19 ms·

I've procrastinated working on my thesis for more than a year

• aquafox 4y ago
  Here is some good advise how to write scientific texts: https://clauswilke.com/virtualbooks/ https://clauswilke.com/virtualbooks/
• gadders 4y ago
  Have a look at this: https://stevenpressfield.com/books/the-war-of-art/ https://stevenpressfield.com/books/the-war-of-art/
• KVFinn 4y ago
  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. 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.
  • hungryforcodes 4y ago
    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.
    • ackbar03 4y ago
      Wait, that's the alternative to doing a PhD??
      • satvikchoudhary 4y ago
        where do I signup
      • MaxPengwing 4y ago
        The most common academic titles are: Bachelors - Masters - Licentiat - Doctor A Lic. is not use din the US, but very common in Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licentiate_(degree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licentiate_(degree) And is basically what you can take out after half a Ph.D. program. In many technical schools in Sweden you are expected to do Lic. on the way to Ph.D. or if you burn out you at least have a Lic.
        • TeMPOraL 4y ago
          I think GP is asking about the M&B, not the MA.
        • philsnow 4y ago
          Licentiates certainly aren't commonly used in the States, but there are several programs that offer ecclesial licentiates like Licentiate of Sacred Theology or Licentiate of Canon Law, which are each required for work in certain areas even in the States.
          • hungryforcodes 4y ago
            In 30 years of academia in Canada -- I've never heard of this requirement....
      • hungryforcodes 4y ago
        Beaches...bikinis...martinis.
    • 4y ago
  • graeber_28927 4y ago
    I think it's Cunningham's law at play. Correcting something is much easier than coming up with it.
    • prox 4y ago
      Reminds me : If you want an answer to a question on the internet, make an incorrect statement.
      • graeber_28927 4y ago
        Yes, that's Cunningham's law. I generalized it because I genuinely believe it still holds, and applies nicely here. Sorry if my comment above was confusing.
      • amelius 4y ago
        So publish your vomit draft on the internet to have it improved for you?
    • tempestn 4y ago
      Tangentially, this is where I see a ton of potential in these new ML tools like ChatGPT. If you're expecting it to produce finished work, you'll often be disappointed, but if it can even produce a bad version of what you need, the time saved could be enormous.
  • vintermann 4y ago
    This might be dangerous advice, but consider interactively using a language model in writing "vomit draft". I tried copilot recently, and even though some of what it suggests is "no, no, NO!"-material, it really helps. I hadn't known how much simple writing block - struggling to write the easy parts - kept me back.
  • FrostKiwi 4y ago
    First time I heard about this. And I think I really really like it. I have a huge writers block for anything I'm good or within my specialized field, it's kind of strange. Especially for scientific work this is extra bad, not being able to write, no matter how much time I dedicate to it. I'll take this approach to heart next time, thanks. I think this is right up my alley, including the funny name for it.
  • wardedVibe 4y ago
    > 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. You know, I've read and heard all sorts of advice on writing, and this is the first time I've seen this, and I think it's brilliant. Undergrad me absolutely should have done this, 'cause the perfectionism I grew up with took a long time to unlearn. Do you have an opinion on getting drunk during the process to lower inhibition? Not a thing I've ever tried, but I've definitely heard of people doing it.
    • tux3 4y ago
      ADHD happens to correlate with a higher rate of addiction, substance abuse. I would not recommend getting drunk as a tool for getting things done. The problem is it might work. And if it does, you don't want to make a habit of reaching for that tool whenever you find yourself procrastinating. That way lies aforementioned statistics.
  • scrappyjoe 4y ago
    This is genius. Anecdotally I’ve seen a high correlation between procrastination and perfectionism. Once you have a vomit draft I can see how the perfectionist bent suddenly works in your favour.
    • distantwarning7 4y ago
      I agree 100%.
    • theshrike79 4y ago
      When coding I have a rule: "first make it work, then make it pretty". The MVP can be a complete spaghetti piece of crap, just make it work. When it works, you can iterate on making it elegant. Oh, and if you work for a Corporation, don't tell them it's done when the crappy MVP finally works. You're still "working on it" if they ask. Otherwise the spaghetti crap will end up in production.
      • llm_sent_me 4y ago
        My variation on this. Make it work then make it slightly less horrible.
        • bdavis__ 4y ago
          Then repeat until you are proud of the work.
      • augustk 4y ago
        1. Make it work 2. Make it right 3. Make it performant (if too slow).
        • Fell 4y ago
          I disagree. 1. Make it work 2. Make it performant (always, but within reason) 3. Clean up your mess to prevent future mistakes I claim that "if too slow" can't be judged because you almost never have the slowest possible target device.
  • neontomo 4y ago
    That's great advice. I do something similar with art. I draw 100 poor sketches/drawings that are meant to be really bad and then eventually the good idea pops out without trying. I think this has something to do with avoiding triggering your amygdala, because once the stress sets in you get a fight or flight reaction and then creativity gets completely shut down. Dance around the amygdala and you'll be creating cool stuff.
  • bigfudge 4y ago
    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.
    • lazyasciiart 4y ago
      Sounds like The Most Dangerous Writing App! https://www.wired.com/2016/03/sadistic-writing-app-deletes-work-stop-typing/ https://www.wired.com/2016/03/sadistic-writing-app-deletes-w...
      • gat1 4y ago
        direct link : https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app
  • bubblethink 4y ago
    This works well for writing. Writing, though, comes at a later stage after you've done at least some of the actual work (code, experiments, whatever). It's the work that people have most trouble with. The ideal trajectory is something like MVP -> write -> iterate. People usually get stuck in the MVP phase. I don't have a good solution to this, except that at least from personal experience, prolonged procrastination is an indication that you don't like the work. And this can be difficult to acknowledge because maybe you liked it earlier, or thought that you did. And then ego becomes involved. Knowing what you like and don't like can also be quite tricky. Sometimes, the only real solution is to quit and do something else.
    • ghaff 4y ago
      Yeah. I'm not a particular vomit draft or mindmap or whatever proponent for writing. But the original post seems to be more about actually doing the lab work for the thesis that's a prerequisite to writing something. That was where I was with my undergrad thesis. There were dependencies on other work in the lab which wasn't progressing quickly and I just had a lot of trouble getting to the point where I had something to write about. The writing wasn't the big deal.
  • dr_dshiv 4y ago
    The equivalent of this today is getting high and using GPT3. I don’t think there is a name for it—yet.
    • dudus 4y ago
      "Get high and unleash the AI"
      • dr_dshiv 4y ago
        I was thinking something like “the cyberbong draft”
  • KronisLV 4y ago
    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 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).
    • valenceelectron 4y ago
      I'm also experiencing this currently. I can sit in front of my thesis and stare into the screen for a whole good day. I also can distract myself with a smartphone but that's merely a distraction from the boredom. Around the topic of procrastination, I read "doing the thing would be horrible" for the first time and it just rings so true. Doing this thing (this kind of work) feels horrible and I know I'll need to do it for many, many more days and weeks and these will all be horrible. There's no way around it. I often subconsciously try to make this time less horrible by experimenting with listening to music, have the TV running in the background or other things. This never really works. Or I just haven't found what I need. At the end, whenever I do get a good chunk of work done, I feel really good about it. But I also acknowledge that it was horrible and I need rest now. And some dread builds up, reinforcing that the work is indeed horrible and the next chunk will require me to go through it again. The good feeling of getting work done does absolutely nothing to knowing that the work is horrible while you are doing it. It's the type of work (writing, editing) that I detest, not so much the content/topic. I have no idea what strategy can help here (I welcome suggestions!). Strategies such as Pomodoro do not help me. A 5min break doesn't change that the work is horrible and I'll be doing countless Pomodoros throughout the days/weeks anyway. The amount of horrible work is not reduced and the little breaks don't make it less horrible, so it doesn't help me. What works for me sometimes is tricking me a bit. Just change this one sentences here and... this one also looks really bad... and when I'm at it, this figure there could use an overhaul... and suddenly you are working on your thesis. Key point here is - I think - that you don't go at it with the intention of doing actual work (which you know is horrible). You just change this stupid sentence there because your inner perfectionist wants you to. Thinking about it like that, the horribleness associated with the work may be a state of mind I can work on. No idea how to though.
  • jstummbillig 4y ago
    You have my curiosity. I am trying to isolate what would make this work. 1) Do backspaces count towards corrections? 2) Would you say this also applies to coding? 3) What seems to be implied is, that this generates something I feel lends itself to "obvious improvements" instead of just throwing away and starting over. Your thoughts?
