Strategies for successful dissertation completion (via Crooked Timber)

Eszter at Crooked Timber recently gave a talk at her discipline's annual meeting on strategies for completing your dissertation. Here are some of my favorites:

2. Keep track of everything you do by filing material (whether digitally or not) and by keeping a diary of progress in your research.

6. Do not be discouraged if you find another project that * sounds * like yours, chances are good that it is not. Often enough you will encounter projects that make you think your work has already been done. Before you get completely stressed out about this, check the details of the other project. In all likelihood it is different from yours in significant ways.

7. Keep a notebook of all of your ideas even if they seem tangential to the project. You never know when they will be helpful later whether for this project or another one.

There's lots more, too. Click here for the whole article.