Getting It (Dissertation) Done: Propose, Defend, and Move On… All in One Year

Lauren Meyer

It is a unique moment… When your advisor says you are ready to begin, propose, or defend your dissertation.  This endeavor may simultaneously be one of the most wonderful and most challenging learning experiences of your graduate training.  Before I jump into a host of strategies and recommendations on dissertating, I want to remind readers that every PhD experience is different.  Every advisor, program handbook, dissertation committee, and graduate college requirement list is different.  I am one data point in a grand normal-ish curve, and can only speak from my experience.  I was fortunate to have an advisor and committee of professors who encouraged my autonomy and were willing to let me explore the possibilities of my research.  With that said…
 
Why is what I have to share anything special?  In May of this year, I celebrated the successful defense of my dissertation (with revisions), ten months after I proposed it.  To be clear, this does not mean I did all the work in ten months (it took more than ten months); it means I stood in front of my committee twice in less than a year.  Perhaps this is not that exciting for some and meeting these milestones in a year sounds like no big deal.  In my case, however, this shocked the heck out of me.  I laughed and cried throughout the process.  I met some of the most incredible researchers, practitioners, and educators on this journey, several of whom have become dear friends.  I also said, “I want to quit” more times than I can count, sometimes jokingly and sometimes seriously as tears streamed down my face.  But I did survive.  I will admit I have heard and read many stories about the “rites of passage,” reporting comments like: “It was tough for me, so it will be tough for you.”  I have thoughts on that approach to advisement, but will stick to my objective… Now, I want to share the ins and outs of this journey, because, to be honest… Writing a dissertation was one of the main reasons I feared applying for a PhD.  Reflecting on my anxiety, I remember feeling that my lack of a competitive spirit, my perceived lack of intelligence, and my super sensitive soul would keep me from being successful in a doctoral program.  And then I would have to write a “book” at the end?  Nah, hard pass.  Yet, four years later, here we are.  I am excited to share some tips that might ease the voyage for you and perhaps empower you to complete it in a year, too (if that works for your advisor, your program/discipline, and your study design).  A large chunk of the advice I have to share comes from the brains of my advisor, committee members, mentors, and fellow grad students who had reached the other side.  (I will be sure to give credit where credit is due.)  The rest of it comes from my personal experience, including all of the tools I found or created along the way. 

A few caveats. Ok, five... 

1. If you know that proposing and defending your dissertation in one year is not likely because of your current life situation (e.g., attending school part-time, switching advisors, getting married, starting a family, acting as a caregiver), understood.  Maybe there are a few nuggets you will take away from this guidance regardless.  If getting it done in a year is within your reach, grab a pen.  
2. Having a supportive committee is going to play a large role.  Your advisor will likely chair your committee.  Having a strong working relationship with that person will be instrumental in your timely completion.  If you do not have a great relationship, evaluate that.  What is the barrier there?  Recruit a few honest comrades who will support you as you work to strengthen your relationship with your advisor.  (Have you read the piece on Building a Network Outside of Your College?) You will want somebody who will advocate for you and listen to you cry (compassionate), and then tell you to buck up and get it done (tough love).
3. There are a few different types of dissertations.  For some, proposing and defending a dissertation means crafting a five-part “book” (intro, literature review, methods, results, and discussion).  It can be the result of a survey administered, an intervention implemented, or a variety of other approaches to data collection and analysis.  Alternatively, for some disciplines, completing a dissertation means conducting three different studies with the intention of submitting each for publication.  Depending on the extent of your three studies, completion in one year is debatable… Know which one your program requires (it should be in your graduate handbook).  I write from the experience of conducting one study over the course of a year (i.e., the five part “book”). 
4. I will admit that having the motivation and the mindset of getting it done in a year will probably be the greatest piece of the puzzle, but we will discuss that, too.
5. I write from my experience only.  Listen to your advisor, your committee, and fellow graduate students who have gone through the process in your program, as they will have very valuable information to share, and can more appropriately give you the “ya” or “nah” on this one-year business.  Lastly, right now I am a Ph.D. student (studying school [working with children in schools] psychology) on internship, not a Ph.D., and I can only share from my experience in my program.  But I can confidently say, for a student in my area of study, it is possible. :)

​Right off the bat, I am going to recommend you mentally commit to finishing your dissertation in a year.  Make that your battle cry from the moment you wake up in the morning until the moment you fall asleep. 

