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Tag: waiting

Nathan

Hate To Wait?

Daily Post

If, like me, you find it difficult to wait for things then you need to come up with a few coping strategies for your viva.

If the days leading up to your viva are taking too long what will you do to manage yourself? Can you arrange your prep to pass the hours productively or will you arrange useful distractions?

What can you do to begin your viva day well while you wait for the start time? Decide in advance so that you don’t have to respond in the moment to your feelings.

What will you do after your viva is finished and you’re waiting for your examiners? Again, decide in advance – have a short walk, refill your water bottle, make some notes – so that you are not waiting alone and only feeling nervous.

If you hate to wait then you can also take steps to help yourself as you wait.

Nathan

Waiting For A Good Time

Daily Post

It might feel like you have to wait a long time to get to your viva. Hopefully you’ll be busy enough along the way that it won’t feel too bad.

And hopefully it won’t feel too much like waiting for your viva while you’re preparing.

There will probably be some waiting to get started on the day.

And you might wait a little during the viva while your examiners pause and think – which you can do too – or during breaks.

And wait again when they confer about the outcome towards the end.

And then again when you wait to hear if your corrections have been accepted.

And then again(!) when you wait for an opportunity to graduate.

There’s a lot of waiting on the journey to being a PhD graduate. What can you do to get used to it or to make a good use of the time for yourself?

Nathan

Waiting

Daily Post

There isn’t a perfect time to start preparing for the viva. You don’t really need to start until after you’ve submitted; apart from that you have to think sensibly about your priorities. How you can add this work to your other commitments?

If you think you can manage all the things you need to do in two weeks, that’s fine. Need a month to space things out? No problem.

But… If you’re not sure, if you’re just leaving things for a while… If you’re waiting for the right time… What are you waiting for?

What’s going to be different? What will make next week better than now?

There’s no danger you might be overprepared if you do something now rather than save it for later.

Far better not to wait, start well, than to leave it and rush.