Dear Dissertation Writer
End of the semester blues
Trigger warning! Hard questions for doctoral students ahead:
Did you finish your dissertation last semester?
Are you behind your cohort in finishing?
Ugh! What a great way to ruin the happy times of celebrating an upcoming new year in 2026. However, if the answer to the above question is “No and yes, but I want to finish,” you may need some help. Let me ask you a few questions because that’s what coaches do. The following are the first steps to getting back into working on your dissertation and achieving your goal of earning your doctorate.
What is your relationship with your dissertation? I know a dissertation is an inanimate object, and you have feelings about it. Does it sit in the back of your mind like a loathsome toad, reminding you that you are clearly a failure because you have not worked on it in way too long? Does it flit around your head like a brilliant fairy, hard to pin down and even harder to write about?
If you have been avoiding looking at your document, now is the time to drag it out and dust it off (metaphorically speaking). Do you know where your latest document is on your computer? If not, make your goal to find it. You don’t have to work on it yet; find it, and that day’s chore will be done. If you know where it is but have been avoiding looking at it, set a goal to read one to two pages and refamiliarize yourself with your current location. If you are having trouble doing even that, contact me, and I’ll help you with it.
What is your relationship with your faculty advisor? If your answer is, “We have a lovely relationship. They understand my issues and why I am behind. They support me in every way.” Wow! Wouldn’t that be excellent? Unfortunately, that isn’t the case very often. Usually, the grad student-faculty advisor connection lies along the continuum of “wonderful relationship” at one end and the other end being “We haven’t spoken in six months.”
Now is the time to repair that relationship. Today, write an email with your intentions for the coming year. Hopefully, you can articulate where you’d like to be by the end of the Spring semester. If you want to graduate in May, remember you don’t usually have May to work on it. At the latest, and depending on your university’s regulations and your faculty advisor’s requirements, you will need to have the entire document completed by the middle of April. If you can’t promise to finish the document, then what do you think you can finish? Write about that. If you have problems writing this email, contact me. I’ll help you with it.
What did your writing schedule look like over the last year? I always recommend that, if possible, you write for at least five days a week, for fifteen minutes per day. You might not finish in May with that kind of schedule, but at least you’ll be making progress. If you can stay in touch with your manuscript, you don’t have to fumble through what you’ve already written when you sit down to write.
During your dissertation writing and perhaps in the future, should you choose to become an academic, you have to remember that your primary occupation is that of a writer. Prolific writers have a set schedule for writing until their brain knows “this is the time for writing.” How would you like to proceed in this new year with a writing schedule? Pick days and times that will be sacred to writing. Put them on the calendar. Label them “Sacred Dissertation Writing Time.” See if that helps.
You now have three methods to re-engage you with your dissertation.
Look at your relationship with your dissertation
Evaluate your relationship with your advisor
Examine your old writing schedule and perhaps create a new one.
Good luck with these steps! If you have any trouble with any of them, contact me and let’s discuss it. If you have any further questions, please post them in the chat. Thanks.