Mindset

Right off the bat, I am going to recommend you mentally commit to finishing your dissertation in a year.  Make that your battle cry from the moment you wake up in the morning until the moment you fall asleep.  Write it down in notebooks, jot it down on a post-it note and affix it to your bathroom mirror.  Internalize the idea that you can and will do it.  Commit to getting it done in a year, and fight to the death to do so.  This will mean choosing to stay in on a Saturday night to read articles, edit your references, and sit in awe over the capabilities of Google Scholar.  Always have wine on standby, if that is your thing.  Carol Dweck (2006) has a lot to say about mindset, particularly growth and fixed mindsets.  There are some questions about her theories (e.g., Schwartz, Cheng, Salehi, & Wieman, 2016), and even conversations about grit and mindset working around each other (e.g., Crede, Tynan, & Harms, 2016).  (I will author another post on grit and resilience soon; stay tuned for more!)  Truthfully, this will be the year that you kick all of the knowledge you have gained from your coursework into full gear.  Having a can-do/will-do attitude in the face of barriers will help carry you to the end, I promise.  “Attitude is everything” has never been truer than it is right now in this guidance.
 
Have a conversation with your advisor about wanting to get it done in a year.  Ask that person if this is realistic, acknowledging that you are ready to put in the hours (see point above regarding mindset).  If the answer is yes (your advisor is the one signing off on this book, after all), tell your advisor to remind you to reel it in when you get too excited.  On more than one occasion, my advisor had to tell me to slow down and be realistic.  You want to tackle a practical project, not a world-changer.  Know that you will have something really amazing in mind, and then your final product may be a quarter of the amazingness.  You will have time to change the world after you graduate.  (My advisor, my committee, and my friends told me that a done dissertation is a good dissertation.  I did not believe them until I defended.  If I had, I probably would have saved myself some heartache.)  Another golden nugget from my advisor… Right now, settle for a project that matches where you are in your training and development, and then pushes you a bit.  She asked me what I could honestly manage, and then go from there.  While we are on the subject of being practical, do not re-invent the wheel.  Consider expanding on a paper you wrote for another class, and using those references to jump-start your dissertation. 

​You want to tackle a practical project, not a world-changer.  Know that you will have something really amazing in mind, and then your final product may be a quarter of the amazingness.  You will have time to change the world after you graduate.

Accept that you are going to have issues arise along the way.  Things will go wrong.  Guaranteed.  Anticipate them and be prepared for them, especially if you are doing something community based.  Here are a few examples…
 

• Hiccups with IRB approval.  Whoops, you need another signature.  Anticipate an additional week to get it.  Dissertation is the center of your world right now but it is not for those around you.  People are busy, and although it is likely that they want to help you and see you be successful, it is unlikely that they will drop everything to get paperwork completed for you.  Be prepared for this. 
• Meetings get cancelled.  Ahhh, an administrator had a personal emergency and will not be back in the office for at least a week.  You cannot move forward until you get their thumbs up.  What can you do with that time instead?  Maximize your productivity during this gap.  Work smarter, not harder.  (But yes, you will have to work harder, too.)   
• Programming glitches.  Your software will crash; your coding may yield an error.  Accept that these things will happen, and be ready with your problem-solving hat on to adjust your course.  (When working through coding, I could easily plug the error message into a web search engine and a handful of recommendations would pop up.  If you have taken a coding class, more than likely you already know this is a great problem solving strategy.)
• You discover that you will need to translate all of your documents into another language.  (This was me.)  Yikes!  Who will do it, how much will it cost, and how long will it take?  Fold another two weeks in for this, unless you have a linguist in your friend circle who has some time to burn. 

