一步一个脚印

20 Quick Tips to Increase the Speed of your PhD
助你更快完成PhD的二十条忠告

By Tara Brabazon 塔拉·布拉巴赞著
Office of Graduate Research 研究生院
Flinders University 弗林德斯大学
Adelaide, South Australia 南澳大利亚阿德莱德

Finishing a PhD is all that matters. An unfinished PhD remains a wound in a life. It can heal. But there is a scar. So how can you finish a PhD at speed, even in difficult times?
持之以恒地完成博士学位的学习是非常重要的。半途而废无疑是人生的缺憾，虽不会造成无法挽回的后果，但也会留下陈年的悔恨。另一方面，我们是否有办法缩短博士毕业所需的时间呢？答案是有的，而且即使在面临生活中种种困难的情况下，以下20条建议也能帮助你更快地完成博士学位的学习。

1. Write all the way through your candidature. 尽早开始，贯穿全程地写作

Assuming you can write up at the end is a pathway to madness. From the first week, nay the first day, write. It may be 500 words on a concept, a discussion paper, a synthesis of five different articles, basically journaling the journey. Keep writing. This not only creates content, but also creates form: we learn to write by writing. So keep writing throughout the candidature.
在面对最终毕业项目写作时，不做任何准备通常是自寻死路。你应当在博士学习生涯开始的第一天就开始笔头工作，并养成日常写作的习惯：比如以500字的篇幅阐述概念、进行论述、综合概括多篇论文，这样可以就你的写论文流程进行记录。请坚持写作，写作不光是为了创造内容，更是为了培养能力和寻找风格，是为了学习写作而坚持写作。所以请尽早开始写作，并坚持下去。

2. Find a community of experienced PhD students. 找到组织，与有经验的博士生社群建立联系

Doesn’t have to be in your institution, or discipline, just a group of like-minded people online or offline. Talk to them. Learn from their experience and expertise. Help them carry you through the journey.
所谓社群并非必须是与同学校或同学科的学生，也可以是与理念相通、志趣相投的人群；既可以是线上，也可以建立线下联系。在交流中观察学习他们的经验和专长，在学习生涯中贯彻三人行则必有我师。

3. Quality of supervision matters. 磨刀不误砍柴工，仔细选择导师

Spend the time and do the research on your supervisor. Talk with their students. Check out their CV and publications, and the timeliness of their students’ completions. If you sense dodginess from the start, don’t go there. In the final year, if the supervisory relationship falls apart, you don’t finish quickly – you may not finish at all.
花时间在仔细研究和选择导师上。与每个导师的学生沟通，搜集并研读每一位导师的简历和发表著作，并且统计各位导师的学生毕业的时间线。如果你一开始感觉导师有些地方不正常，不要选择那位老师。如果到最后一年师生关系破裂，那你可能就要付出延期乃至半途而废的代价了。

4. Learn to take feedback. 积极听取反馈，尤其是批判性反馈

Taking feedback is tough, especially when it is offered in robust language. The best students hear the big critiques early in the candidature. So if your supervisor, or a referee of a paper, offers you early incisive, big critique of your work, address that and address it early. It’s very easy to ignore uncomfortable truths. But these early critiques about research design, methodology and theoretical engagements, they can save you weeks, nay years, going forward.
听取反馈可能并不容易，尤其是以尖锐的言辞表达的消极反馈。最杰出的学生懂得在为时过晚前听取批评类的反馈。所以当你的导师，或评价你的研究产出的裁判，直言不讳地批评你的研究作业，请尽早付诸改正。人类很容易忽略令他们感到不适的现实，但在博士生涯中接受关于研究设计、方法论和理论研究的批评可能帮助你跨越障碍，节省你数周乃至数年的时间。

