Small Prep

Reading your thesis cover to cover might take hours. Reading a page might take a few minutes.

Having a mock viva will take several hours of prep and several hours on the day. Responding to a question from a friend might take five minutes.

Carefully reviewing your thesis for what to annotate will take time. Adding sticky notes to the start of each chapter will take two minutes at most.

All of which is to say that there’s a lot of big prep but many small tasks that will make a difference.

You can’t focus solely on the latter and hope it’s enough, but if you’re tired or overwhelmed you can give yourself some small easy wins to help you get back on track.

Use small bits of prep to help move you closer to being ready.