Managing yourself

Time: Time is a resource management problem that challenges us all. Our perception of time seems to change; at the start of the dissertation the finish date often seems remote, yet it soon comes screaming up, and the feverish activity of many students as hand-in time approaches bears witness to this. Time management is essential, and you should set an overall time plan for your dissertation:

• Start by establising the hand-in date for the dissertation, and work backwards from this date.

• Identify all the tasks that need to be done to produce the final dissertation e.g. literature review, research design, data collection and analysis etc.

• Set a generous time allowance for each task

• Establish the order in which the tasks must done - note! some tasks can be done at the same time, and some will have a specific order. For example, you would need to have designed your research tool (e.g. questionnaire) before data can be collected (through survey work) and analysed. Consider using critical path analysis to identify how long tasks will take, and to identify the critical activities which are possibly long, and also those activities that will hold up other work.

• Use your personal diary to note key dates such as a hand-in date for any project proposal and for the dissertation itself.

• Having developed your overall time plan remember to set your week plan. This can be done at the beginning of each week i.e. build a personal timetable that includes out-of-class time as well as classes.

• Stick to your schedule. As mentioned above, using a meetings log to agree action points with your supervisor ensures good progress. Also remember to set your next meeting as the last thing you do at the end of each meeting. Both you and your tutor will benefit from this level of organisation.

Learning to manage time is a crucial life skill, and dissertations are often considered to be important to teach self management. Some dissertation courses will even give marks for self management.

The dissertation write-up: Managing the dissertation write-up should start at the beginning of the project, and not wait until the completion of any empirical research. Writing-up takes far longer than you think! Many a good piece of research is let down by an inadequate or poor write up.

• For many students the writing-up of a dissertation can seem fearful, and so they put it off as long as possible. Better to start early and have lots of draft materials to reorganise and refine, than to start with any empty file called 'dissertation' a couple of weeks before hand-in is due!

• Start NOW, make notes of everything, where possible use a word processor and keep back-up files of all work - clearly dated. Even your reading can be noted on file, and draft work combined later to create a literature review. Also make sure that references are clearly and properly collected according to the appropriate citations style convention. (see chapter on research and referencing)

• Draft the chapter outline as soon as possible, and identify chapter sub-headings. You can always develop and change your ideas, but it is better to have ideas recorded that can be changed.

Research: Managing research is also essential. All sorts of resources are involved; time, people (yourself and others), and physical resources. Here are some things to consider:

• People and resources upon whom you rely may be unavailable when you need them, be aware of the risk and build in contingency time. Establish the availability of key people early on in the dissertation process.

• Articles may need to be borrowed from other libraries and Inter library loan can take a long time. Do not expect that all relevant articles are available on web sites; lots of invaluable older articles exist only on paper.

• You may need an outside organization to help with your work, and you may negotiate their help, but remember that organizational partners can renege. Have a fall-back position negotiated with your tutor.

• Most students expect to have good health, and to be able to pull out all the stops and (if necessary) work through the night. Remember, you can be ill, so build in a buffer to help carry you through a few days of illness at least.

• Computers are increasingly mission critical for most dissertations, for accessing and collecting data, its analysis, and writing up. Computers can fail! Always have back-up files (i.e. more than one copy after each edit of your work) and don't leave it until the last minute to print off your work.