I see so many students in the final three months where they haven’t taken a critique for years and the critique doesn’t go away, it stays there festering in the thesis until it an often exasperated supervisor says, “Please. If you leave this in, it will fail.” And they’ve told them that for three years. So hear it early, and do something about it.
我注意到很多学生在博士生涯的最后三个月仍未接受批评改正一些陈年错误，而对此的批评也从未消除。这些缺陷会在你的研究课题中溃烂化脓，而最终恼火的导师会下达最后通牒：如若不在最后非常有限的时间内大幅修改，将只能挂科。与其让导师在长达三年的时间里积攒怒火，不如及早听取反馈。

5. Small theses are the best theses. 博士论文选题越小越好

Keep the dissertation topic or area as precise as you can. I often talk about a PhD as being like a well – it’s small at the top, but deep. In other words, you research something very narrow, but you do it very well. So get your research questions right. Get them as tight as you can, and as early as you can. And aim for a strong and narrow research design.
尽你所能地将论文题目或研究领域精确聚焦在一点。我经常用一口深井来比喻博士的专业研究 – 一口井很窄，但是很深。你的研究就是这样，聚焦到一个很窄的领域内，但是你对它的掌握几乎无人能及。所以把握好你的研究命题，尽你所能地在最开始将它的边界束紧，并在这个收敛的领域里释放你的研究强度。

6. Aim for regular meetings with your supervisor. 建立与导师定期沟通的机制

This is because regular meetings with your supervisor is the characteristic of the fast completers. Students that finish quickly have weekly meetings, and research around the world shows this. Now, that seems beyond the pale for a lot of supervisors, and indeed a lot of students, but what actually happens is it creates an accountability cycle.
快速毕业的成功者都具有一个共性 – 与导师定期会面和沟通。他们通常与导师约定每周见面，这似乎成为一个放之四海而皆准的规则。当然，对很多导师——以及不少学生来讲——每周都安排时间沟通是不可接受的，但如果能做到的话，你就可以建立一个跟踪、量化的循环。

Note however that, as a student, you have to front with work or at least some ideas. Also, the meeting doesn’t have to be long. The research shows that if it’s a Skype meeting, the speed of completion is the same. So it’s the accountability cycle of the weekly meetings that matters.
作为学生，你需要在定期会面时摆出切实的进展，或者最少也要提出一些有价值的想法。会面本身不一定需要很长时间，即使使用Skype等聊天软件远程进行也无伤大雅。最关键的还是针对课题的量化-反馈-推进循环。

7. Give yourself a word-count deadline every single day. 每日给自己定下一个字数目标

For some students, particularly part-timers, those who have caring responsibilities or those in full-time work, giving yourself a hard word deadline every single day makes the difference. For some people that is 250 words a day. That seems like an incredibly small amount but 250 words a day will get you home.
对于部分学生，比如保持全职工作的同时攻读非全日制学位的学生来讲，给自己定下一个每日应当完成多少字数的硬性目标会令效果大不同。一些人把这个目标定为每天250字。区区250字似乎很少，但确实能给你自己建立一个稳固的基本盘，领你早日毕业。

There’s a reason why this type of writing is important to a PhD candidate. As Prof. Theresa MacPhail once put it: “Because writing is thinking, brilliant thoughts do not just appear on the page after long hours of arduous musing on a subject. In my experience, the best ideas almost always come about through the act of writing itself.” I think this is a brilliant quote. If you follow this advice, you can avoid the “writing-up-at-the-end” disaster that we discussed earlier. You can also ensure that you remain connected with your PhD every single day.
特蕾莎·麦克菲尔（Theresa MacPhail）教授陈述过这种写作习惯对博士生的重要作用：“写作本身带动思考。绝妙的想法不是在长时间冥思苦想后跃然纸上的。根据我的个人经验，最好的构思都是在写作行为中逐渐发展成熟的。”我认为麦克菲尔教授论述很有道理。如果你实践这个建议，你可以规避死线前赶工的窘迫，并且自然而然地贯彻下一条建议：“与你的课题保持每天的接触”。

