That's impressive--I think it is more ideal to work that way, to be honest. I think there is a diminishing return problem with the chunking technique. Also, later in one's career when you have to be writing publishable papers while working on a bunch of other stuff it's good to develop a way to work faster in smaller bursts

My problem is that I much prefer working on the 12-15 pg conference length papers. I feel like I can offer something much more insightful and sharp in such a setting

Bilbo--that;s a good plan. I have tried to do that, but unfortunately I didn't get serious about it until recently. I think I would be much better off if I did that early on.

wowzers--I am very impressed by your success there. I'm not sure your exact approach would work for me, but I love the idea about the hard copy articles. Taking notes is crucial as I found out a little late. I wasn't used to needing that, but when you are working with this much research it is central.

I like the free writing idea. I think I may try that for my next chapter and just see what happens. At least I would have something to work with and I could avoid the pefrectionism road blocks that eventually lead to avoidance and giving up

How long do you guys write each day? I'm having trouble writing anything meaningful beyond 3 hours. I need (and want) to do more though

Thanks for the replies. It feels good to communicate with others working in academia. It's almost like you can't even talk to anyone else about it (including colleague half the time)

Pjlu--I'm in the U.S. and I am working primarily with texts (this happens to be in philosophy). By working on it for a year, I mean that I have being doing just dissertation stuff, along with conferences and so on, for a year. I think my main difficulty is that I cannot even envision it being finished, it's like an apathy sets in when I set to work on it.

Dr. Jeckyll, I like that approach of writing a bullet per paragraph. I really need to make this thing more manageable.

I feel like Bradley Cooper in "Limitless" before he got NZT. I have been doing dissertation research for a year, my hope was to be done in that time. I have worked extremely hard to get to this point, but it feels like time is dilating and I cannot finish this dissertation. My target is to have this thing done by the beginning of the Fall, but I have roughly 3 chapters left and I don't know if I can do it. It;s not that I haven't worked on this monster. I have worked every single day (with a few exceptions). I have made some mistakes in terms of research. I have collected far too many sources and spent too much time diffusing my focus. I think that primarily owes to a poor proposal design process. I had no idea how to write a proposal and no one I asked could really tell me how. In retrospect, it kind of makes me angry. It also makes me wish I visited a forum like this earlier.

Does anyone have any dissertation completion tricks or just a bit of helpful advice? Thanks a lot