  • Ultimatt 4y ago
    This is definitely good advice for fleshing out the actual writing, I used this ontop of to the paragraph planning. So you build out a mindmap style plan with part > chapter > section > sub-section > sub-sub-section / figures / tables > couple words for a paragraph. Then you manage everything at the lowest level, you work out how many paragraphs you need by when. You pick paragraphs at random even if you dont have the results or good stuff to say you write the vomit draft of that paragraph. Then you pick just one thats already written and edit it. Repeat until you run out of time. It's the only way I managed to finish my thesis. The other thing I did was always do a writing warm up, so just something free flowing off the top of your head but still a bit technical. Maybe some instructions on how to make a cup of tea for an alien in low gravity. Without a plan though you can't validate you can actually finish, which is insanely important for motivation. You need the concept of % progress and time left. Also you need to know you've done enough work to actually write a thesis or if you need to do more work, and what work you actually need. The definition here is also a paragraph is about 3-5 sentences, a sentence being around 10 words. It is extremely hard to fail to write 50 words. That sense of failing to write is the mind killer. After a session even if that session lasts 20 minutes and you only wrote 50 words you update the spreadsheet showing vomit to edit progress. Until I did all this my progress was almost nothing.
  • sampo 4y ago
    > my goto strategy is similar to what writers call a vomit draft A "vomit draft" might be good approach to a writer's block. But I think the blog describes a burnout. You probably need actual help to recover from a burnout.
  • TheAlchemist 4y ago
    Wow ! That sounds like a very useful technique to me. Will definitely try to adopt that. Thank you.
  • neilv 4y ago
    Vomit draft can be great tool, but there's additional risk in science to keep in mind... I've heard of a person who advocated this kind of draft, and then did a vomit draft themselves for a research project, with the draft including discussing stand-in results of an experiment that they planned to do. Their colleague on the project saw the draft, and called out that the experiment had not been done. The writer said that they'd only written the draft to see what the paper might look like, once the experiment was done. But the person who wrote the vomit draft had a problem doing the experiment... Then that person submitted the paper anyway, with the vomit draft stand-in experiment results, and the paper got accepted. And without telling the other people on the project. I understand that the story got a lot worse from there. The vomit draft wasn't the only problem, but if you see someone vomiting drafts that are effectively scientific fabrication as they stand, I advise being uncomfortable with that, and emphasizing to the writer that this is a more dangerous practice than it might seem.
    • gjhr 4y ago
      I think the problem here is that they submitted a fabrication. If someone is prepared to do that, I don't think how they drafted the document is really the issue.
    • ordu 4y ago
      I think, the problem here stems from making vomit draft a social technique instead of keeping it at a personal level. It is potentially harmful if other people can read it. OP describes it as a personal method and it may work by breaking some psychological issues, like a fear of under-perform or something like. But to do this one need to overcome all fears, to get rid of anxiety, and it needs a safe environment where you can write anything. Literally anything, to try it and to show to your mind that it is harmless thing, nothing bad happens, it is ok to write not good enough, because you can dump it later.
    • kwanbix 4y ago
      The problem is not the technique, but the inmorality of who publish it as something it is not.
  • adomingues 4y ago
    Having written 3 dissertations, a bunch of research papers and writing code daily, I'm a huge fan of this method. Sometimes I just create bullet points stating "here i need to talk about this and that" adding a bit of actual information whenever it comes to mind. If I have to write a piece of code that I really don't feel like, i use a mix of comments and meta-code. The procrastinators among us have now an excellent way to turn their "vomit drafts" into a full fledged document. GPT-3 is able to transform bullet points into something that you can call a draft. I'm still not sure if that's a good or bad thing.
    • jakkos 4y ago
      If a tool can help people create genuine research, then that tool is good! However, I worry on both the plagiarism and correctness fronts. When you aren't writing it by hand, it might be easy to miss both.
  • Attrecomet 4y ago
    I cannot recommend this enough, it's what got me over the finish line after waaay too long, including a year with zero progress writing my thesis, just like the article describes. Each day, it went the same: sit down, try to write about the work, find some meta problem to occupy myself (like "is this the correct order of topics that I'm planning to write in my outline" or "under which topic does this idea belong") before actually writing about the thing itself, cue an unproductive spiral of research into these distractions. After a couple of hours of not actually doing any progress, drift off into the internet "as a break", and only come back to the thesis for 20-30 minute intervals that are exactly as useless as they sound. Become more and more frustrated, but no more productive, as time goes on. Vomit drafting suddenly gave me a productive focus. Suddenly it was clear that yes, where I want to put this topic is good enough, or there is this one other place where it makes a lot more sense. No more long internal debates over meta-questions. And I realized that yes, I do have a wide range of knowledge about my specialty, something I'm convinced I was subconsciously blocking on before ("what do I do if I try to write about this topic but realize I'm just too stupid to get it, and was just bluffing all the time?").
  • akjssdk 4y ago
    This works wonders, especially for collaborative documents (which a thesis should be, a collaboration between you and your supervisor/other people). A first "vomit" draft allows you to at least discuss the concepts, and it forces you to align the thoughts in your head. It is how I have written all my papers/thesis, and I cannot recommended it enough!
  • yannis7 4y ago
    This is also recommended by Donald Knuth in one of his technical writing guidelines [citation missing] so +1
  • touisteur 4y ago
    There's something there, corroborated by two examples in cinema and litterature: Finding Forrester (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zLBEFvMkQCo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zLBEFvMkQCo) and in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, with the rhetorics professor facing 'my students are stuck write even the simplest essay' problem. Yes, write something, anything, then edit. These are two different states of mind, two completely different personality parts, and I wish we taught the first one better (and the second one too...). Shut down the critics part when writing. Should down the ego part when editing.
  • tomcam 4y ago
    Yes! Hard approach to take for a perfectionist but it’s the only way that works for me too. GitHub receipts for latest project show a lot of regressions. Embarrassing. But better than nothing, and finally got the MVP done. It was your approach that made it possible.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • alex_suzuki 4y ago
    It works for other things as well. I needed to create a „customer portal“ web application for a product I’m working on, and kept postponing it, because I don’t enjoy working on it. The pressure to have it functional became so great that I literally committed a generic dashboard template with just a couple text changes, truly ugly, vomit-style stuff. But it helped me overcome my blockade and start working on it in earnest (and actually enjoying it!).
  • wafriedemann 4y ago
    That’s basically evolution vs design. Design allows you to be stuck in planning mode forever. It’s noble even, because you want to do it right.
  • RisingFusion 4y ago
    I took a similar approach with my thesis, I used voice typing while writing my first draft. The other approach I use in combination is writing every heading and subheading to create a document outline, then fill the gaps. The power of these approaches are breaking down the work into smaller manageable chunks.
  • lotu 4y ago
    I do a similar thing when I’m writing. Except I write on paper and allow myself to make revisions. Being on paper is pretty self limiting as far as edit spirals. The other trick is when you are stuck instead of writing garbage write down why you are stuck and describe what would go there if you weren’t stuck. Sometimes this gets you to the solution, but if it doesn’t you still have your thoughts on it for latter.
  • eunos 4y ago
    When I wrote my Master thesis, my vomit draft was written on paper with pen. Safe to say it was horrendous and even full of rant and swearing. Yet ultimately I managed to write much more words than directly on LaTex.
  • Gud 4y ago
    And if you're so stuck you don't even know what to do, you can always clean the space around you.
  • jinto36 4y ago
    One thing that works for me is to just start writing figure legends. That seems easy, it doesn't feel like "writing the paper". I end up basically writing the results section for that figure or table, so I just cut and paste most of it to the actual results later, and keep a summarized version for the actual figure legend. By coincidence, I'm trying to submit a PhD thesis today (Genetics/Computational Biology).
  • davnicwil 4y ago
    This right here is "worse is better" in practice! A thing in the world may well be the worst possible example of that thing that can exist. Yet it exists, so has a couple of key properties: 1) it does something (albeit poorly), not nothing 2) it can be improved upon.
  • alasdair_ 4y ago
    This is going to sound ridiculous but I’m serious: if you can’t even type a whole bunch of stuff, type just a basic (terrible) outline and then feed it to chatgpt to expand on. The output will be laughably bad, most likely, but you’ll know why it’s bad and you can fix the obvious mistakes and then go from there.
    • keenmaster 4y ago
      I was going to make this comment but you made it for me
  • thargor90 4y ago
    That's what I did as well. The problem often is fighting the urge to correct things. For me the only thing that helped was sleep deprivation, but probably alcohol has a similar effect.
  • niek_pas 4y ago
    For this, I highly recommend The Most Dangerous Writing App: https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app It deletes all your work if you don't keep typing. Good motivator.
