How to stay calm and productive when writing your dissertation

Writing a dissertation allows you to show your innovative nous within your area of study, and it gives you the chance to examine things differently. However, innovation often comes with some uncertainty, especially when there’s no road map for your project. This means that you could start with some enthusiasm and confidence and watch it all evaporate once you hit the inevitable roadblocks while writing your dissertation. Negative emotions such as anxiety, doubt, and procrastination would start to set in, but it’s important that you remain calm and retain your productivity to complete your dissertation. Here’s how to achieve this:

Remember why you’re doing it.

You got yourself into the position where you’re writing a dissertation, and there’s a reason you had to undertake it. Let that be your first motivation. It was your commitment and choice to pursue a degree, and you’ve reached the latter stage of that journey. Now is not the time to allow yourself to wallow in unbelief, anxiety, doubt, and uncertainty. You chose to pursue knowledge when you could have focused on survival because you want to be the best you can be and realize your potential. This is self-actualization. 

Writing your dissertation is an important part of your self-actualization journey, and you can’t give up when you’re at this stage. Remember what made you study the course and why you’ve committed so much time to it. Remember that you’re on a journey to realizing your dream. Let that be your motivation. 

Parent yourself 

When you were younger, your parents did everything for you. They made the decisions and controlled your life, including seemingly little things such as mealtimes, bedtimes and playtimes. There are many lessons to learn from your parents’ treatment of you as a child. One important thing to note is that they determined what happened and when. This is a valuable life lesson for you as an adult. You have the power to determine what happens in your life and when it happens, especially as regards things like your education, health and lifestyle. 

Parent yourself by determining your schedule (what you do and when). Teach yourself when to play and when to work. Determine what to do with your time. Learn to do the right thing at the right time. You could allow yourself to take a break from your dissertation when you feel tired or hit a block, but you must learn when to get back to work. Since you know not to allow negative thoughts to cloud your mind, then you must also learn to parent yourself and take responsibility for the things you should do. 

Protect your mind’s health 

Everyone emphasizes the need to pay attention to physical health, but not enough is being said about the mind’s health. Writing a dissertation will take its toll on your body and your mind. To ensure that you remain calm and productive while working on your dissertation, your mind’s health is more important. This means prioritizing your mental and emotional health. Thankfully, the mind has a strong connection with the body. So, the healthy habits that take care of your body, such as daily exercise, enough rest, and a healthy diet, are also good for your mind. However, it would help if you did more than that. You must also learn to guard your mind and filter what comes into it. Filtering out those negativities, such as tiredness, anxiety, fear, doubt, weariness, procrastination, etc., that can disturb the completion of your dissertation is the best way to protect your mind. Otherwise, they become mainstays in your mind, and you won’t only struggle to work on your dissertation, you’ll struggle to do anything positive. 

Dissertations are difficult to work on, even for the healthiest mind. It requires months of constantly working on them, and you’re likely working along on your project. This can trigger negative emotions such as loneliness and isolation. Protect your mind from giving in to that. If you can, surround yourself with supportive people, friends and family. You know what the stakes are, so you must keep going. Surround yourself with positive energy and people that bring positive emotions to you. This is how to protect your mind’s health, and it keeps you calm and productive. 

Find your productivity hack.

Everyone has productivity hacks that work for them. Whether that is keeping your mobile phone away from you while you work or taking a 20 minutes rest after 40 minutes of work. There are many ways that people try to improve their productivity nowadays. 

Thankfully, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. So, find the one that works for you and stick to it. You might need to listen to classical music to get you in your groove or watch a movie if that works for you. 

Conclusion 

Writing a dissertation is quite difficult, and many people struggle with it. Even people with excellent mental and emotional health also struggle. So, you’re not alone in that regard. What you should never do is give in to those negative feelings. Now it’s understandable why people pay professional writers to write their dissertations. Others write their dissertation and send them to professional dissertation assistance to edit and proofread.