{"id":59648,"date":"2021-10-07T04:35:54","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T08:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=59648"},"modified":"2021-10-07T04:35:54","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T08:35:54","slug":"how-to-finish-that-big-writing-project-and-get-on-with-your-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/how-to-finish-that-big-writing-project-and-get-on-with-your-life\/","title":{"rendered":"How to finish that big writing project (and get on with your life)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nLately, I\u2019ve been getting a lot of requests to run my workshop called\u00a0\u2018How to finish that big writing project (and get on with your life)\u2019<\/a>. I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s a sign of pandemic fatigue: everyone close to the end of a PhD just wants it to be, well \u2013 over.<\/p>\n

I feel you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure why, but the vast majority of PhD students have not been explicitly taught to plan a project and manage a diary full of competing commitments. As a consequence, only about 20% of PhD students finish \u2018on time\u2019. Most people finish between 4 and 5 years after starting.<\/p>\n

I trained as an architect, so I learned sophisticated project management techniques to deliver building projects. These same strategies work for managing writing projects. Here\u2019s how I plan out a large writing project: simply using my diary and some handy planning tools.<\/p>\n

Out of your head and onto a page \u2013 and ranked.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your writing does not take place in a vacuum: life carries on. There\u2019s a lot of hidden organisational work in everyday activities like connecting with loved ones, walking the dog, watering the plants, keeping the pantry stocked and making sure you always have a clean mask in your handbag. Some of us also have to manage all this AND chronic medical conditions \/ disabilities. All this is made more complex if you are living in a world built for neurotypicals and you don\u2019t identify that way.<\/p>\n

A large writing project deadline seems like it\u2019s a long way away until suddenly\u2026 it\u2019s not. Even experienced writers end up with a big pile of words at the end that need to be written or wrangled into shape.<\/p>\n

Unhelpful advice for time-strapped writers abounds on the internet: like \u2018get up at 4am to make time for writing before the family is awake\u2019. Ok, maybe this works for some people! But for the rest of us mortals, setting an impossibly high standard for yourself usually leads to feeling terrible when you fail to stick at it. Better to try and map a course for meeting the deadline with realistic assumptions \u2013 and negotiate for more time if you need it.<\/p>\n

Being in a deadline crisis is a bit like running out of money. The first thing you need to do is to work out exactly where time is being spent. Start by making a big \u2018master list\u2019 of everything that\u2019s going on and your writing goals. Don\u2019t categorise: just consult your diary and then write whatever else comes into mind. The master list will end up being a jumble of work stuff like \u2018do chapter 3\u2019 and life stuff like \u2018make dentist appointment\u2019.<\/p>\n

Then map the individual list items using the 4 part Eisenhower matrix, shown below. The matrix has two axes against which you rank the task: urgency and importance.<\/p>\n

The \u2018urgent and important\u2019 stuff needs to be done right away. The \u2018not urgent, but still important\u2019 needs to be scheduled. Then you need to work out if you can delegate any of the \u2018urgent but not important\u2019 (this is stuff like housework and chores). Anything that falls in the \u2018not urgent and not important\u2019 category should just be crossed off if you are on deadline.
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Observe yourself working for at least a month and gather some baseline data on different types of writing tasks.<\/p>\n

Writing a discussion section of a paper, for example, will probably take a lot longer than writing the results. Writing a book chapter takes me about four times longer than writing a blog post because I read and look things up as I go (for some reason, blog posts come out almost perfectly formed in a big word spew!).<\/p>\n

Editing will take more or less time than writing the first draft, depending on how messy you let your first draft be. I\u2019m a \u2018make a mess and then clean it up\u2019 writer so my editing takes six times longer than my drafting. Anyway, my point is: it\u2019s highly idiosyncratic. While there are ways to improve your quality and write faster, be realistic and start with what you do now.<\/p>\n

You might be able to work out a rough words per hour rate by looking at your past performance, but, if you\u2019re a human, you probably have good days and bad days. You can accommodate this variation by using a more sophisticated estimation method called the \u2018Program evaluation and review technique\u2019 or PERT.<\/p>\n

PERT is basically a formula that you plug numbers into. You\u2019ll need to start with three types of time estimate:<\/p>\n