  • engineer_22 4y ago
    Then have ChatGPT do the editing :)
  • lordswork 4y ago
    This sounds like great advice. In an attempt to see if it works for me, I thought I'd give it a shot, so I set a timer for 2 minutes and started typing a response without a real idea of what I was going to say. I'd say it's pretty effective, but I do tend to fill in a lot of meaningless content as I think of what to write next. I guess the next iteration of edits can trim that out though. I could have used this in the past, and could definitely use it right now for writing some documentation that I am procrastinating on indefinitely. Thanks for the tip. This has been helpful. Not sure if I should actually post this, it's not really contributing much to the conversation, but this is an anonymous account of mine, so who cares. Timer is up.
    • hansbo 4y ago
      Nicely done! Not sure I could tell this was not just another HN post if you didn't explicitly say so.
    • wittjeff 4y ago
      Voice dictation is helpful for this exercise even if you type fairly well.
      • digitalengineer 4y ago
        I highly doubt it. It is the ACT of actually writing that forces you to think what you are doing. Using a voice assistant kills that energy. In fact: even if you -gasp- use pen and paper it would be even more effective than typing. Drop the PC, the smartphone and disconnect when doing this.
        • oliveshell 4y ago
          > It is the ACT of actually writing that forces you to think what you are doing. This is incorrect. Everybody is different. As an ADHD sorta guy, I write much, much better if I can walk around and get my blood moving while dictating compared to sitting with my butt going numb and my brain screaming out in oxidative stress agony as I try to think clearly.
        • 4y ago
  • telesilla 4y ago
    Also known as "write drunk, edit sober" * - where your choice of drunk may be defined as 'producing text unsuitable for others to read in that form'. * Hemingway may have coined this term, along with "make sure you are 100% offline because the Internet never forgets".
  • SecurityNoob 4y ago
    I find that I get stuck in an endless loop of trying to make something perfect and it massively slows me down. I can spend hours changing a paragraph a million times… it’s extremely frustrating!
  • hrnnnnnn 4y ago
    "Write drunk, edit sober."
  • brotchie 4y ago
    Amazing advice. This technique is what got my PhD thesis across the line. Word vomit and just concatenating together all my current work into a single LaTeX project. Once it existed as a single document and I could start to “see” it as a thesis, even though most of the writing was terrible, the momentum was there.
    • maxwelljoslyn 4y ago
      Currently writing my MS thesis. "Concat all my existing work into a doc" was my initial move as well, and I discovered I had written a little on almost every topic already. In some cases, had written lots. That let me move to outlining and shuffling things around almost immediately, making writing about filling gaps instead of staring at a page. That in turn let me evolve my writing along with the codebase; now, in late January, I'm well ahead of schedule on written material (knocks on wood)
  • hinkley 4y ago
    I had a struggling Lit friend in college who I kept tabs on. She was a late adopter to blogging but she talked a lot about how writers find the motivation to write. It was an early part of my long process of discovering that everyone, everywhere is struggling with the same problems, we just call them by different names to feel special. Writers have tricks that are fundamentally Refactoring, possibly before we had a name for it. I'm not a Hemingway fan, I don't enjoy his writing and I have the impression that he was a terrible human being, but his advice to other writers is apparently pretty good: > Quit [for the day] when you know what happens next. If you want to set yourself up for failure tomorrow, write until you're completely out of ideas today, then go do something else. In the morning, you'll dread going back to the piece because what do you have to say? Anything? Who knows. Maybe you've written everything good you'll ever write. Maybe you're a failure. Maybe sitting down at the typewriter/keyboard will prove your mother was right and you should have become a doctor. So much pressure. I'll go do something else and pretend everything is fine. Or I'll read about the writing process and hope that serves as sharpening my saw while I wait for magic. When you stop with one item on your TODO list, you have at least one idea left, and having slept, you're more likely to pull on that thread and find two other things you want to write as well. You just have to get started and the creativity will happen. Starting is the hard part. Starting is what kills you before you've even tried.
  • sharperguy 4y ago
    "[discussing his last exam] Last time I only failed by the narrowest of narrow margins" "You what? You walked in there, wrote "I AM A fish" four hundred times, did a funny little dance and fainted!" - Red Dwarf
  • Gemoto 4y ago
    Forgot who said it but 'shitty first draft' stop thinking start doing
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • klenwell 4y ago
    This is legendary Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder's technique, too: Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” Then the next day, when I get up, the script’s been written. It’s lousy, but it’s a script. The hard part is done. It’s like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is fix it. So I’ve taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to do their scripts and other writing this way. And be sure to send me a small royalty every time you do it. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/john-swartzwelder-sage-of-the-simpsons https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/j...
    • jdminhbg 4y ago
      I think this a role tools like ChatGPT will fill: spit out a crappy version of something that humans can edit later. It gets you over the hump of looking at a blank page, but isn't itself a deliverable.
      • zikzak 4y ago
        I plugged the elevator pitch of "my novel" and asked it to write the plot of that novel (I will never write it, I just like to think about the elements of it and have some notes and snippets) and it spat out almost exactly what I had written out as the longer form of the outline. I laughed, because I knew exactly how original my thinking was going in. It was really funny (and depressing if I had a big ego) how close it was to my idea. However, doing so allowed me to iterate a bit and I took a minor aspect of the plot (people don't always have enough to eat) and magnified it (the government is the only source of food and they use this to control people). It has made the story much more interesting (still not super original!).
      • ghaff 4y ago
        Last week I was experimenting with ChatGPT for some of the sorts of trade pub columns I sometimes write. I wouldn't have given anything it created straight to an editor--though I've seen worse. But it gave me some bulleted paragraphs that I mostly agreed with and could certainly serve as a starting point for revising and fleshing out with more detail, maybe some numbers, quotes, links, etc. While it can head you off down dead-ends, having some structure and words to start with tends to be easier than a blank sheet of paper.
  • marttt 4y ago
    "There’s one solution that each and every book on writer’s block offers: write five words. Any five words. Follow this advice, Mr. Ashbery, and you’ll never have writer’s block again." (From "Uncreative writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age" by conceptual poet and "word processor" Kenneth Goldsmith) Edit: Oh, this historical paper is slightly different angle, but also relevant, helped me quite a bit: Upper, Dennis. "The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer's block”." Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 7.3 (1974): 497. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311997/pdf/jaba00061-0143a.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311997/pdf/jab...
  • spetryk 4y ago
    I'd like to try this, but it's tougher when you're collaborating on a shared document. For example, I collaborate on papers that always start out as a shared Overleaf doc. When I'm starting a new section, I just want to toss some ideas down on the page, knowing that the prose is terrible. I can really enjoy this phase if I know it's free of judgment. However, it's so much harder when I know that someone might open the doc in an hour and judge my writing before I get to edit it - or worse, if I see that they've opened the page while I'm in the middle of it, or god forbid see their cursor click around near where I'm typing. It's a lot harder to concentrate until they leave or start editing somewhere else. I end up taking a while to write each paragraph, planning & editing as I go.
    • Brentward 4y ago
      So write it locally in an unshared document and paste it into overleaf when you want someone else to see it? I don't like overleaf to begin with, but to feel this tied to it is a bit wild.
      • spetryk 4y ago
        I've tried, but it only works well if it's the beginning of a project. Later on, it gets annoying to sync back and forth between copies as others work on it, since I like to see what I'm writing in the context around it.
  • dhimes 4y ago
    You don't even have to type. Text to speech is fine for this and the barrier to getting started is nil. Make a rough outline of what you want to cover and have at it.
  • microtherion 4y ago
    I used a somewhat similar technique after I got stuck in my PhD for more than a year: I sat down and wrote a chapter explaining why my research was doomed, because XY could not be properly measured and quantified etc. It turned out that once I had my concerns spelled out on paper instead of tossing them around in my head, proceeding to the actual measuring and quantifying was anything but impossible.
  • siddbudd 4y ago
    I would love this to be turned into a text editor. You set up a target, e.g. 20K chars and start typing away. No formatting, no distractions. The program always just shows the current line, or even just the 10 characters, while previous lines fade out into black with no way to reveal them. Only after hitting the target is the entire text revealed. Optionally with some reward animation/sound after every target/10 characters.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
    > even more extreme I'm a musician & amateur home producer, and this extreme approach of yours is exactly what I recommend to people (and what I do myself) to overcome the feeling of "I can't get started because what I start on sounds bad and I have an overwhelming fear of making something that sounds bad." Turning it on its head by purposefully trying to make the cliched, trite, and generally whack song I can, can be immensely freeing.
• pasiaj 4y ago
  Memorable, 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.