 
My greatest advice when it comes to mental preparation is to not be surprised when things go awry.  You can take your advisor’s advice and listen to your peers, but you cannot predict everything.  In any case, you will save yourself some time if you can skip the self-sabotage and jump right into solution-mode when problems arise. 

​In any case, you will save yourself some time if you can skip the self-sabotage and jump right into solution-mode when problems arise. 

My second greatest piece of advice is to engage in regular self-care.  I will be the first to admit that when I started the dissertation process, I did not have a consistent self-care regimen in place.  I hike (when the Arizona weather is not deathly), I am social, I like to try new adventures, and I like to practice mindfulness.  These activities keep me sane.  When I was in the depths of writing my proposal, I lost sight of some of those self-care strategies.  (Ok, all of them.)  Then I got a puppy.  (Balancing a puppy during dissertation should be a blog post all on its own!)  She turned out to be the greatest self-care strategy of all, because not only did she make me get out of my apartment (did you know that puppies have to go outside every hour to balance fluids!?), but she forced me to pay attention to something other than my dissertation.  All joking aside, I am not recommending you get a pupper, but I am recommending you find a strategy that works for you, and stick to it, something that will force you to step away from the depths of your dissertation.  (See a handful of posts on self-care in the coming months.) 

Harley, my self-care.

Scheduling

You will probably want to start brainstorming your dissertation at least six months before you actually start writing it.  This was a recommendation of my advisor, and encouraged by my program.  (Whoa! Really?)  Yes, let me put this calendar recommendation in context.  I will use my own dissertation as an example.  I knew I wanted to implement an intervention in the elementary school setting, and that I would need two schools to do so.  Here is what that looked like… 

I started officially drafting and brainstorming my research design in January of 2016, but it was not until that summer that I found momentum and got the show officially on the road (sending drafts to my advisor).  (Spring of that year for students in my cohort meant the last semester of coursework and surviving comprehensive exams.  Interestingly for us, part of our comprehensive exam included facilitating a discussion with your comprehensive exam committee about your dissertation design.)  This January jumpstart, however, came at the recommendation of my advisor, who suggested I join a dissertation-writing group she had created for her students.  At that time, I drafted a calendar, very similar to the one above.  It included “flex weeks” (e.g., data collection could occur anytime between weeks 4 and 6 of school) and “dates of no return” (e.g., data collection must occur by week 7).  This provided the framework for executing each step.  With this calendar, in partnership with my advisor’s draft deadline calendar, I was able to keep (mostly) on schedule.  It is recommended that you always plan more time than necessary.  Dissertating is an emotionally demanding task.  There will be days you will feel drained and overwhelmed, particularly if you are taking a few courses, managing clinical work, conducting other research, or you are a caregiver.  You will be glad you scheduled in some flex days so that you could step away, engage in some self-care, and reinvigorate your creative juices.  Weekly meetings with your advisor are recommended, as these too, will help you stay on track. 

Committee and Support Sytem

Meet with your committee members individually before you propose.  Draft an agenda for each meeting, and send it to your advisor/committee members before you meet.  List each item in order of importance.  (You may only have 30 minutes with your advisor, but you have 45 minutes of questions and discussion, so let them know you ranked the items in order of importance.)  Ask if they have any items they would like to add to the agenda before you meet (pending they are familiar with your research questions and design).  When you meet, let them know where you are struggling and what you are excited about, and ask them for direction.  (Be explicit: “I have concerns about X, Y, and Z.  Have you encountered this before?  What are your thoughts/recommendations?”)  This is the time for you to be vulnerable and reflect on where you are in your scholarly development.  You will not have all the answers.  (Truth bomb:  You should not have all the answers.)  Ask them for additional ideas, and inquire about anticipated limitations.  This is what they are there for.  I will admit I was anxious about scheduling these meetings.  I thought, “What will we talk about?  What if my design does not make sense?  What if I cannot answer the questions they have about my study?”  The reality was far better than what my mind cooked up, because I had failed to remind myself of a few important things: 1) I am a student.  Being vulnerable is part of the process, 2) I am a student.  I am still developing.  My training has not prepared me to have all the answers.  In fact, most seasoned professors who are honest with their students will admit that they, too, do not have all the answers.
 
