Shut up and write

This is soooo me. Another post in the same day. Always a sprint, not so good on the marathons. The truth is I hope to create a bit of a suppository of tips for other PhD candidates out there who are neuro diverse. So I might punch out a few posts early and write about them more in depth down the track if need be. I know it’s important if I want to get these posts out there to the world though, I need to strategically publish, so I will schedule a few instead of instantly publishing.

One of the most challenging parts of a PhD for me is the write up. That last year. I am still excited about my thesis topic, the results, and the difference I hope to make through this research. What I’m not excited about is writing about it all. I find it almost impossible to give it the attention it needs. I’ve tried dedicating whole days, even weeks to writing. So much time wasted. So many distractions. And when I make efforts to remove the distractions, I then just find my brain wanting to shut down for a sleep and I can’t keep my eyes open.

ANU run ‘Shut up and write’ sessions which I have found to be of immense benefit. I think the Thesis Whisper describes them well here. They are still too long for me, but even just devoting one 50 minute period to writing gives me a lot more output than I can usually get in a week in any other method. In addition to this, I’ve learnt to just do a brain dump on a topic, and not initially get too bogged down in issues around structure, grammar and referencing.

OK, I’ve lost interest in this post now (and you are probably distracted now too lol), so I’ll leave it there.