  • jackstraw14 4y ago
    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
  • kettleballroll 4y ago
    > i'd love to have a call with you to give a number of pointers how to get more productive immediately Why not share with the group, a lot of us might benefit from such pointers. I know I would, too : - )
• malomalsky 4y ago
  I know dat feel, bro
• docdeek 4y ago
  When it got to the writing-up stage of my PhD (social sciences) I tried to avoid procrastination by setting myself a target of 500 words a day. I figured that if a thesis was 100K words, knocking out 500 a day would get me there in less than a year. I put a few extra rules in place (they needed to be 'good' words, edited, revised and not just enough to hit the word target) but once I hit that target I felt like I had made progress towards the larger goal - even if just a little bit. Daily targets became sections, sections became chapters, and eventually I had my thesis. Had I not worked to this sort of structure I am sure that I would have put it off one more day, one more week...and never got there even if the research was done.
  • mach1ne 4y ago
    This is actually how you get anything properly done in regards to your brain chemistry (according to current knowledge). Reaching goalposts consistently propagates the drive to continue.
• revskill 4y ago
  I 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.
• nickm12 4y ago
  I 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.
  • mach1ne 4y ago
    One strong influence on not coming back if taking time off is, I believe, the comfort one attains from a steady income. You worked only part-time which may have mitigated that influence.
    • nickm12 4y ago
      I never made that connection, but I think you're right. Had I been earning double I probably would have adjusted to a non-graduate-student lifestyle and been reluctant to return.
• alextheparrot 4y ago
  What a crazily vulnerable post, cheers man and hope it gets figured out
• annie_muss 4y ago
  Here'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't really do anything. Fast forward to a week before the deadline. I a few broken prototypes and no very little else of the 10,000 word thesis I was supposed to hand in at the end of the week. I finally broke down in front of my professor. In the end I sat around the corner from his office all week as he checked on me every hour or so to make sure I was writing it. I took breaks to go cry in the toilet. I just barely managed to finish it and hand it in on time. I cried again, this time tears of joy and relief. What really stands out to me, apart from the heroic push at the end, is that in the back of my mind I knew I was going to procrastinate on this project and even that knowledge wasn't enough to stop me. The planning, organization, calendars, todo lists and so on didn't help. Later in life I was diagnosed with ADHD. With medication and coping techniques things are getting better. 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. For anyone struggling with procrastination I wish you all the best. It is a lifelong problem. Don't expect to be able to solve it over night, but it can get better.
  • Sakos 4y ago
    I've been reading some books recently around taking notes and distraction. The most salient part of the book Indistractable is how distraction is primarily a pain management problem. The relevant chapter starts with > But after digesting the scientific literature, I had to face the fact that the motivation for diversion originates within us. As is the case with all human behavior, distraction is just another way our brains attempt to deal with pain. If we accept this fact, it makes sense that the only way to handle distraction is by learning to handle discomfort. If distraction costs us time, then time management is pain management. Which I felt was a decent stab at the heart of the issue.
  • 4y ago
• europeanguy 4y ago
  More posts https://thoughtsbyaashiq.bearblog.dev/ https://thoughtsbyaashiq.bearblog.dev/ He's doing everything except actual work. Procrastination is a horrible thing.
• shikshake 4y ago
  Hey, 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 the confidence that I can be better and do better.
  • mourner 4y ago
    Rooting for you get through this! How did the meeting go?
    • shikshake 4y ago
      It actually went really well! It was sort of an informal review of my progress as a researcher in 2022, so it was a great opportunity for me to be straight up about my faults throughout the year. I spent a lot of time before the meeting thinking about where I went wrong, why I did what I did and how I will be trying to improve myself in the coming months (writing this post really helped with that process). Coming in with all that thinking made the conversation more honest and productive. I'm a lot more excited and motivated about pushing forward my projects once I drive back to college this weekend. I'm also lucky to have a super understanding advisor who is invested in my personal growth.
  • MattPalmer1086 4y ago
    My dad, who is a professor, used to say "Don't get it right, get it written!". I would always feel there was more I had to research before I properly started. I missed the deadline for my MSc dissertation and had to start again. In fact, the act of writing it changed my thoughts and led me down more productive paths in the end.
  • Schroedingers2c 4y ago
    Hi mate, just mentioning that I'm having similar experiences with dreading supervisor meetings, not making progress for long periods of time, getting frustrated, questioning myself and my career choices, feeling my research is not good enough etc. I also haven't figured it out yet.
• fwsgonzo 4y ago
  I have a similar problem. I have 3 projects that I have done that are 3 finished papers ready to be written. But I can't make progress on any of them. Not sure what to do. One paper is starting to look complete, but I just don't want to write. Where is my help? Am I really supposed to write all the papers alone??
• atoav 4y ago
  The first ~70% of the time I worked on my thesis were reading, taking notes and organizing them. It felt like procrastinating at the time, but after that the thesis basically wrote itself. For all projects where getting going scares the heck out of you I recommend this quote by Franz Kafka: > Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.
• Schroedingers2c 4y ago
  A question to the community: I find it a bit weird how as an undergraduate you have no idea what a PhD is like. At the same time, no-one really tells you. Everyone just says "research is quite different to doing an undergrad degree". I have not encountered any educational little seminars or support systems that basically tell you: look, this is is what doing a PhD is like, this is what you generally are expected to do, these are milestones that are average/good to have at these times within your PhD, these are examples of people having done a great PhD, and so on. If your supervisor is a bit hands-off then you're kind of thrown into a job/position and are just expected to figure out what you should do or how it works. I find this odd and very inefficient. Especially in view of how little a fresh graduate student knows. Anyone else finding this weird? Is it similar or different in industry/non-academic jobs?
  • cf141q5325 4y ago
    Its not about efficiency, it is an exam situation.
    • bruce343434 4y ago
      what is the exam?
      • cf141q5325 4y ago
        Sorry i didnt see your post Its examining you for the ability to make an independent scientific contribution. Its an exam situation similar to your Bachelor and Master in that matter, only on a higher level. One of the most difficult parts of the Phd is long term planing and coming up with a good plan to tackle your research question.
  • iamflimflam1 4y ago
    It is extremely weird. Certainly my experience when I did my PhD was not a great one. Combining someone who was not mature enough to self direct with a supervisor who didn't know how to manage was a terrible combination. I managed to muddle through, and I did learn a lot over my time. But it's definitely ones of those situations that you back on and wonder what could have been achieved under different circumstances. Edit - to be clear I did my PhD in the UK around 1993 - things are probably quite different now.
• Apocryphon 4y ago
  There seems to be a faint correlation between procrastination and Bear blogs. Here are two different entries from different authors that I've favorited, both because the struggle is real and relatable, and from the immense amount of discussion both sparked. I look forward to seeing the same with this one. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31285969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31285969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31426683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31426683 Is Bear the new Xanga or something
  • quickthrower2 4y ago
    Bear is very easy to use and could feel more like journaling than blogging!
• lifeinthevoid 4y ago
  After reading the other posts on your blog, I'm not entirely convinced that procrastination is your real problem. You've already seen a therapist, I think you should continue doing that. And ... if something makes you truly unhappy, don't be afraid to let it go.
  • shikshake 4y ago
    Hey, I'm the author. I fully agree procrastination isn't my main problem, but I think it stems from my inability to regulate my emotions properly. I've started journaling and meditating to try and take back control of my brain. Therapy is also something I'm considering taking up again. This blog started as my hidden corner of the internet to cry into the void (and practice pure css web design) which is why my posts are all so depressing
    • ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      (I've not read the above mentioned content but as a general principle:) It's worth noting that emotional regulation is a part of ADHD that doesnt get talked about as much as other aspects and is one if the things that the meds help with. https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-medication-emotional-dysregulation-study/amp/ https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-medication-emotional-dysreg...
• sio8ohPi 4y ago
  > There's lots of people in similar situations, and I'm sure a few of them finally broke out of it. I went through a very similar death spiral as a grad student. Frustration leads to dread leads to slower progress leads to more dread leads to no progress and depression. I wish I had some magic trick to reset my mind in times like that, but I don't. I wound up dropping out and went to industry instead... and while the failure stung at the time, it was the best decision I ever made. Academia is a job. If your job is making you miserable, it's probably time to move on to another job -- especially if you have marketable skills. For me at least, it was so much easier to reset facing new problems, problems that I didn't go to work dreading. My big takeaway was that this is a failure state for me, and that I need to be aware of myself and head it off before I'm trapped. I need to therapy, coaching, or other help before the death spiral sets in. But breaking out of it and making progress on the hell-project? I dunno, sorry. I'll also say that, if you're like me, you may have struggled with suicidal thoughts. The thought that kept me sane, prior to leaving, was reminding myself that it would be ridiculous to kill myself over work. Work isn't the purpose of living, being at the top of your field isn't the purpose of living, even being an academic isn't the purpose of living. There's billions of people on earth living fulfilling lives with boring, mundane jobs, finding satisfaction in friends and family and hobbies instead... so I would remind myself that, worst come to worst, I'd go find a boring, mundane job to pay the bills and find my satisfaction elsewhere.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• thrdbndndn 4y ago
  Shit. Reading this is like reading my autobiography. And I don't even fix the problem at the end. I graduated only at the mercy of my advisor who eventually allowed me to defense without a journal publication on hand.
