When I began writing my dissertation after a year of researching and outlining, I was prepared. I had the research skills, and my graduate studies had taught me how to use that research to craft an original argument. I could write on a deadline, and I had a solid outline. To write the dissertation, all I had to do was rely on these skills and quickly and efficiently produce chapters. I knew there would be challenges, but I also knew what I was doing.

What I failed to recognize is that writing a dissertation means writing on an entirely new scale. Like several other contributors to this forum, including Kevin March and Ann Daly, I quickly found that strategies I had relied on to write papers simply did not translate well to the dissertation. Tapping into the adrenaline that accompanied late nights finishing seminar papers worked for the first part of graduate school, but began wearing on me when faced with months of writing on end. Meanwhile, I was so focused on making and meeting deadlines that I began to wonder what I was getting out of the process itself. Well-meaning adages, such as “the best dissertation is a finished dissertation,” did nothing to help me enjoy the day-to-day work. I did not see any reason to drag out the writing process, but finding consistent motivation and avoiding burnout proved difficult amidst real life challenges of teaching, family obligations, and a global pandemic.

In theory, deadline-driven writing and the idea that perfection is the enemy of a finished dissertation are useful strategies. However, these types of suggestions also can keep dissertation writers laser-focused on the finish line and less concerned with the valuable role that the dissertation plays as part of graduate training. In fact, I would argue that the way that you write the dissertation—the dissertation process—is just as important as the finished product because it is the first opportunity you have to develop a sustainable writing practice.

By “sustainable writing practice,” I mean a way to incorporate writing regularly and consistently into your life, while also leaving room for other hobbies, relationships, family, and personal obligations. Experimenting and creating a writing process that you can keep up for months and years is a crucial part of graduate training, and one that is often overlooked. Exploring how to balance dissertation writing with the rest of your work and personal life will ultimately help you later on, as you transition from student to professional scholar.

One of the main ways that students can make their dissertation part of the training process is to incorporate experimentation into the writing process, with the ultimate goal being consistency rather than end product. Deciding that your goal is to write consistently takes the pressure off what you produce on any given day and opens the door to testing new writing approaches. Some days, you may try the pomodoro method, a common interval-based technique. Other days, your goal may be to research a question that came up while writing Section 2 of Chapter 3. Perhaps you try out the Stephen King method—a set number of words per day. Particularly desperate times, motivation-wise, may call for challenging yourself to write the worst paragraph you have ever written (it will be better than you think). Your ultimate approach will probably look more like a hodgepodge of methods than a comprehensive system. What matters most is that you are experimenting with the actual process of writing—trying a lot of approaches—and deciding which process will best support your goal of consistent writing.

Stephen King describes his 2000-words-a-day writing target in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000; 25th Anniversary Edition, London, 2025).

Equally important to experiment with are methods for dealing with the days that you don’t write. All dissertation writers, at some point, hit a wall. At times when the words fail to flow and exhaustion creeps in, a blank computer screen feels less like an opportunity, and more like a reminder of what you are not doing. Experimenting with strategies to deal with these days, too, will help develop your writing process and make it successful in the long term. For me, days like this usually meant that the best thing I could do to progress with the dissertation was to get up from my desk and do something else. What would help me push forward in the long term was taking care of myself in a different way: going for a run, spending time with friends and family, taking a hike with my dog, or baking.

For people who value work, these “off days” can be challenging in themselves. However, prioritizing recovery days as much as writing days is an integral part of sustainable writing. Releasing my mind from the constant grind of dissertating allowed me to process large amounts of information and connect complex ideas. This background processing was something that I could not force into existence by working harder. Only by taking a step back could I let the breakthroughs happen.

For me, the dissertation process was a master class in figuring out what consistent, sustainable writing looked like. As motivation, work commitments, and personal responsibilities ebbed and flowed, I found solace in the idea that experimenting with the writing process itself could be part of my daily goals. Paradoxically, focusing on fine-tuning my writing process helped me produce a dissertation far more quickly and effectively than I had when I prioritized the final product.

The truth is this: No essay can give you the perfect solution for how to write a dissertation, because a perfect way does not exist. Finding a way to balance competing concerns while writing a dissertation is a constant challenge. The beauty of this fact, though, is in realizing the power you have to have fun with the process and come up with a system that works for you. Putting effort into creating that system now will reward you over the course of your career, as you continue to balance your writing practice with professional commitments and all the rest of life.