You Are Here

Tag: start small

Nathan

It’s Important To Stretch

Daily Post

Don’t rush into viva prep. Make sure you have everything you need and a plan to help you get through the work you need.

Do small tasks first. Check the regulations. Ask for help. Place bookmarks at the start of chapters.

Stretch! Do small things so you know you’re starting well and won’t crash as soon as you find something difficult or you have a bad day. Start small and build up to being ready for your viva.

Nathan

Find Five

Daily Post

A little nudge to start viva preparations:

  1. Find five papers in your bibliography that have really supported you and your research.
  2. Find five people who can help you get ready for your viva.
  3. Find five days that you can take a good hour to do something to get ready.
  4. Find five places in your thesis where you make a good contribution.
  5. Find five reasons to help you believe you will succeed in your viva.

There will be many more for each category, and many more helpful categories of things that could help someone get ready. Five is a good starting place.

Nathan

Start Small

Daily Post

Day one of viva preparation doesn’t have to be re-reading your thesis and exploring your examiners’ work and writing summaries and practising questions and sticking in Post-its AND reading 101 blog posts about how to do everything!

Day one can just be ten minutes thinking about what you need to do before the viva.

There are big tasks on the journey to the viva, but you can start small. It doesn’t have to be everything all at once.

Give yourself time to think, time to prep, time to get things done.

Small steps will get you there.