• plankers 4y ago
  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.
• albertzeyer 4y ago
  It 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.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• amir734jj 4y ago
  The 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.
• badcppdev 4y ago
  Mental Note. Do not spend time writing a comment. (Good luck OP)
• Tschayba 4y ago
  I don't know what are PhD studies like in USA, but from my experience I can tell you: go for the small wins. Something that will make you see that some steps are made. I start with small tasks so that I would get momentum. Like that 80-20 rule. To get 80 percent of things done in 20 time. And then when your engine is warmed up then go for the hardest part. Good luck on your endeavors!
• iansowinski 4y ago
  Bro, you are not alone. I have similar problems with my master's thesis. Two things help me: - every Sunday I report to my sister on my progress - on the evening she asks me how my paper is going and I honestly answer her even if there is no progress - I try to work on it every weekend. I stopped fooling myself that working on it on working day evenings is even possible with a kid running around. And... There is some progress!
• teekert 4y ago
  Those are rookie numbers. I procrastinated on a research paper for 4 years. My brother now has a nearly finished bachelors thesis for 14 years. Granted, he has more important issues.
• nasir 4y ago
  I was in a similar situation when I was doing my master thesis which took two years. The advisor was not helping much and I would disappear for a month after each meeting. I would sleep day in day out, go to the lab, open all my work stuff and then spend the day surfing the web. I couldn't look at my work and could not think properly. All this while being an international student in a country with totally different culture and paying $1000/mo for tuition fees. My visa was expiring and the tuition fee was due to be bumped up 20%. Accrued 7k in debt. Finances were hit hard and I was drowning in depression to the point that I did not leave the house for two months (other than the grocery store). How did I get out? I knew for sure that if this ends, then everything turns for the better. So started to to think about the life after the thesis. First went to the uni counsellor and sought therapy/help. Requested a refund due to mental health issues (luckily one year granted). I knew I needed one final leg of work to be done to finish. Tried to write a few words every day and possibly created the worst draft of a thesis. Sent it to the supervisor and convinced them to set a date for the defence. The date was two days before my visa expired. Did a terrible defence which they reluctantly agreed to give me the accepting grade. Tried to finalise the graduation stuff that day to make it to visa appointment the next day. Missed that so had to postpone but eventually turned out fine. Directly went to a company I used to work part-time and asked them to hire me full-time. Requested a month of salary in advance to be able to pay the rent. Started working immediately and paying off my debt. Life started to get better. Moved out of that town after a year and didn't step on the campus for the next 7 years. Not sure if there's much for you in this story. But the only thing that kept me going was the certainty I had that once this thesis is over, my life will change for the better. Crawl your way out of it whatever it takes. Quitting was not an option for me (legal/visa reasons). I understand you might not want to quit a PhD as well. So just try to finish it with bare minimum quality. Don't shoot for the stars and if you're high on some achievement one day don't let that change the goal of only finishing it. Wishing you the best and rest assured, better days come after this.
• lll-o-lll 4y ago
  Look up “andy stapleton youtube”, watch some videos, consider whether you want to either a) make the necessary changes b) call it a day b can be awesome! One written off year is nothing in the scheme of a life. For future happiness you will need to learn how to hack your own brain to do what you want, but first you just need to forgive yourself to move on.
• Gatsky 4y ago
  A bit of self-knowledge goes a long way. If you are prone to procrastination, tend to have grandiose visions of what you’re going to do, like to avoid conflict, reach for various ad hoc rationalisations when you underperform, like to really perfect your work, prefer to work by yourself, get easily derailed when you hit a snag… then guess what, you’re going to suffer a lot working on very open ended projects like a PhD (myself included). The trick is to acknowledge your own proclivities from the start and either don’t do a PhD or accept that every single day you must fight to the death with your own torpor.
• once_inc 4y ago
  I spent 7 years procrastinating my master's thesis. I'd been working full time at a regular job, where I could do a project that the university allowed as a valid Master thesis subject. Between the start of the project and eventually finishing, I had 2 kids, learned all there is to know about Bitcoin, and fully renovated a new home. Don't beat yourself up about the procrastination, but also don't beat yourself up over the lying and deflection that you did. There is a significant number of students going through the same thing. It doesn't make you a bad person, or even a very poor student. You just got derailed, and had difficulties getting back on track. To me, it was a very educative experience. I learned a lot about myself and my abilities.
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  Supervisor could do more to help I think. Help the student break it down into manageable weekly chunks. Not just say “get better at time management”
  • europeanguy 4y ago
    The supervisor is responding to the BS he's being told. OP isn't telling the supervisor "I have emotional problems that lead me to procrastinate as an avoidance mechanism". He's telling him something like "oh yeah I'm totally making progress with task X you gave me, I just didn't finish it because I went into task Y and made progress there instead".
• nathias 4y ago
  What a waste, the time you have for your thesis is the most free time you will ever have to do research, but if you don't enjoy it whats the point.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• diedead 4y ago
  I don't have any tips to add here other than I feel you and I have dealt with similar feelings when I was doing my uni degree (I haven't done a thesis or something similar mainly because I hate writing long form stuff!) I used to procrastinate working on assignments or watching lectures because I was afraid I wouldn't understand the content and I'd fulfill the belief that I was not smart enough to be studying comp sci, which inevitably led to not having enough time to properly study and understand the content or do assignments! But over time it took me a little less time in order for me to get started on that assignment or watch that lecture. You're most likely not going to greatly improve your organisation overnight, but as long as you are seeing small bits of progress, that's what matters.
• k__ 4y ago
  I should have written my CS master's thesis in 2015. Wrote a book and hundreds of articles since then. Still can't bring myself to do it.
• Geee 4y ago
  The mindset that helped me work through my master's thesis, was thinking that I'll do a better job next time. Focus on getting something/anything done in the given timeframe, and stop worrying about quality. Let go of the idea that it must be good quality. Do a better job in the next project, whatever it might be.
• passwordoops 4y ago
  FWIW I couldn't get myself to start my writing thesis until I had signed the contract for my postdoc with a solid start date. That was the craziest 10 weeks of my academic life. Nothing like a real deadline to help focus the soul, at least for me
• dejw 4y ago
  ... and now I'm making blog posts about it.
• paines 4y ago
  That is not procratination. Procrastinators will avoid a task to verz best end and then do the least minium to get the job somehow done. You avoided and anvoided and then quit. I think this is a personality disorder called (anxiously) avoidant personality disorder. And I am not saying that to label or to fret you but to help. If you know the name and shape of your enemy it is easier to fight it. Please go and talk to a psychiatrist. A behavior therapy can help immensly.
• yodsanklai 4y ago
  > And him saying that it's okay, to take my time, to be compassionate with myself. Maybe this is part of the issue. In my CS department, when this happens, the advisor has to raise up the problem. Then a concrete solution must be found. For instance, defining concrete steps and deadlines, and possibly stopping the PhD if things really don't go forward. A lot of people are subject to procrastination, so it's not about blaming and making students feel guilty. But they should be helped, as it's not making the student a favour to let the situation drag forever. Personally, I also had months of procrastination during my PhD (and still suffers from procrastination, I think it's anxiety related and imposter syndrome). But somehow, I managed to get it done, even though my PhD could have been much better than what it was. I think what helped me most was to have extra tasks to get the ball rolling. For instance, teaching a class: there's a well-defined scope and deadline.
• __jf__ 4y ago
  Are there any perfectionists around here that have experience with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)? It sounds like perfectionism-induced procrastination: it's better to give up than to play because playing may mean losing, and the chance of losing is unacceptable.
• ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  It's a bit random, but when I went though this, it made me feel better to realise that it's a fairly common human experience. In particular, finding that people whose work I admired admitted having similar issues, Douglas Adams for example: > I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. Is a line from a book, but he in reality had his agent confine him to a room in order to get books done. Many other artists and authors talk about the systems they use, like the Seinfeld calendar or writing X words every morning. I like the metaphor of the elephant and the rider. You need to keep both parts of your brain happy for them to work together: https://abrilliantmind.blog/why-do-we-procrastinate-the-elephant-and-the-rider/ https://abrilliantmind.blog/why-do-we-procrastinate-the-elep...
• bowsamic 4y ago
  This happened to me last year as a postdoc, but unfortunately here in Germany I cannot find any therapy. I am on a waiting list but have been for almost a year
• singularity2001 4y ago
  Sweet summer child I know people who procrastinated working on their thesis for almost twenty years.
