How I Finished - part 1

On techniques and mood

I learned a lot over the course of my dissertation. My topic, my sub-discipline, the larger field, and technical skills. I learned a lot about myself, how I work, and things that help me work. In this post I describe five techniques I engaged with to help me finish. Some of these techniques I engaged with every day and some were in-frequent interrogations of my mood and mindset.

“How can I help you finish?”

People are supportive

A dear friend asked me how he could help me finish. (As did a few more, but I wasn’t ready to listen or share at that time). That feeling of support was unparalleled. That is what got me going – but it’s not what got me through. This is a dissertation – friends and family will encourage you. And while they won’t do it for you, they can help. Knowing that people wanted me to suceed was incredible. Simply put, there are people in your corner and they want to see you suceed.

Dissertation journal

Write about writing

At least once a day or several times a day I would write about the dissertation process. This is the number one way I finished: writing about writing. I began every entry the same way: the date, the time, the physical location I was in, and what drink I was consuming. Sometimes I would make multiple entries per day. But all entries were the same: date, time, place, drink.

I used my dissertation journal to track everything:

It all went into my dissertation journal. I’ve learned from this process that I can only remember so much and I only really want to remember so much. Writing the ephemeral and transitory down helped me keep track of the bigger picture. Plus, it was tremendously helpful to look back and see where I was stuck and how I resolved it and what I was worried about and what made me happy.

I used Microsoft’s OneNote as my dissertation journal. I like OneNote’s interface on my laptop and it syncs seemlessly with an iPhone and an iPad. Because of this, my journal was always with me. Late night ideas, flashes of insight while standing in the grocery store line, some model parameter I realized I needed to check while out on a walk, the dissertation journal captured them all because I had portable access.

This is the number one way I finished: my dissertation journal. And this is what I share with other graduate students: start and keep a dissertation journal.

On the other side of suffering is greatness

This is difficult. But gratifying.

The title of this piece of advice comes from David Goggins. Former Navy SEAL and ultra athlete. Here is a video of him describing this idea. He also has a book.

Throughout the majority of my time in grad school the three roaring, deafening, frequently all-consuming, near-constant thoughts I had in my head were that “I am not good at [grad school/research/dissertation]”, “I am a fraud”, and “my work is no good”. Most would call this imposter syndrome. Most university pamphlets, leaflets, guides, and websites on imposter syndrome offer some mix of about a dozen different ways of overcoming it or dealing with it. Usually, it is along the lines of: don’t listen to those thoughts, those thoughts aren’t valid, and remember your strengths. Not listening and trying to invalidate those thoughts did not work for me. Those thoughts never went away. It was like turning on a fan to cover up the steady and intrustive noise of a dripping faucet. Many of those guides on imposter syndrome also say to have compassion for yourself and in those guides having compassion for yourself means not listening to yourself and ignoring those thoughts.

What if having compassion for yourself is not ignoring yourself but listening to yourself? What if those thoughts are telling you the truth?

I tried the radical idea of acknowledging those thoughts and asking if they were true, then what? I was able to agree with those thoughts and say, “Yes, I am not good this, I am a fraud, and my work is not good. Assuming this is something I want, how do I become good at this? How do I be genuine? How do I produce good work?” And this is where David Goggins comes in. I watched a few of his videos and I took his advice. In my case, I realized that all of those questions could be resolved by working on this project. So I got to work. And my attitude towards this process changed. I dove into how fucking hard this process was and saw it as a challenge to rise to and overcome.

By working on this I became better at working on this. I become more genuine through the work. And through working on this my work became better. That process of listening and agreeing with those voices set a zero-point. A zero-point from which I could grow. From then on, I understood each day’s work as me getting better at this process. Every paragraph I wrote, every line of code I put down, every graphic I made meant that I was getting better. Little by little, these seemingly small actions made me stronger, more honest, and more competent.

I will say that this sounds so very easy. So easy that I wish I could go back in time and tell my third-year self that. But I do not know if I would have been ready to listen to this to advice or accept it. I had this awakening towards the end of my dissertation, while stuck on my third empirical chapter in particular, and I have no doubt that my dissertation, and my third empirical chapter in particular, is stronger for it. I do wonder what I could have accomplished if I understood this concept when I first started grad school. But, I can’t change anything through thinking like that and so I do not frequently engage in those thoughts. I am, however, extremely glad I had this realization when I did and I now have the rest of my life to look forward to with this mindset.

To be clear, those thoughts have not gone away, even after I finished my dissertation. It would be nice if they do, but they won’t. I have made peace with the presence of those thoughts by accepting them and using them to set a zero point. There are some analytical techniques and new pieces of software I am planning to learn in the next few months. I know those thoughts will get louder. And I know that by accepting them, I will set a zero point and I will eventually become adept at those skills.

While this exercise worked for me, I will expressely state that this advice is controversial and I know this technique will not work for everybody. Grad school is a deeply unique and a deeply personal experience. Some people are really struggling and this advice might not be helpful and in fact counterproductive.

I will conclude this piece of advice as follows. We’re researchers and scientists. Our job is to build new knowledge and push the boundaries of what is known. Sometimes the creation of knowledge means questioning long taken-for-granted beliefs and generally accepted wisdom.

Keep going

Small actions add up.

The more I worked on my dissertation, the better I got at working on my dissertation. And to some extent, the easier working on it became. That’s not to say it was easy. It wasn’t. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It never got easier, I just got better at it. There were days I hated it and I was depressed and angry about this process and doubted it and felt like quitting more often than not. Every day I worked on it, with every keystroke I got a little closer to finishing. I kept going. As trite and obvious as it sounds, that was how I finished. I kept going.

What is your reward system?

The difference between short-term divergences and long-term gratifification.

This took me a non-trivial amount of time to understand. I was in graduate school for over a decade. There were a lot of gains and a lot of setbacks. At the worst of it I did not want to even look at my dissertation let alone work on it. I found a lot of other things to do. This caused me a lot of worry and stress and one way I dealt with that is by going out for a drink and/or procrasti-working (I gotta clean my references before I write, I need to try this new piece of software because it might be faster, my outline isn’t correct so I’ll redo it). So, the behavaior-reward mechanism I etched into my brain was avoiding my dissertation earned me alcohol. That’s ridiculous! And definitely not sustainable. The way I fixed that was by exposing myself to the thing causing me the stress and anxiety. It was hard at first, certainly, but it got a lot easier very quickly. It turned out that the thing causing me the stress and anxiety was not causing me as much stress and anxiety as I had built up in my head.

Perhaps ADHD?

Sometimes there is something a little different.

The book “Driven to Distraction” made a helluva lot of things make a helluva lot of sense very quickly. One of the things I realized shortly after I started grad school is that I would go out of my way to avoid certain activities. Very low-stimulii activities such as reading and writing. I’ll never forget when, during finals week of my first quarter of grad school, I had a final paper due in a few days and I stopped everything to clean a fish tank. I had an out-of-body experience watching myself clean a fish tank knowing full well that a paper was due in a few days. The programming, statistics, and map making components of my research I absolutely loved. But the reading and the writing were difficult. Academic articles and books read differently than fiction. And I found that difficult. I could do it, but it took great effort. Towards the end of my PhD I understand myself and the process a lot more and how to read articles and books in a way that works for me. Not only did the reading and the writing become easier, they both became enjoyable.

While I have not been diagnosed with ADHD, that book resonated with me. And if the book resonated with me, then perhaps the coping mechanisms would as well. And they sure did. Several of the recommendations in this post and the other posts are responses to advice in that book. A few in particular: the pomodoro technique, the daily work, just writing, and the evening lift.