Writing Your Dissertation In Fifteen Minutes A Day: A Winning Strategy


Writing a dissertation is a time-consuming process. You should do lots of things to craft a decent paper. Therefore, it is practically impossible to do the job by investing only fifteen minutes a day into your doctoral project. If you actually do so, it will take about ten years to finish your work. Is it what you want? No doubts, it is not the best strategy. However, if you apply the so-called “15 minute rule” to work on your paper on a daily basis, the chances are high that your inspiration will catch up soon and you will manage to complete your thesis faster.

What does the rule say? It says that you should commit a bare minimum of fifteen minutes a day to writing your dissertation. You should do it no matter how you feel, what your mood is, and how many other problems you have to deal with at a moment. As a matter of fact, sometimes it is really difficult to refuse from your usual pastime and spend these fifteen minutes on reading, analyzing the data, and just writing down all ideas on the topic. However, you should do so. The trick is that fifteen minutes is enough to warm up and move on to a valuable work session. This is a winning strategy and you may effectively apply it by taking the following steps:

  • Set up a timer and start writing any part of your dissertation. Write down all ideas that come to you. Don’t pay attention to possible mistakes in grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and style. Don’t doubt the content of this piece of writing. Don’t listen to the negative critical voices in your head. Just do the task and don’t let yourself be distracted.

  • After fifteen minutes are over, evaluate what you have written and eliminate irrelevant ideas. At this point, you may stop and return to your usual life. However, the chances are high that you will decide to go on with your writing. A brief period of compulsory work will help you get inspired and motivated.

  • Stretch out each work session as long as possible and use your productivity to a maximum.

  • As soon as you get used to writing your paper this way, plan several fifteen-minute sessions a day and do everything possible to make them longer.

You won’t cope with the task of writing your dissertation by doing nothing. To succeed, you should sit down every day and just work, and even fifteen minutes a day are enough to keep your motivation levels high.

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