On May 20th, I am due to submit the first draft of a 10–15,000 word written document for my confirmation of candidature. I’m sure PhD/grad programs around the world call it by many different names, so just to get us all on the same page here: confirmation is the assessment of a combined literature review and research proposal document, plus research plan (including such ever-changing details as an updated timeline for completion), plus oral presentation and possible verbal defense of your proposed research. Right now, I’m a PhD student on a provisional basis. The provision is that I meet my confirmation requirements, at which point I actually become a fully-fledged PhD candidate. It’s one of the biggest milestones in my PhD program, particularly as we don’t really have any assessments or coursework requirements at my uni (aside from the thesis itself).
Right now, I’ve got 4,300 words down (some decent, but mostly crappy words that will probably be scrapped before the first draft is submitted). Reaching a word count is rarely an issue for me, but I definitely need to get a move on to clearly define my methodology, including the ever-daunting data and statistical analysis procedures * insert theatrical gasps here *.
Knowing all of this, I have decided to re-instate four-day weeks into my schedule. I’ve worked on my research every weekend for the past month, which is not a pattern I want to continue. At the very least, it is important for me to have both weekend days free from uni (on average) to avoid burnout (I learnt that lesson during Honours). And, let’s be honest, life almost always seems a little bit better after a three-day weekend. Why not have that every weekend (on average)?
Maybe I’m a bit insane for choosing NOW to jump back into four-day work weeks, but I guess that insanity might explain why I’m a PhD student anyway… That said, I believe I can get the work done to an acceptable standard by setting what might seem to be a challenging limit. As I’ve mentioned before, knowing I have only four work days in a week forces me to use my time wisely and as a result I get closer to done, faster.
Here’s the math:
- Four weeks until May 20th, therefore 16 work days remaining
- I’m aiming for ~12,000 words total, which means I have 8,000 words remaining.
- To achieve that, I need to have written at least 500 “good words” (words that are going to stay in the submitted draft) each work day.
Totally achievable! I’ve been doing a bit of guided free-writing lately, and I usually type out 500 words or so in ten minutes. I’m aiming to do at least three free-writing sessions per work day (that’s at least 30 minutes of solid writing), which gives me ~1,500 words to play with and edit ruthlessly. So I’m essentially banking on creating clear, original and extended thoughts at least 1/3rd of the time :) Also, I’m not beating myself up about the quality of the prose (yet); after all, it’s only a first draft. I just want to make sure that my writing tells a cohesive story, and if the bones are there I can worry about making it pretty in the following drafts.