Find a writing group, and go…  Every.  Single.  Week.  No excuses.  Often, universities will have fantastic resources for graduate students.  The University of Arizona has a graduate writing center.  They offer tutoring, workshops, and even summer time writing institutes.  Truth bomb:  I took full advantage of the Graduate Writing Institute over the summer.  I completed Chapter 2 (literature review) during this two-week institute in June with the help of my advisor, and the professors at the writing center.  (High fives to them; they are the real MVPs!)  If the university writing resources are not your things, take a look at Meetup.com.  They offer a ton of great meet-ups, including writing groups.  This is a cool way to stay connected to your community while maintaining productivity.
 
Finally, alert your friends and family that you are getting ready to go through one of the greatest challenges of your graduate school career.  Request that they honor this time, knowing that you are so close to the end of a long journey.  (Let them know they can sweeten the experience for you if they send along little love notes and texts once a week, encouraging you to keep going.) 

​The reality was far better than what my mind cooked up, because I had failed to remind myself of a few important things: 1) I am a student.  Being vulnerable is part of the process, 2) I am a student.  I am still developing.  My training has not prepared me to have all the answers.  In fact, most seasoned professors who are honest with their students will admit that they, too, do not have all the answers.

Execution

Truth bomb:  You have to be organized.  If you know that staying organized is an area of improvement for you, invest time and energy in learning how to be organized.  Look around your friend and professional circle and ask yourself, “Who in this group is organized?”  And then ask them directly how they do it.  Remember, you are a student.  It is ok to be humble and vulnerable – ask.  You will be glad you did.  Here are a few other tools for your toolkit…
 

1. Carry around a journal and write “dissertation” across the top, and put the date you want to finish as added motivation.  Take this journal with you everywhere.  In fact, put it on your nightstand with you, too.  Use it to jot down little to-do’s and thoughts.  More than likely, you will climb into bed after a long day of whatever (e.g., working in the clinic, reading new articles, researching, spending time with family), and you will have an “aha!” moment about your data analysis, or a limitation, or another avenue to consider.  Write it here, or you will forget it.
2. Data entry and data cleaning:  I was encouraged by a mentor to “double enter” all data.  Best practice is to have two different people enter it each one time.  (I did not use this method for my dissertation, since my dissertation data were electronically recorded.  Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning here.)  You will have a spreadsheet with three active sheets.  Sheet 1 is your first entry.  Sheet 2 is your second entry.  Your third sheet is the difference between sheets 1 and 2.  In other words, on sheet 3, you will setup a formula that will subtract every cell in sheet 2 from every cell in sheet 1.  Sheet 3 should be full of zeros.  If it is not, you can easily find data entry errors and correct them.  This is time consuming, but an option for data cleaning if you know this will be part of your dissertation process.  Next, rather than updating the same file each time you revise your data set, save a new file with the new revised date.  If a file crashes, you will have another version handy. Save all of your versions in multiple places (desktop, external drive, clouds).
3. Paperwork:  Get into the habit of scanning and electronically saving every document into an electronic file.  My department had a scanner that would allow me to scan a document to my email.  I picked this up from my advisor, and it was a life changer.  It will save you from hauling lots of files around (and thus save you from losing lots of files).  Instead, you can pull them up on your computer when needed, and have them ready for emailing if necessary.
4. Have a handful of different documents saved in your dissertation folder, including limitations.  That conversation you had with a consultant like two months ago about something that might be worth exploring later, jot it down on your limitations document (or your journal, review point 1).  If you do not, you will forget it.  You can come back to this document when you are working through your discussion section (i.e., that section where you talk about all the stuff that went wrong, and what you would do differently).  When I was ready to write my limitations section, I went back to this document and reviewed every issue I came across.  It was so much easier than staring at a blank page reflecting on all the things that went wrong, all of which I would not have remembered by the time I got to the end.
5. Reminders:  Put these in your calendar, too.  If you do not, you will forget them.  When an administrator told me a document would be ready for pick-up in three business days, I would pull out my phone, fast-forward three business days, and plug it in as a meeting in my calendar. It acted as a prompt for me to follow-up rather than relying on my long-term memory to get back to them. 
6. In the midst of your IRB, intervention, data collection, writing, always ask your advisor, what else should I be doing?  This is a great agenda item to close your weekly meetings.  “Ok, I have addressed X, Y, and Z.  What else should I be doing, can you think of anything I have missed?”  You are being proactive with this approach.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (Ben Franklin, a long time ago), so get that ounce in when you can.