8. Stay connected with your PhD every single day. 与你的课题保持每日的接触

I recently had a student in my office who was seriously overtime in her candidature, and we were making a decision of whether or not we were going to terminate the candidature or try and find a way to get her home. They’re challenging meetings those ones. She said to me, “Tara, all I’ve got left to do is the introduction. And it’ll take me two days.” Now, I tried to be as empathetic as I could be. Doing a PhD is tough – that’s why it’s a PhD. But I also had to tell her a really, really tough truth. I replied, “It’s October. You’ve been trying to find two days to finish that introduction since March. Something that takes two days, and you’ve found those two days in eight months. So what’s going to change now?”
最近我的部门遇到一个严重逾期未毕业的学生案例，我们甚至需要严肃地评估究竟是应该尝试帮他找到一个能够毕业的神奇方案还是终止他的学术生涯，由此产生了一系列煎熬的会面。这名学生向我请求：“塔拉老师，我就只剩下开篇介绍部分了，您只需要再给我两天就好了。”我尝试极尽我所能地给予同情，毕竟攻读博士学位本来就是一项非常高难度的挑战。然而，我必须告诉这位学生严酷的事实：“已经是10月了，你自3月起就用这个理由一再要求延长时间。两日复两日，两日何其多？过去这8个月里，将近130个两日过去了，事态有过任何变化吗？”

And that’s the point. Hoping to write on the weekend, or write a morning a week, those commitments are going to dissipate. Life infuses your days. Stuff happens. So what happened with this lass is, not only did she not write regularly, but she lost connection with her thesis, so it was very easy to simply park by the side of the road. So the best strategy is a little and often. Stay connected with your thesis by writing a number of hours or words each day.
背后的关键问题是，很多学生寄希望于周末写作，或每周的某一个早晨写作，而这些对自己许下的诺言大概率会被违背。每日生活中的大事与琐事会冲淡你对课题的关注和想法，就像以上那名学生一样，只因为她未能持续思考和推进课题，就丧失了与课题的深度联系，也就轻易会丧失对整个进度的掌控，趴窝在毕业旅途中的某一米路边。最好的战略还是少量高频，通过每日完成定量字数或定量时长保持课题在脑中的鲜活印象。

9. Do it now. 兵贵神速，即刻行动

Do it now. There’s no point waiting for the easy months. The easy week. The easy weekend. Don’t wait until the Christmas holidays, hoping for a reconnection with your thesis. That will never, ever happen.
即刻行动，不要拖延，不要指望先享受一个松懈之月、一个虚度周或者一个懒散周末；不要打如意算盘，指望到圣诞节后重整旗鼓，开始研究或论文的主要工作。在懈怠之后，你不会文思泉涌，而只会再而衰、三而竭。

There is no “right” time to do a PhD. Every day, every week, every month, every year poses challenges. So find half an hour – and right now. Right now. Don’t wait. Do it now. Do not wait for a good time to read. Read now. Do not wait for a good time to write. Write now.
另外，攻读博士也完全不存在所谓“天时”。每一天、每一周和每一月都有挑战性工作，计划赶不上变化。如果手边有半个小时，那就即刻开始，不作等待。不要夜观天象指望找到一个阅读的黄金时间，即刻开始。不要说写作只欠东风，请即刻行动。

10. Don’t focus on the big picture. 不要过于关注全局

Now, I know this seems incredibly counter-intuitive. All the talk is on the story of the PhD. What are you doing? What’s your original contribution to knowledge? The students who get through have that. But then they park that nice and early.
我知道，这个建议可能听起来有点违反常识。毕竟，我们讨论博士学位的时候，一般会讨论大问题。我们会问学生：你要写什么话题？你的原创之处在哪？能够顺利毕业的学生往往会提早解决这些问题，可是与此同时，也不会让这些问题分散他们的注意力。

The best theses, and the best candidates, focus on the next task. The next job. Not the entire thesis. What am I going to do now? And so every day give yourself one job. One job. A small, discrete, controllable task. Start it, and finish it. Do not become overwhelmed. Finish that one job.
最好的论文及最好的学生应侧重于下一个任务，而不是论文的整体。我将要做什么？每天给自己一个任务。一个独立的可操纵的小任务即可。有始有终，过多的任务无法完成，只需做好一个任务即可。

