This workshop series is designed for doctoral candidates who want to move their dissertation towards submission in a more focused and realistic way. It addresses the issues that most often delay completion: unclear structure, weak planning, endless rewriting, difficulty handling feedback, and uncertainty around submission, the defence, and what comes next.

The problem: 
Many doctoral candidates stay stuck for much longer than they expected, not because they are not working, but because the work they are doing is no longer moving them towards submission. The most common reasons unclear research focus, endless reading and data collection, perfectionism disguised as productivity, fear of feedback, reading without producing, and the absence of a realistic writing and submission plan. When these issues pile up, researchers often feel busy, but they are no longer making the decisions that would actually bring the thesis to an end.

How does the workshop help:
In this workshop, we look at those common reasons doctoral candidates struggle to finish and what can be done about them. The aim is to help participants identify the one problem that is currently slowing them down the most and turn that insight into a realistic completion plan.
The central exercise is a reverse planning exercise. Participants set a realistic submission date and work backwards from that point to the present. This helps them break the final phase of the PhD into manageable stages, identify key milestones, and see much more clearly what needs to happen first.

Participants will leave with:
A realistic month by month submission plan based on a clear target date, as well as a better understanding of what is currently blocking progress.

Each workshop combines input with concrete exercises, so that participants leave not just with ideas, but with tools and decisions they can immediately apply to their own dissertation.