• mnky9800n 4y ago
  I directed a short film on scientific models while procrastinating writing my masters thesis. https://youtu.be/dkTncoPqo5Y https://youtu.be/dkTncoPqo5Y I coauthored a series of papers on a rock mechanics experiment while avoiding working on my PhD (which was in computational social science). Procrastination seems to have only demonstrated to me in my life that nothing actually matters all that much and you can do whatever you want. And most certainly you will do the things you want to do while you procrastinate assuming you avoid Reddit and video games.
• sackstein 4y ago
  I did this with basically every project that took longer than a couple of days in university. Somehow I never had the courage to finish stuff, even though the constant feeling of guilt was making me miserable. Every second you don't shut up your brain with a constant stream of information, you begin to think about the stuff you need to do but don't. It's always in the back of your mind. Not a single moment to relax.
• Fell 4y ago
  I'm also in the same boat. I've been trying to complete my Bachelor's degree since 2011. I've been working on a pre-thesis assignment since 2021. However, I recently found a solution that works for me: I commute to work for one hour every day. In May 2022 I had a car crash and wrecked my car. Not having the money for a new car left me stuck with using the train to get to work. After a few days I was already looking for something useful to do with my daily two hours I spent on trains. It was a hassle, too, because I have to change trains 2-3 times. So, I installed Linux on my laptop and configured it for maximum battery life and, more importantly, making bootup, hibernate and resume as quick as possible. I did that, so I can pull out my laptop even if I'm just spending 15-10 minutes on one train, and do something with my time. So every day, before and after work, I make a little tiny progress on my thesis. And it quickly became a habit, too. I can't avoid it, because I can't avoid going to work. And there's not much else I could do with that laptop. So, even on days when I don't feel like it, I always think: "might as well work on my thesis" It worked so well, I even missed my stop once because I was too focused!
• bluenose69 4y ago
  I am a bit confused about the problem. Most of the comments are about getting past a writing block, but my (possibly incorrect) interpretation was that the sticking point is in doing the research work that would be reported on in the thesis. I infer this partly because of the discussion of bringing undergraduate students and other graduate students into the research team. Obviously, such a team has nothing to do with writing. And, at one point, the author talks of dismissing the others, with an intention of carrying on, alone. These things gave me the idea that the block is not in writing, but rather in completing the pre-writing work. So, the wonderful writing advice -- and I mean that, what I see here is well-informed and heartfelt -- might not be the main thing the author needs. The thesis advisor seems like a very good person, being patient, encouraging, and supportive. I don't think too many advisors would go out of their way to employ others to help in a thesis project. A more common approach is to simply cut off funding for the postgraduate student after a certain time, or if insufficient progress were being made. Given these things, it seems to me that the advisor has been a good help to the author. So, what to do? At the most basic, the choices are (a) to carry on or (b) to leave the program. Both choices can be good ones. And making a choice can be the sort of self-empowering step that leads to very good things in life. So, my advice is to make a choice. It can be time-limited, if that helps, e.g. "I'll give this another month, and if I'm not happy, I'll leave." Please note the word happy here. That is very important. Life is short. Life also proceeds in a directed fashion -- you can't go back and change something that happened years ago. Make your future be good for you. Hope for -- no, expect -- that you will be happy, and productive, and that you will use all the experiences of your life to find ways to make others happy, and productive. This is all very vague, I admit. But I've seen many students get into a rut that is really quite corrosive to the soul. Making a choice, knowing that it's your choice, can be quite freeing. There are many paths in life, many ways to contribute to this world. Don't underestimate your ability to find the path that's right for you.
  • whatyesaid 4y ago
    Agreed that it sounds like a research block than a writer's block. I would also infer if students were struggling at some point but were doing fine before, they all reached the same set of blockades.
  • 4y ago
• scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  Ha! No problem. Almost three years for me at this point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• ta988 4y ago
  This is pretty typical of PhD students that make others work for them (that's not what is expected of you, you are not a professor, you are their assistant) and don't have good professors to help them learn good leadership practices. They take too big of a task and aren't good managers yet and have to deal with a crowd of unreliable workers. Undergrads are notoriously unreliable due to a lack of experience, high confidence and low time flexibility. They often have high course load and finals, must find their next lab and so on. Also as an undergrad when you see your project leader beeing lost, you look for an escape and put your effort in things that will matter more (you very well know that paper will not be written in time) because you know that nothing will get out of this project in a reasonable time frame. My 2 cents if you are stuck in a situation like that, put in a single document everything you have. All the methods you have used, the results. These are easy to put and do not require any creativity. Then you start explaining context, concepts and what you planned and where it could lead. No need to make pages. Make lists. After that everything is about fluffying those lists at your own pace. Writing is almost never a linear endeavor, even more the first time you do it. Whatever happens being you finishing that into your article(s) and dissertation or quitting will at least make sure that nobody worked for nothing.
• tomcam 4y ago
  > Warning: This post is long, depressing and rambling. I've written it for my own benefit. Post then proceeds to rocket to the top of HN almost immediately
• trumbitta2 4y ago
  I can't remember where I got this from but for the last 35 years, my go-to trick for when I don't know what to write has been writing "I don't know what to write and" and then the rest of it just pours out of my mind and onto the sheet/file.
• pm3003 4y ago
  One of the things that help about it: talk about it with the people you trust the most. Not like asking them for something specific, just talk about it.
• cracrecry 4y ago
  I recommend you three books, because as academic I expect you to like thinking: 1. The now habit. Understand what anxiety and procrastination is. Where does your anxiety comes from? You probably are comparing yourself with what you should be doing, or with what you should have done in the perfect world. There is no perfect world. You were the "planner", the strategist, but someone else did the dirty job, the boring stuff. A good planner will usually become a terrible action man, because it requires a completely different mindset. Action or execution requires totally different strategies from managing-planning. First, it requires no planning, no time spent planning and deciding because it has already been decided. People that are good strategists usually are people that love to think all the time, hence it becomes natural to them. Now, if they need to execute something that has been decided(even by themselves!!) they continue expending time and effort looking for a better solution, for a better plan and the law of diminishing returns kicks in. As planners they could spend 100% on it, be specialists, but now it is a terrible strategy. You need to be able to be two personas in one. From a person that only cares about planning and making decisions to someone who only cares about what is in front of his or her until the work is done. 2. Atomic Habits. Use proven strategies that work. Do not care about results, only care about good habits, because they produce results automatically. 3. The book of no. If you have problems, you state them clearly. We don't need another PhD, we don't care. Do you care about what you are doing? Nobody forces do to do it, you do it because you want it or else you just don't do that.
• holyra 4y ago
  Be careful, mental health is really precious... I didn't have the courage to quit my PhD while I was alone (my supervisors were not involved in my work from the beginning; I had almost no comments on my writings, including my thesis...). It took me 5.5 years (instead of the average 3.5 years in my university) to graduate. I extended my 3-year contract with 2 years of teaching and the remaining 6 months I was without a contract. I finished my thesis. However, It completely destroyed me: 2 years later I am still severely depressed with severe generalised anxiety disorders.
  • hnarayanan 4y ago
    As someone with first hand experience of this, trust me this is temporary. You will heal from this.
• throwaway28768 4y ago
  I did nothing for 18 months when I was writing up. I think the problem was that I wasnt sure what I was supposed to be writing. Instead, get up late, open my thesis document, send emails, go for coffee, go for lunch, read replies, send more emails, go for coffee, websurf and then go to the pub. When I finally figured out what I needed to write, it all came out in 6 weeks. It was no great discovery, just along the lines of: what did you do, why, what's the current state of knowledge, what was the outcome, what worked, what didnt, what's the contribution, what's next.
• SanjayMehta 4y ago
  I wrote my thesis by writing the contents page first and then filling out each chapter and subsection as it came to mind. Whenever I would get stuck on a problem X I would stick it in the contents list in an appropriate chapter as a subheading called "How to solve X" and plod on from there. Today I use Scrivener which is great for this kind of non-linear writing.
