Here comes a small update of my work of my master thesis. It would be more correct to talk about the recent lack of work on my master thesis. I took slightly early holiday break from my writing, hoping to jump right back into it after new years. Sadly I became ill on the first day of this year, and have been since then. Things are getting better (at last) so I hope I’ll be able to start working again tomorrow.
I’ve been struggeling with my productivity and I’ll often go into procrastination modus. I read an article about academic productivity today and hope to introduce the following techniques into my work process:
- Hard deadlines. I have a hard deadlines on May the 1st this year. A pitty it’s quite easy to get an extension to this deadline.
- Soft deadlines. Last year me and my supervisor agreed that I’d deliver written material fourthnightly. This worked quite well, but often I felt I worked hard one week before the delivery and not so hard the other week.
- The martini method. Write n number of words each day before going home. 500-1000 is a good number.
- The chain method. Cross of your calendar each day if you’ve completed what you intended. Try not to break the chain.