Your Official Breakdown to Diss and Deadline Season Without the Actual Breakdown

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Dissertations. The dreaded ‘D’ word that has the power to clear a room faster than a fire alarm.

Writing this with two days until mine is due, a dangerously high caffeine intake, and a word count that feels both excessive and somehow still not enough, is probably the most transparent form of procrastination imaginable. Or, as I prefer to call it, productive avoidance.

Consider this my contribution to the greater good: a breakdown of how to survive one of the most intense periods of university life… without actually losing your mind.

First things first: do not do anything drastic. It is certainly not the time to convince yourself that a personality reinvention is exactly what you need right now. This is not the time for a fringe. It is absolutely not the time to let a hairdresser convince you that “copper” is going to change your life. Speaking from very recent, very expensive experience, all it does is add another problem to the list. Instead, keep it simple. Go for a walk. Get a coffee (you’re going to anyway, so you might as well romanticise it). Try that spot you’ve had saved for months but never quite justified. Small changes, not irreversible ones.

Secondly, if you’re living in the library (which, let’s be honest, you probably are), stop pretending you need to sit in the same chair for eight hours straight to be productive. You don’t. Move around. Rotate floors like it’s part of your routine. See friends for a quick lunch, even if all you do is collectively complain about your respective deadlines and reassure each other that you’re “basically done” when you’re clearly not. And if the sun makes a rare appearance, take it as a sign. The dissertation might feel like poison, but a bit of vitamin D won’t hurt. At the very least, it’s a reminder that there is, in fact, a world outside the library. Go touch that grass! (literally).

Then there’s the comparison. The quiet, constant awareness that someone, somewhere, is definitely doing more than you. Someone who started earlier, reads faster, writes better, and somehow still has a balanced diet and a consistent sleep schedule. It’s exhausting, and it’s almost entirely pointless. You never see the full picture, just the polished version people are willing to admit to. Everyone else is winging it to some degree; some are just better at hiding it.

Alongside that comes the more unsettling thought: what if you’re doing it wrong? What if you’ve misunderstood the question, gone too niche – not niche enough – read the wrong sources or, worse, written something that only makes sense to you? This is the part no one really warns you about. The doubt sits there, quietly, no matter how many words you add to your count. You can be thousands of words in and still feel like you’re starting from scratch.

The reality is, there is no perfect way to do a dissertation. There’s just your way: messy, inconsistent, occasionally questionable, but ultimately enough. Not every paragraph needs to be groundbreaking. Dissertation season has a way of trapping you in tunnel vision. You start to believe that this one piece of work defines everything. It doesn’t. It’s important, yes, but also temporary. There is an end point, even if you can’t quite see it yet...

You’re not behind, you’re just in the thick of it. And in a few weeks’ time, this will all feel strangely distant, or worse, something you’d briefly consider doing again… before remembering exactly why you needed this article in the first place.