11. Stop social media notifications. 不要关注社交媒体

To finish that job, you need to start that job. And you need to concentrate. But if you’re working within reach of your phone, or you have social media notifications on your screen, you are distracted, and you are deflected from your key tasks. I see this happen when I walk through the library every single day.
千里之行，始于足下，而实现远大目标，需要按时开始工作并集中注意力。如果将手机带在身边或者不停的关注社交软件的通知，你将会分神，会偏离自己的主要任务。每天我从图书馆走过的时候都会看到类似的事情。

If you’re at a point where you need the stuff around you, and the endless distractions, then use a series of apps, and force yourself to learn a bit of discipline. Stop the notifications. Focus on your work.
如果你因为特殊情况需要使用社交软件，有一系列应用程序可以下载，逼迫自己学会自律，不要再关注社交软件的通知，专注工作。

12. Use social media as a study break. 仅在空闲时使用社交软件

If you don’t want to block social media then what you have to do is find a strategy to remove it and then integrate it into your life in a productive way. And when you’re writing, don’t leave social media sites up. I can’t believe  people do this. Because that means you’re endlessly flicking between your actual PhD – the most important thing – and, for example, whether someone likes your picture on Instagram, which doesn’t matter at all.
如果你不想禁用社交媒体，你需要做的是找到一个方法移除它并将它以一种积极的方式融入到生活中去。而且，你用电脑写作时，不要同时上社交网站。我真不敢相有人这样写作，因为你这么做，在你忙于最重要的事情——博士学位的同时，你还会花时间关注一些并不重要的东西，例如有没有人点赞你的Instagram图片。

So what I suggest is choose when you go to those sites. Give yourself a deadline. Do a series of tasks. And then when those tasks are done, give yourself a ten minute break – and time it – to go to Facebook, or Instagram. So that’s a nice leisure moment after completing a task. So control your use of digitization. That control enables you to complete your thesis. It also allows you to understand the difference between work and leisure, which is increasingly blurring in our culture, and problematic. So don’t confuse digitization for work and digitization for leisure. Understand the difference, and bring in the digitization once the work is done.
所以我建议你这样做：可以浏览这些网站，但要给自己一个截止时间。做一些任务，完成任务后给自己10分钟的休息时间。这10分钟可浏览Facebook或者Instagram。这样休息的时间将会有趣。控制好自己的时间，合理的利用时间有助于完成论文。这也帮助你理解工作和娱乐，这些问题在我们的文化中越来越模糊。不要让数字活动混淆工作时间和娱乐时间，理解两者的区别并等在工作完成后享受数字活动就可以了。

13. Recognize that there’s never a perfect time to do a PhD. 认识到没有最佳的时间做博士论文

If you’re waiting for that perfect moment. It’s never going to happen. Dreadful things happen to good people all the time. Three years – let alone the four or five years in some systems – of one’s life something terrible happens in every three-year cycle. People die, people get sick, bad stuff occurs, you lose your job – all sorts of things occur.
如果你在等待最佳的时间，那么永远也等不到。好人也总要面临糟糕的事情。完成博士学位需要三年时间或者四、五年时间，在这段时间内或许会有不幸的事情发生。生老病死、恶人或者失业等都有可能发生。

So don’t aim for perfectionism. Don’t aim for the perfect time, the perfect year. Just aim to finish that task. The great researchers – the truly great scholars – fight their way through the difficult times. They don’t wait for the good times, they fight their way through the tough times. They persist when times are tough. Don’t procrastinate. Persist. Work through the bad times.
所以不要幻想完美主义，不要等待最佳时机。朝着既定目标努力，真正伟大的学者、研究人员在艰难的时间依然奋斗不止。他们不等待最佳时机，无论环境如何，他们选择坚持奋斗。