Get a Book and Write!

I remember the day my niece was born.  I was in the room with my sister and one of the nurses as they were prepping to go home.  I remember my sister quite vulnerably admitting that she was nervous.  She jokingly said, “You guys don’t have an operations manual for her {pointing to my niece} that we can take home, do you?”  We all laughed.  The nurse said, “No, not technically, but you’re going to do great.”  While we are often relying on our training for this part of the journey, there are a handful of really great resources out there to support our efforts here.  Your community may already have a few suggestions.  Here are a few popular choices… 

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My advisor recommended the Cone and Foster (2006) text.  I used it from start to finish.  It offered advice on everything from time management to the literature review, research methodology to presenting the results.  My greatest recommendations during the writing phase (which is basically every phase, right?) are the following…
 

1. I love this advice from one of my mentors at the Graduate Writing Institute… Accept your “sh*tty first drafts” (lovingly called SFDs) for what they are:  sh*tty."  It is likely you will have more than one of these, or more than five of these.  Remind your advisor that you will send him or her an SFD through every stage, because writing is messy.  Some of these can be bullet points, or just a series of thoughts scribed on a word document.  Allow yourself to let your creative juices just vomit all of over the page.  Be proud of these early drafts.  Artists work hard to refine their craft with every stroke of the brush.  You are doing the same.  (It kind of reminds me of that Carl’s Jr. slogan – if it doesn’t get all over the place, it doesn’t belong in your face.  If your writing takes you to some wacky and confusing places, you are doing it right!) 
2. With that said… Follow your ideas down some wacky paths.  Do not hesitate to pull literature from other disciplines if it helps shape your thesis statement.  Interdisciplinary literature will help you round out your work, and strengthen your own study. 
3. My second favorite piece of advice from the Graduate Writing Institute is to commit to 15-minute writing blocks.  If you can commit to working for 15-minutes, fantastic.  Sometimes those 15-minutes stop at 15-minutes, and that is OK.  You made 15-minutes worth of progress.  Sometimes, those 15-minutes turn into several hours, and that is great, too.  A handful of my peers are simply smitten with the Pomodoro Method, which is another great tool for productivity.  
4. Finally, always keep writing.  It is likely that you will not send an entire proposal or an entire final dissertation to your advisor in one swoop.  Rather, you will send sections at a time.  Unless otherwise instructed by your advisor or mentor, keep writing while your advisor is providing feedback/notes on a section you just sent.  There is no reason not to be productive during that time. 

I ​ love this advice from one of my mentors at the Graduate Writing Institute… Accept your “sh*tty first drafts” (lovingly called SFDs) for what they are:  sh*tty." 

Need more ideas?  Take a look at this piece on organizing your writing, this piece on reducing awkwardness in your writing, and this piece for overcoming writer’s block.  Truth bomb:  I spent a lot of time researching what it was like to write a dissertation before I actually wrote a dissertation, and that made a world of difference.  Articles like those linked above prevented me from being surprised by the hiccups – like writer’s block and data crashes.  We can all acknowledge that writing your dissertation is a tough task, but when you prepare, it is manageable.  If you are feeling overwhelmed with anxiety over your dissertation, consider chatting with a mental health professional.  Seriously, this is an emotionally demanding task.  Sitting down with somebody who can offer objective recommendations and act as a sounding board for your concerns can be the scaffolding you need to move forward.  Be sure this is somebody other than your advisor, somebody who has some distance from the project – preferably a licensed mental health professional. 