• mensetmanusman 4y ago
  This is writers block and is very common, don’t give up. My solution was to stand in my lab for hours with an iPad on a stand and dictate 70 pages of my thesis. It was actually an invigorating experience and you learn a bunch of random Siri/dictation syntax to boot. Also, if I were to do it again today, try using chatgpt to write the bulk fluff from some outline concepts. The quality of your thesis doesn’t matter as much as doing the bare minimum to graduate :)
• throwawaaarrgh 4y ago
  > At this point I'm seriously considering quitting. I just don't have what it takes to earn this degree. I'm sure you do have what it takes. But theres a difference between having something and using it. I have what it takes to learn Japanese. Am I gonna learn Japanese? No. Because as much as it sounds like a nice idea, there's other things I'd rather do with my time. I want it, but not nearly enough to do it. (although that's a bad example, because I could learn it one hour per week and finish it in 10 years. I'm not starting it because the process is intimidating in a toil-y way rather than a spark-my-creativity way) If you could do only one thing with your life, with no problems for money, time, motivation, etc, what would that be? Go do that. Because no matter how hard it is, it's the one thing you want to do with your life. And you only get one life. Before you leave the PhD, what can you do to take advantage of where you are in life right now? Meet more people around you, attend a lecture series, go dancing with fellow classmates, take an art class, join a theater troupe. You don't know - maybe you'll meet your future wife while you're distracting yourself from your PhD, and later this will be the funny story you tell about how you met. Don't take it so seriously. Just find something that feels valuable about your current situation, enjoy it, and let go of the guilt.
  • TheFuntastic 4y ago
    This very might well be their one thing already... but the risk of failing your "one thing" is so paralysing because then who are you without that? In that regard the second part is good advice: "diversifying the portfolio of who you are as a person". It might not help finish the thesis, but will help life feel more whole if they don't.
• merza 4y ago
  Amateur. I think the average for my cohort was 5y… Good luck, though. It IS worth it.
• salomon812 4y ago
  I've been here before. I did manage to get my PhD. It wasn't easy and I'm so happy the author is getting therapy because I needed it too. But I don't think the underlying cause is procrastination. At least it wasn't for me. It was perfectionism. And because I'm a perfectionist, I even managed to absorb the "nobody's perfect" message while still trying to be perfect, and that's part of the problem. For me, the issue arose when "tasks [took] longer than anticipated" and I started to beat myself up for it. But every massive project that's worthwhile has those issues. Time estimating is difficult especially within research. But taking it personally that we couldn't avoid the estimation problem that so many others have failed at, especially since a PhD thesis is typically the first project of it's scale for an individual, is a recipe for disaster. I got so burnt out by my PhD project that I literally stared at a blank screen for more than a week trying to force myself to do anything. But I managed with my therapist's help to get out of the death spiral. How did I get out of it? Two simple but difficult objectives. Self forgiveness and accepting it's going to be shit. I'll explain the acceptance part first despite that I think people should practice forgiveness first. There's a meme I can't find for book authors that shows a cross-stitch with a beautiful image marked "what the reader sees" and then it's flipped to reveal the mess of thread on the back and marked "what the author sees." Everyone is their own worst critic, so consider that massive issues might only be rough edges and the core of the thesis is likely inact and you need to share it with the world. The second part is self forgiveness. You did not waste the student's time or resources with a slow project. Every project is over budget and behind schedule. And yes, mistakes were made, but everyone makes mistakes, especially on PhD theses. We used to have a joke amongst the other graduate students "you know, I'll get this right on my next PhD." It's literally everyone's first time. So, know you're not alone. I walked this path as well. Take a true week long break, and when you come back, form a plan to do a one-week long task. Then take two weeks to do that task. Practice self forgiveness on that task itself. Then formulate the most bare-bones plan for the rest of the PhD. One very silly thing that helped break me out of my death spiral was I started to panic that I couldn't even come up with a title for my thesis. So, I did the word vomit approach others mentioned. It wound up being really really bad because it was kinda sing-songy with unintentional rhyming words. I kept it that way for three months as a joke until I did come up with real final title.
• random_upvoter 4y ago
  If you procrastinate it means that you are not where you want to be. It means that you don't like what you are doing. Draw your conclusions. Life is short, go do something that, at least, you don't dislike.
• albertgt 4y ago
  Is it ok to meet with your advisor and discuss closing down the project? My thoughts are: 1. It seemed like a high potential project 2. Over time you learned the return on investment may not be worth it 3. You need to focus on things that make forward direction in your PHD rather than expending any more time on this project. 4. This project can be shelved and others can take it on if interest returns in the future and/or you complete your PHD and have enough free time to return to it. I think your advisor would appreciate your growth in this as a learning moment.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• throwaway15424 4y ago
  [dead]
• narutowindy 4y ago
  Are you doing thesis on procrastinating?
• mproud 4y ago
  Does the author want or need their doctorate? If they don’t, there is nothing shameful about not finishing it. My mom skipped two grades, was valedictorian of her class in high school, and went to Yale for grad school, and never finished her PhD. She met my dad, wanted to relocate and have kids, and when she was having trouble with her dissertation, decided she didn’t need to finish it.
• jurassic 4y ago
  It’s okay to quit. The academic world has exploitation baked into it so it’s rare for people to be told that directly by those benefiting from your continued participation, but it’s okay to quit. If the thesis is making you this miserable you might not be cut out for research, and that’s okay. There are many other easier and more economically fruitful ways to spend your life. I quit my PhD and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I came pretty close to killing myself (no exaggeration) during my PhD because of how much shame and humiliation I felt about not succeeding at something for the first time ever in my life. I made regular visits to the rooftop of my lab building at night where I would sit crying and trying to work up the nerve to jump off. If that’s how you’re feeling, just leave. It’s not worth it. If you can find your way into tech you’ll soon be making more than all your professors without having to spend another decade or more going through the hazing process known as the tenure track. The grass is most definitely greener.
• frob 4y ago
  When I was writing my thesis I had one rule that kept me going: one page a day. Every day I had to add at least one page to my thesis. It could come from text or charts or a table or the bibliography or wherever, but that page count had to go up every day. Some days, I added a paragraph that spilled over onto the first line of a new page and that was that. Other days, one page became five became 20 as I hit a rhythm. It was always about giving myself that chance to hit it off for the day.
  • sirwhinesalot 4y ago
    I did this for awhile until I couldn't even motivate myself to write a single word. Or if I absolutely managed to force myself to write some words, the next day I would edit them back to 0. Procrastination that stems from negative emotional processes isn't so easily beaten.
• Octokiddie 4y ago
  > I don't know when things started to go wrong, but the work eventually began to stagnate. Tasks were taking longer than anticipated. I began dreading team meetings because I had to address that things weren't getting done. As we approached the end of the semester, students needed time to study for finals, which meant even less work getting done. The project turned from something that I woke up excited to work on, to something I hated even thinking about. I avoided the topic as much as I could when talking to my professor. This is the turning point. Before this point, there was progress and enthusiasm. After, stagnation and revulsion. Something happened. The author knows it, but can't elaborate. Some have offered advice on the writing aspect ("vomit draft"). Writing doesn't appear to be this author's problem - it's working on the project itself. The author "hates" even thinking about it. No research progress means nothing to write about. Writing more effectively won't solve the problem because the problem isn't writing. The problem is motivation. The author started with a project that was going to be awesome. Then little things started to go wrong and didn't get fixed. Those little things snowballed into big things. The disappointment and shock of watching an awesome project with buy-in from authority figures and lavish resources reverse so decisively has undermined the author's ability to move the project forward. I'm speculating, but these things tend to follow a similar pattern. I'd recommend that the author try to understand the turning point. What actually happened? What was the first indication that something was not right with the project? What did the author do about it? What pattern of behavior can the author pick out in responses to unexpected problems?
• iamflimflam1 4y ago
  It sounds from reading your post that you need to have an honest conversation with your supervisor. And - he needs to be honest with you about what's possible from this point onwards. Currently, you are trying to sugar coat the situation and he is too nice to really challenge you. He's probably fallen into the "Ruinous Empathy" trap and it's damaging you. You need to at least be prepared for the honest answer to be that there is no way forward. Some questions that you both need to answer (I'm making some assumptions here as I don't know what your thesis is about). - Do you even know what your thesis is about? - What's the question it's trying to answer? - What's the hypothesis on the answer? - How are/were you going to test the hypothesis? - What's the conclusion going to be? - Do you have enough experimental results to answers any of the above - Is it feasible to do more experiments - If it's not feasible to do more, can you add in enough theoretical discussion/hand waving to get a thesis out of it
• fghorow 4y ago
  The only way out is through. It was true for me in the '80s, it's still true now. Just finish the bloody thing.