14. Use the library, use librarians, and gain information literacy really early. 充分利用图书馆，与图书管理员打交道，趁早掌握信息技术

I am always stunned when a student says to me, “I can’t find any research on that topic.” I then gather up their keywords and a couple of key researchers in that field, and turn to my computer and I go to Google Scholar and I type in about eight or nine keywords, click results from 2019, and I find about 850 to 2,000 refereed articles on the topic, where they’ve said there’s nothing. Often the student looks at me in shock, like I am a wizard, and, look, I wish I was a wizard. I wish it was sorcery. But it’s not – it’s just information literacy.
有学生给我说找不到相关话题资料，我总是感到惊讶。于是我就会收集他们的关键词和一些该领域重要的学者。我上网查谷歌学术网站、输入8-9个关键词。点中2019年的结果我找到了850-2000份相关的文章。这就是他们说的没有找到资料。这些学生就会惊讶的看着我，把我当做魔术师一样。我希望我是一个魔术师并且希望像变魔术般找出那么多资料，事实上我不是魔术师，我只是运用了搜索专业信息的手段。

You can save months, and even a year of your PhD, if you make friends with your librarian, and learn information literacy skills. Open access journals deliver high-quality, international, brilliant minds to our desktop, but we can only sort and sift through them if we have the information skills. So let librarians teach you those skills, but more importantly, for beginning students, why not do a MOOC or some kind of online course about information literacy? That’s a great use of your month before you start a PhD.
在读博期间如果你肯和图书管理员做朋友，并学习搜索文献的方法，你可以节省数月甚至一年的时间。我们通过开放存取期刊可以了解全球各地高质量的信息，这些就是智慧的结晶。如果我们掌握了专业的信息技术，我们就可以将它们分类、筛选。所以要向图书管理员学习这些技巧，更重要的是作为一个刚起步的学生为何不在慕课或类似的在线课程学习一些信息技术相关的知识？我想，这是你开始读博士前一个月可以完成的极为划算的任务。

15. Remove something from your life. 给自己的生活做减法

You cannot add a PhD to an already full life. I’ve seen so many students do it and they don’t make it through the first year, to be honest with you. I treat life like a bucket. And if your bucket is already full, you can’t add stuff to it. So you have to take some stuff out of the bucket to put something into it. So ask yourself: what are you going to take out?
没有人可以给自己已充实的生活再添加一个博士学位。坦率地说，我看到很多学生尝试这样做，在第一年他们就失败了。我把生活看成一个水桶。如果你的水桶已经满了，它就不能装更多东西。所以你得拿出来一点东西才能放进去其他东西。所以，你得问问自己什么东西可以取出来。

This will probably involve a very difficult conversation with your loved ones. What it involves is you looking at the shape of your week and seeing something that take two or three hours and moving it. It might be taking the kids to school, or grocery shopping for example. And you have to discuss the matter with your partner, and say, “Would you be able to give me those two hours a week?”
这可能需要和你挚爱的人进行一次谈话，话题可能有点沉重。你要考虑每周的时间是怎么安排的，并且看看哪些事情需要花费两到三个小时，比如带孩子去上课、去商店买菜等等。这些事情都需要和你的伴侣讨论，并且要问对方是否愿意做这些事情给你每周腾出这两、三个小时的时间。

State that this is a temporary change, and be accountable for that change. Remember that your partner is really taking on a heavy burden there. So you be the accountable for those two hours that they are giving you. Show gratitude to your partner, to your kids. Their sacrifice is allowing you to do that doctorate. That’s why you see relationship breakups are so common during a PhD, because people have a bucket, the bucket’s full, they add a PhD and the bucket just splits.
并且告诉你的伴侣这只是短期的改变，并会为这个改变负责。你还要记得是，你的伴侣有自己的生活，担负这个负担可能对他来说有些麻烦。所以一定要为你伴侣牺牲的这两、三个小时的时间负责。感谢自己的伴侣、孩子。是他们为你的事业牺牲了自己的时间。这样你就更容易理解为什么在读博期间关系破裂是多么正常了。每个人都有一个水桶。一旦水桶满了，你再加入一个博士学位，水桶的水就会溢出。