​Truth bomb:  I spent a lot of time researching what it was like to write a dissertation before I actually wrote a dissertation, and that made a world of difference.

Proposal and Defense

Ok, so you reach the pinnacle of phase one (proposal) or phase two (defense).  (Side note:  different disciplines sometimes have different names for these milestones.)  I want to spend a few minutes chatting about these presentations, because really, they are what you have been working toward.  I have chatted with several peers who had developed extreme anxiety about the possibility of not passing their proposal or defense.  And, I will fully admit, this thought lingered in the back of my mind, too.  I cannot speak for every advisor or program, but it is my opinion that advisors should not allow students to advance to proposal or defense if the advisor feels that the student will not be successful.  The process carries enough weight as it is; the added anxiety of possibly walking out of that conference room defeated should not be part of the formula for success.  (Truth bomb:  Just because I do not think this is right or fair does not mean it does not exist in some programs or disciplines.)  If this is genuine concern for you, share that with your advisor.  Again, it is ok to be vulnerable. 
 
On with it, then!  First, Powerpoints, keep them simple.  The fewer the words on the slide, the better.  Truth bomb:  At this point, you know your study backwards and forwards.  You should, in theory, be able to put a few words on the slide, or a prompting image of data, and then just spiel everything out there (in a professional way, obviously).  There are several resources for solid presentation development (Duarte, 2008; Duarte, 2012), however.  The second is from the Harvard Business Review and is an easy ready.  Some of the information may be irrelevant, but the entire thing will probably take you three hours to read, and you will walk away with some solid pointers that you can use for future presentations.  Next, I think this goes without saying, but… Practice, practice, practice.  Present to your dog, your friends, your family, and your peers.  Defend to somebody who has defended a dissertation before (if you can).  Have these individuals take notes and give you honest feedback on your “tells.”  (If you can get your dog to take notes on your presentation and give you feedback, to hell with a PhD though, for reals.)  For example, I was reminded by a dear friend that when I am nervous, I touch my ears.  I know I do this – because my ears get hot when I am anxious.  (Literally, they turn red and get really warm in temperature.)  Did I realize that I am doing this during the presentation?  Negative, because I was so focused on my delivery.  Get this feedback, and consider how you can substitute in an alternate coping strategy.  (I made a point to wear pants with pockets, so I put my hands in my pockets and fidgeted with a paper clip.)  Finally, play around with how you might discuss some of your awkward slides (like the slides that describe where the data came out skewed).  Give yourself time to develop questions your committee might ask, and be prepared to address those concerns.  For example, I knew I would have to spend some time discussing how I managed to get every document translated into another language in time for data collection.  I had a 45-second sound byte in my head describing this process, including the challenges (time, money), the successes (every document fully translated), and what I learned (e.g., in the future, I will reach out to the graduate students in the Modern Language Department).  When it comes to practice, do not present until you get it right, present until you cannot get it wrong.  (Truth bomb: I totally borrowed that from a Grey's Anatomy episode.)  You want it to be seamless and conversational.  Reading the notes on the slides will make you sound like a robot. 

​When it comes to practice, do not present until you get it right, present until you cannot get it wrong.  (Truth bomb:  I totally borrowed that from a Grey's Anatomy episode.)

