally unable to make a single bit of progress, my goto strategy is similar to what writers call a vomit draft. For writing it conventionally means means writing words without stopping to plan or edit, no corrections allowed, the rule is you just have to keep typing, no matter what. It's about something being better than nothing, creating momentum, and also avoids being…
DO THIS. I have a friend that was doing a PhD and procrastinated and they kick him out after the ten year time limit. True they gave him an MA for his work, but still that was ten years of his life wasted stressing out about procrastinating about not doing his PhD, that could have been spent at the beach with a martini and a girl in a bikini.
Wait, that's the alternative to doing a PhD??
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#6I know dat feel, bro
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#7If you're not just making slow progress but literally unable to make a single bit of progress, my goto strategy is similar to what writers call a vomit draft. For writing it conventionally means means writing words without stopping to plan or edit, no corrections allowed, the rule is you just have to keep typing, no matter what. It's about something being better than nothing, creating momentum, and also avoids being…
I think it's Cunningham's law at play.
Correcting something is much easier than coming up with it.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#8Memorable, for the last year two years I've been working on identifying structural causes of procrastination caused by working from home and working on a digital device. While I'm sure there are personality factors that are affecting your productivity, there are a number of factor in play that are beyond your control. I've worked closely with a number of CEO's and thesis writers helping them out of the slump. I'f you…
This one isn't memorable's original post on the bearblog -- if you click the username in the posted link, there is a contact form to the person in the situation. Very nice of you to offer help <3
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#9I was in same situation, bro ! But mine is Master thesis, to work on very simple Neuron network to recognize numbers.
Alright, i was using Matlab at that time, it's frustrated topic as i have no clue why things work or didn't work.
So procastination was what happened.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#10I know this feeling. It took me eight years from when I entered my PhD program until I handed in my thesis. Three of those years I was away from campus working part-time, but I was still trying to do my thesis during those week.
It sounds like you are putting too much on yourself. If I can say so from reading the post, it also sounds like you have a bad advisor. Research is HARD. It is by it's nature, ambiguous and risky, and it can be very difficult to distinguish "productive failure" from just spinning your wheels. This is what your advisor is here to help you do, and it doesn't sound like he is helping you do that.
I had a similar advisor and while I thought he was nice for not punishing me when another week went by and I hadn't made any progress, he was really just enabling my poor habits. I was always reluctant to switch advisors because I thought I was smart enough to do it on my own, but the sunk-cost fallacy overcame me.
Eventually, though, I did take the leap and switch advisors six years in (when I returned from part-time work). My new advisor was great. We both agreed that my goal was not to set the academic world on fire, but to complete my PhD and with her support I completed a thesis I was proud of.
One final thing: My story is an uncommon one. Virtually everyone else I knew who "took time off" from grad school never completed their PhD. That's ok and I have just as much respect for those who left, because I know how difficult that decision is. It's usually the right one, though.