16. Select a note-taking system early, and stick to it. 尽早选择一种笔记方法，并坚持下去

At the start of the PhD, select a way of taking notes, and stick to that method. There are plenty of strategies. Find one that works for you, and stick to it. Now, also use external hard drives to back-up those notes. If you’re doing a PhD, you need to be backing up your work in the morning, and at night, every single day – twice. Because the way you finish quickly is you don’t even lose a day’s work. Back up morning and night. Great note-taking saves you months, it might even save you a year. Particularly, it enables your writing, and the speed of your writing.
刚开始读博，笔记方法就要确定下来。方法不胜枚举，适合自己最重要，并且贵在坚持。另外，全部笔记都要备份。如果你博士在读，你的全部资料每天都要备份到移动硬盘里，早晚各一次。想要高效完成学业，每份工作成果都要悉心保存，谨防遗失。切记每日早晚备份。笔记做得好，你就能提前数月，甚至一年完成学业，同时你的写作质量和速度也将获得提升。

Be sure, also, to have the notes and everything you have done during your PhD stored for the rest of your career. I have thousands upon thousands of pages of notes that started when I did my Research Masters back in 1991. I have notes on everything I have read since 1991. So now I can pick a topic and I have detailed notes on it already available.
这些笔记和资料，毕业以后同样要妥善留存。我自1991年攻读研究型硕士学位起便开始记笔记，时至今日已积累了成千上万页。我读过的每本书，每份材料，都做了笔记。现在，随便选一个话题，我都有详尽的笔记可供参阅。

17. Work out the best time of the day or night for you to write, read or research. 善用一天中效率最高的时段

What are your best two hours of the day? Put your most difficult tasks into those two hours, and that will create peak efficiency. By the way, that’s the other reason I’m getting social media away from you, because that’s your peak time, why would you be going to Facebook during your peak time? This habit will enable you to complete your PhD really quickly. It also allows you to understand what is your worst time of the day.
一天中你工作效率最高的两个小时是几点到几点？用这两个小时去完成最难搞定的工作，你将迎来一天中的效率巅峰。这两个小时绝对不要碰社交媒体。何必在最能出活儿的两个小时刷脸书呢？这样安排时间有利于加快学业进度，同时你也能认清自己什么时候效率最低。

I do this with great clarity because I don’t have a lot of time. I have a full-time job at this university, so any research I do has to be done around a full-time job. So I also know my worst times of the day, and I insert pretty low-grade tasks into those hours. So that might involve spelling checking of documents, moving text around, formatting or doing a bibliography.
我对自己每日工作效率的起伏心知肚明，因为我的时间并不充裕。我在这所大学担任全职教师，一切研究工作必须安排在授课之余。效率不高的时候，我一般会做那些没什么技术含量的工作，如检查拼写错误、做编辑、调整格式、编辑参考书目目录等等。

18. Keep fresh in your drafting process. 尝试一些新的改稿方式

So much of research – particularly writing and editing – is incredibly boring. But a thesis is finished, not only through continual writing, but also continual editing and drafting. Therefore, make sure you use the full range of platforms available for you to draft. So, yes, use spelling and grammar checkers, but also draft on paper. Print out your drafts. Use your bus trips, train trips, flights, to engage with those print-based drafts. By drafting on paper, you can find completely different errors than when drafting on a screen.
做研究有时索然无味，尤其是文字和编辑工作。但想要完成论文，只是不停地写还不够，还要不断地编辑修改。改稿过程中要善用一切可用的平台，如使用拼写和语法错误检查软件。另外，把你的稿子打印出来，在公交车上、火车上或飞机上，都可以阅读并修改。读纸版文稿可以挑出在电子版上看不出来的错误。