A few presentation specific recommendations… Speaking from my experience, the methods section of my proposal was the crux of the presentation.  I was prepared to discuss it at length.  Not only had mentors and my advisor told me this, but fellow graduate students who had recently gotten to the other side also confirmed it.  Consider this a recommendation to find out which area of your proposal will be the most heavily evaluated in your presentation.  (It is ok to be vulnerable – ask.)  For your defense, spend just a few slides reminding your committee of the literature, your design, and your research questions/hypotheses, then jump into your findings.  If you know you will have a lot of tables or data, make handouts for each committee member (and anybody else attending) so they can spend a few minutes looking at each item up close before you advance the slide.  For both presentations… If your committee starts to chat amongst themselves, let them!  Use this as an opportunity to take a deep, mindful breath, take a sip of water, or walk around the room to stretch your legs.  (If you can avoid standing behind a podium, do so.)  Finally, after the whole thing is nearly done, I recommend closing with lessons learned and opportunities for growth.  No, not limitations to your study and recommendations for future research; rather, spend a few minutes talking about what you will take away from this experience.  This is an opportunity to show your committee that you learned something from this process, rather than seeing it as a box to check-off.  Indulge yourself a bit here – what was difficult, what was easy, what was fun?  (For example, I learned how valuable it was to develop a relationship with teachers and staff before implementing my research in the schools.  Having that experience under my belt monumentally changed the way I started my internship.)  What would you do differently?  I believe that the most enjoyable part of this journey was sitting down with my committee to talk about what a wild ride it was, and how excited (or nervous) I was to take all of these experiences and translate them into my future practice.  That conversation with my committee turned into a flash bulb memory, a moment where I felt ready (ish) to take the next professional step.  I remember it oh-so-vividly. 

Stay Alive and Stay Well

Ok, final truth bomb:  This is a lot to process.  If you are feeling a bit restless or frightened, fear not.  Take a deep breath, because I can summarize… 
 
A done dissertation is a good dissertation.  Add this sentiment to your battle cry.  Remind yourself that things will not go the way you planned, but accept that research (especially applied research) has limitations.  Your dissertation is your first opportunity to remove your training wheels and take a spin around the block, knowing that mom and dad (your committee) can rush over to assist you should you take a spill.  Next, be willing to be vulnerable.  Share your concerns with your committee, particularly your advisor.  They have been down this road and can provide insights to the experience that your training has not yet afforded you.  Next, be a problem solver.  Accept that difficulties will arise and things will go wrong.  If you have this mentality that you can handle whatever issues come up (because your training has helped you do this in the past), you will find yourself converting that anxious energy into productivity.  If you are having a difficult time finding a solution, seek help from your committee members.  They are there to serve you.  (Pro-tip I share with all my undergrads, if you go to your committee with a list of the solutions you tried, it will make the problem solving process move along a lot faster.)  And lastly, stay well.  Rely on your 15-minute increments to get tasks done, sneak in snuggles with your favorite person or pet (or food, or drink, or whatever), and give yourself a break when you hit your limit.  Your dissertation and your health are ill served when your moneymaker (your brain) is on overload.  Remind yourself that you have a community of people who want to help you and see you reach the other side (your advisor, your committee, any contributor on this website).  And even if you do not propose, defend, and move on in a year, seek solace in the process.  As graduate students, it seems we are pre-programmed to see the barriers ahead and all of the boxes we have to check off without appreciating the marvel of the journey.  Because the truth (bomb) is, dissertation may simultaneously be one of the most wonderful and most challenging experiences of your training. 

References

​Boyle Single, P. B. (2010). Demystifying dissertation writing. Sterling, Virginia: Stylus.
 
Bolker, J. (1998). Writing your dissertation in fifteen minutes a day: A guide to starting, revising, and finishing your doctoral thesis. Holt Paperbacks.
 
Cone, J. D., & Foster, S. L. (2006). Dissertations and theses from start to finish. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.
 
Credé, M., Tynan, M. C., & Harms, P. D. (2016). Much ado about grit: A meta-analytic synthesis of the grit literature.
 
Duarte, N. (2008). Slide: ology: The art and science of creating great presentations (pp. 417-421). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.
 
Duarte, N. (2012). HBR guide to persuasive presentations. Harvard Business Press.
 
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House Incorporated.
 
Roberts, C. M. (2010). The dissertation journey: A practical and comprehensive guide to planning, writing, and defending your dissertation. Corwin Press.
 
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