Monthly Goals and Smaller Chunks

Alright people, this is it. I'm completely finished with any other acacdemic task now, other than writing this dissertation. Not that I've been intentionally wasting time or anything, but I now have absolutely no excuses or other invening reasons to not get some major work accomplished on this beast during the next few months.

I'm experiencing a feeling of relief, in that life has become a bit more simple. No more classes, no more tests or papers, and no more incompletes or other lingering projects. Heck, I've even let go of one of my side jobs that earned a small bit of cash. All of these things were being put on a higher priority than the dissertation because they were more urgent. No longer are these things factors, and this is good.

If I want to start collecting data this fall, and thus have any hope of walking at graduation in a year, then I absolutely must defend the proposal (1st 3 chapters) no later than mid-September of this year. My goal for the summer is to have at least a decent draft. A decent draft can still SUCK, but at least it's a draft! Edits don't take me all that long to complete, and the work doesn't need to be perfect to pass the proposal defense. It just needs to be done.

So I've revised my schedule so that I do a chapter a month for the next three months. That is:

• Introduction by the end of May
• Literature review by the end of June
• Methodology by the end of July

That gives me August to edit and attempt to get some feedback from DC, who has told me she'll be in and out of town this summer and would be happy to look at things when she has time (I'm VERY lucky in this regard. Many professors simply disappear during the summer months, which is their prerogative being that they aren't paid in the summer time).

Deep breath. Hoo boy. Here we go. In the past half hour I've completed a few lines of the outline of my introduction, so we're getting somewhere.