i procrastinated on my bachelor's thesis for ~5 years. the school ended up changing the graduation requirements before i finished it.
never underestimate the power of stubbornness.
I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
51–60 of 275 posts
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's Cunningham's law at play. Correcting something is much easier than coming up with it.
Reminds me : If you want an answer to a question on the internet, make an incorrect statement.
So publish your vomit draft on the internet to have it improved for you?
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#53Hey, I'm the author of this blog post. I didn't think anyone would even read it, let alone post it on HN. To be honest it's a little scary how many people are seeing this post since it's basically my 2am anxiety-fueled cry for help. But it's also motivating reading all these comments from people who've had similar experiences and are offering encouragement. I'm reading every one of your replies and they're giving me…
My GF started working on her Master Thesis in 2011. A few things happened like moving to another city and some short jobs here and there. She was really dreading even thinking about it, constantly waiting for next year's updated statistics. Me trying to help also upset her, we were in a bad place in that respect. In 2015 she started going to a university help group but it still didn't really help. In 2016 I convinced her to pull the plug and it's been the best decision in years. Five years seem incredibly long for no result retrospectively, but what can one do.
Everything will be alright, take care.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#54Here's my thesis procrastination story: I remember sitting in the explanation lecture, 18 months before the deadline for my undergrad thesis. Even then, I was nervous about handing it in on time. So I did the usual things, made week by week plans, asked my supervisor to check in with me etc. Of course, as a serial procrastinator I didn't come close to sticking to the plan. I fiddled around with a few things but didn'…
> If you struggle with procrastination on a grand scale you have an emotional problem, not an organizational one. No amount of planners, charts, calendars or todo lists will solve it(though they are good to have for other reasons). You need emotional solutions. Therapy, medication, meditation, introspection.
I'm in a similar situation and need help as well. What did you find works, or worked?
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#55It helps to write down what the real problems are, why it is so difficult now.
And then take a step back. Be pragmatic. Maybe some earlier decision was wrong and needs to be changed, to simplify, to remove some of the goals, so that you can realistically finish something in a reasonable time (think about days, max 1-2 weeks), which is useful, and can be shown. Then later you can still extend it, and maybe work on some of the other goals.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#56Hey, I'm the author of this blog post. I didn't think anyone would even read it, let alone post it on HN. To be honest it's a little scary how many people are seeing this post since it's basically my 2am anxiety-fueled cry for help. But it's also motivating reading all these comments from people who've had similar experiences and are offering encouragement. I'm reading every one of your replies and they're giving me…
I've been having trouble writing my PhD manuscript for more than one year, so the title clearly resonated with me :) I'm nearly done, I've been doing regular meetings with my advisor and keeping track of progress to help me write. At some point, I guess I realized that any progress is progress, that the thesis isn't going to write itself, and that I don't have to hand over a perfect work. I wish you all the courage t…
I was supposed to turn mine in last week and have written ... 10 pages.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#57[deleted]
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#58If 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…
You know, I'm fairly sure that there is more than just procrastination at play. This feels like some human mal-adaptation where we do anything (or nothing) to avoid dealing with That One Terrible Thing, whatever it may be.
Throughout my career I've had this feeling or state of thinking multiple times, whether I had to work with legacy code, uncooperative individuals, or just a week ago, work with a bad DB schema and write complex queries against it.
In my case, procrastination was just a consequence of wanting to do something but I very clearly also remember just sitting and staring at the task at hand, doing absolutely nothing, because I couldn't stomach how bad everything about the task that needed to be done was - bunches of redundant tables, illogical linking of data, lots of overcomplication, no documentation and no examples of helpful queries whatsoever.
> If 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.
In the end, just forcing myself to get started, writing out the dozen of different things I needed as a part of the query and then working backwards through everything, was what worked. It took hours of uninterrupted work, I felt miserable throughout it, but I got things done in the end, all because of that decision to actually work on it and deal with the pain and suffering, very much how someone would need to make the leap to dive into legacy code, or an issue for a project that doesn't have monitoring or instrumentation, or writing a thesis.
I think that's why techniques like Pomodoro also get recommended, because if you trick yourself into saying that you'll only do a bit of suffering (work on the horrible thing) now and will take a break later, it's more tolerable: https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/pomodoro-technique
I'm just writing this because to me it feels different from how people commonly view procrastination: just getting distracted and wanting dopamine, as opposed to being able to stare at the computer for an hour without doing anything, just because doing the thing would be horrible. The latter feeling makes you want to quit your academical program (which seems like what the author is dealing with a little bit), or maybe draft your resignation and leave the job market for a bit instead of dealing with the codebase or whatever (which I did, albeit for different and less negative reasons in my case).
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#59The problem is your advisor sent you on an unknown journey. A Ph.D. thesis isn't a postdoc project. You needed guidance on the journey and course correction but didn't receive any.
I also went on an unknown journey but the difference was I had a weekly meeting with my advisor and we talked and tried to find a solution. I wrote a few pages in my thesis explaining all our failed approaches. But the difference was my advisor helped me. He saw me working on a dead-end solution and he said it doesn't work to find a different solution. After 5 or 6 attempts, we found a solution.
PhD advisor is not necessary someone who knows the topic. It's someone who teaches you the research and guides you.
Don't give up.
Re: I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do something similar. There even used to be a lovely website that had a text entry box which would delete words if you didn’t keep up a certain words per minute. It sounds daft but it was actually useful to use at least a couple of times to train yourself to keep writing, even if it was garbage. I think now I might be tempted to use dictation to reduce barriers ti getting words down even more.
Sounds like The Most Dangerous Writing App! https://www.wired.com/2016/03/sadistic-writing-app-deletes-w...
direct link : https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app