• vitorsr 4y ago
  Some treacherous advice in the comments. I personally do not consider English literature and journalistic style guides to be applicable to primary scientific and technical literature writing without a diligent amount of scrutiny. First and foremost, valid work needs to follow basic logical and empirical tenets. This is not easy nor does it come for free, and it is expected from primary scientific literature writers to take their time (or else risk engaging in low-quality work - or worse, pseudoscience). Second, impactful work needs to easily connect to directly and indirectly adjacent literature. Truly impactful work needs to be relevant, correct, precise but understandable, comparable, reproducible and extendable, all in connection to related work. This is not easy nor does it come for free, and it is expected from writers to constantly check literature at every step before continuing (or else risk building on fragile ground - or worse, doing something that already exists). Last, on doing something that already exists, novel work needs to not reinvent the many systems and subsystems it encompasses. Truly novel work needs a humble understanding of unknown unknowns. This comes at a hefty price of extensive learning and reading which is neither easy nor free. Writing should be deferred to the consolidation of each incremental step related to primary scientific work. Not writing should not be understood as procrastination of the scientific endeavor unless the work does not concern easing or putting you closer to steps' objectives. My personal advice: It is fine to reach blockers in scientific work. Other people certainly have reached similar blockers and not given up. Other people have also reached blockers and proposed alternative approaches. Work on: structuring ways to attack problems; attacking simpler or scaled-down versions of problems and formally classifying each version; mapping all different ways simpler problems can be modelled and attacked; strategizing how to reintroduce simplifications or scale; building solid foundations, sharing subproblems with colleagues or deferring certain knowledges outside the scope to the literature. It is also fine to consider other lines of research if blockers are indeed unmanageable. Understand how the problem can be applied in other settings and consider pivoting to one particular setting. Understand as well that scientific work is not personal and you should not take inabilities as personal defeats. Contributing knowledge to the scientific literature is hard, tiresome, and takes time and patience. You want to run the distance, not sprint. You also want to make it to the end, not compete.
• kombine 4y ago
  It took me a good part of 2020 to write up my PhD thesis. I began writing right when I was hit by a life-threatening depression. I could not make any progress for months while being pressured by my next employer to submit the thesis quickly so I could start the new job. What took me 9 months should really have been 2 or 3. I was able to finish only because one of my best friends was very supportive and had a few calls with me to help me with organising myself.
• orm 4y ago
  I'm not sure the author will ever read this, but I am also a PhD student, have been one for far too long, and in the past have struggled with similar `time management' issues, though I'm not sure that's really the problem. As time passes, especially when things go wrong, projects and writing become very emotional. Having memories of looking at something a few years ago and looking at it again a few years later to try to resubmit it tends to trigger guilt, anger etc in me. I've found some strategies to help me, because I'm close to finishing and think the marginal benefit/marginal cost makes sense (benefit is large, finish your phd in 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, depends on where you are). One tool I use to help me work even when I'm not feeling it is Focusmate (google it). I've found that sometimes, working out my issues is useful , but sometimes the emotions are overpowering and no amount of working them out will make me not regret something. That used to make me stop. Nowadays if I use Focusmate, I tend to think less of such `large picture' issues and instead work on just a little bit, and get a little done. then after a day, a get more done, and so on. I do sometimes get upset and avoid it altogether, but I'm definitely much better at `time management' this way. Also, I don't want to leave a focusmate in the middle of a session, i just need to stick around 25 minutes, and the feelings can pass and i can even enjoy some of the craft of the specific thing I'm doing. I hope it helps someone.
• dulayjm 4y ago
  Hey, i know you probably didn't expect this to be at the top of HN and there's a lot of comments here. But I hear you. I largely feel similar about my PhD (even though I'm not as far a long). It's an isolating experience, but you don't have to do it alone. I think it's great you are taking steps for your mental health. Also, you don't need a PhD to enjoy life.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• politician 4y ago
  Use ChatGPT to solve the blank page problem.
• m3kw9 4y ago
  When you are a team of one, you are basically the team leader to yourself in charge of motivating that team. You usually get that at an office setting so that’s why it gets tough going at it alone. Fixing mental blockers is a good move as that is a huge blocker for you it seems. But don’t wait for the sky to clear to make some moves, do that Vomit writing thing to get you moving inbetween or whatever you can muster by setting very tiny goals. Just keep moving and you’d be surprised one day
• TsukiZombina 4y ago
  It sounds like you are not even trying, really trying. Obviously, you are going to feel guilty and anxious if you don't make any progress, so make at least a little progress, even if it's not the technical part or reading papers to get ideas, instead you taked 1-month vacation. If you hated it, just quit.
• EdZ123 4y ago
  As an aspiring PhD student and procrastinator, this comment section makes me both hopeful and mildly terrified.
• psychomugs 4y ago
  I've had similar funks throughout my PhD and thesis-writing experiences. It's hard to fish out the mantras that kept me going at those times (though I have backed them up in notes that I will revisit after some distance from the time), but a recurring one was: I'm going to feel like shit whether I do or don't do anything, so I might as well do something Discussing some issues with friends and/or others in your cohort will likely make you feel less alone than browsing other doomposts on r/GradSchool. With writing in particular, I've recently felt handwriting to be the limit of my writing production, i.e. given a fixed length of time, my output will be independent of whether I wrote or typed it. The affordance of writing slows me down just enough to craft the same text I would've (re)^(n)typed on computer. Writing is also more expressive and makes it easier to forget about my butt in the chair.
• insane_dreamer 4y ago
  It might help to seriously look at why you want a PhD and whether you still want it. There's no shame in going a different direction (i.e., drop academia for industry), if you find out that you have zero inspiration and it's not for you. Success is not measured in either having or not having a PhD. But if it's something you desperately want to have because of what will come after your PhD that can only be achieved with one, that can provide motivation to just push through even if you hate it. Either way I wish you success. (PS. Don't let sunk cost be your primary motivation for finishing it.)
• kerpotgh 4y ago
  Use chatGPT to build a skeleton of ideas. DO NOT USE anything directly but as a starting point to maybe get you jump started again.
• ajkjk 4y ago
  I think that if you can't get yourself to do something for a long time, it's because you truly don't want to do it but haven't admitted it to yourself. Probably you have a strong vision of who you are -- a PhD student, an eventual academic -- and it turns out it's in conflict with some other part of your identity, what you actually want to do. You'll find instant peace if you admit that you don't want to do it and stop feeling like you should. It is fine, actually, to do a thing until you realize you don't want to and then change your mind, but it's tied up in a bunch of other stuff so it's hard to see that clearly.
• Scubabear68 4y ago
  This is not procrastination. This is what I would call a common phenomena of lack of consequences. With no feedback loop, the author has little impetus to complete the work. An in-law lost their house 20 years ago, their mom took them in and they haven’t worked a day in their life. They have learned that doing nothing is a winning strategy. My son had severe school problems during Covid because everyone was socially promoted. He got a B while not learning anything, because there was no negative consequence to not studying (and we tried to stay on top of this but grades and assignments were not tracked anywhere). We had to get him to private school and six months of difficult times catching up to his grade level. Most of us need feedback to improve ourselves. There are a precious few who can complete things through sheer force of will. But most of us, I posit, need real world feedback (both good and bad) to live by. In the case of the author, trying to put this the nicest possible way, they seem to have spent 12 months in advanced studies not doing the work. The blame should not be entirely on them for this, the school and advisor should have escalating consequences for failing to push forward.
• speculator14 4y ago
  The trick I developed in my previous job writing investment memos (which are just essays) is to create an increasingly detailed outline until the complete report has suddenly materialized before your eyes, with only the final step of tying together your notes in complete sentences required.
• m000 4y ago
  Did anyone actually bother reading TFA? Most comments are about writing a thesis. But OP is mostly complaining about not making progress in research that will end up in the thesis. OP mentioned of an elephant in the room: not having any progress for the last X months. But there may be a second elephant that has gone unnoticed: OP may have already done enough to formulate and defend a coherent thesis. Or, the missing part isn't required to be as grand as the OP had imagined for their latest project, when it started. Many people may have a strong sense of pride and want to finish what they start. But this is really one of the times one needs to push their pride aside and be practical, mostly for the sake of their mental health. I would recommend to anyone in similar position to (a) compare their research output with that of past PhD students in their group, (b) openly discuss with their supervisor the minimum requirements for approving their thesis. Another practicality to keep in mind is that from a professor's perspective, a PhD graduate with a less than stellar thesis is preferred over a dropout student. Also, for PhD students interested in pursuing academic career, these days postdoc work is probably more important than a stellar PhD thesis.
• deterministic 4y ago
  Simply writing down the steps involved to solve a problem and then breaking the steps into smaller and smaller steps until they are ridiculously simple (as in “pickup the mobile phone” and “call #”) often helps me getting things done when I have way too much on my plate and/or the problems I am facing are too overwhelming.
• pvaldes 4y ago
  To start, I find strange that other students were hired to work in his/her thesis. I doubt even that this is allowed in some countries. Focusing in minor tasks to be completed in a different working environment could help, but without specific details about the case and the specific knowledge area, we can't know if the author is beating a dead horse or not. "I tried X medication" and "I went to therapy" are two big red flags to me. He seems to be looking for a magic solution or somebody else that does the hard work. This is not how thesis work