A graduate student is shouldering both the opportunity cost of spending more time, and the risk of not finishing. Things can happen almost at random that can kn

A graduate student is shouldering both the opportunity cost of spending more time, and the risk of not finishing. Things can happen almost at random that can knock you off your horse or shoot it out from under you. Like, your advisor can lose funding, change jobs, or even just up and die. You can get sick. Once you've got a thesis worth of data (or whatever you need), your best bet is to write it up as clearly and concisely as will get you "published and outa here" in the words of my fellow grad students. Don't even spend time choosing a font. (A friend did that).