Also, even though it feels a bit weird, another great strategy to freshen up your drafting is to read stuff out aloud. Particularly for the abstract, your introduction and the conclusion, this a great way to find really unusual errors and defamiliarize your relationship with your own words. This way, you don’t read the same stuff the same way, over and over again.
还有一个改稿的妙招，就是高声朗读你的稿子，尤其是摘要、引言和结论部分。朗读能够帮你找到之前忽视的错误，并拉远你与自己文章的距离。我们对自己的文章太过熟悉，越看越觉得无懈可击，朗读出来反而能发现问题。

19. Put your entire thesis into one document as soon as possible. 将整篇论文都置于同一文档中，越早越好

I cannot tell you what putting all your work into one document does for you intellectually, emotionally but also socially. I’ve had students who were enrolled 8-10 years, and they didn’t know if they had a thesis. The first thing we said to them was, “Let’s see what we’ve got here. Let’s just put it all into one document and see.” And this person who didn’t know if they had a thesis, or if they would stay in the program, looked at it and went, “I’ve got a thesis”.
将整篇论文置于同一文档中，你在研究思路、情绪、甚至社交方面都将获益。我的有些学生读博已8-10年之久，始终拿不出像样的论文。我对他们说：“你们哪些部分已经写完了？把已完成的部分移到同一个文档里试试看。”那些学生原本并不知道自己写到哪了，甚至不知道是够会继续留在研究项目里。他们照我说的去做之后，竟发现自己的论文已见雏形。

Now it’s a big relief to do this. It’s also a moment when you can start to work on the entire document. if you’re writing 250 words a day, you can write it anywhere in the document. So it doesn’t matter what you’re feeling like doing today, write your 250 words, walk away.
这个方法能够大大降低你的心理负担，并让你着眼于论文全局。如果你打算每天完成250字，你写哪一部分都可以。只要写够字数，当天的任务就算完成啦。

With my students that start with me, I actually get them to have a full document for their entire thesis from the very start. So it starts with: there’s the title page, there’s the contents page, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, so the headings start to fill in from there. But the sense of achievement is clear because you can see the task being completed and the gaps being filled.
我自己的博士生，从入学起我就让他们把全部论文都放在同一文档中。哪里是封面，哪里是正文，一清二楚。每一章另起一页，你想写哪部分，就从相应的页数开始即可。这样一来，你能看到论文进度在一点点向前推进，每章每节都在不断添砖加瓦，成就感爆棚。

20. Celebrate each micro success. 每前进一小步，都为自己喝彩

This is so important. Doing a PhD is a real struggle. By breaking big jobs into really small tasks, you can celebrate each of those little tasks. This morning I finished the rationale of a book proposal, which is always the hardest bit. It felt great, and I patted myself on the back for having done it.
这一点尤为重要。读博可谓好事多磨，你需要将这项大工程拆解成一个个小任务来完成，每完成一项，为自己衷心喝彩。今天上午，我终于写完了我一部新书的出版计划，这是最难写的部分。写完我神清气爽，好好庆祝了一下。

For every micro success you have, tell yourself, “Well done!” I say it out loud. Acknowledge that you’ve completed the task, and tell yourself you’re rock star. For example, if you’re reading five articles a day and taking notes, celebrate each article that you read. Make sure you take that pause to acknowledge what you have done.
每前进一小步，都要和自己说：“干得好！”我是会大声讲出来的。每完成一项任务，都要认可并告诉自己：你绝对是行业精英。比方说，你计划每天读五篇文章并做笔记，每读完一篇都值得庆贺。一定要停下来，认可自己。

So there’s our 20 quick-and-dirty tips so you can complete a thesis quickly. So you can increase your speed, but also if you’re becoming a bit stale in your candidature, one of these jobs or tasks can be inserted into your program and freshen you up just little bit.
以上20个小贴士可以帮你迅速完成博士学业。而且，如果读博这份苦差事已经把你搞得意兴阑珊，这些方法或许能够让你的精神为之一振。

Content adapted for educational purposes from an excellent vlog by Tara Brabazon, the Dean of Graduate Research and the Professor of Cultural Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, posted on YouTube on 1 November, 2019. See the video here.