2 Brains vs. 1 Master Thesis

In the past two years, Sonja and I have worked together on two major project papers. We still talk to each other. We’re still friends. And we’re currently writing our Master Thesis together. It’s been quite a ride until now. Here’s how we made it work.

Fail To Prepare? Prepare To Fail. Make A Plan.

Well, this is fairly easy. Before Sonja and I did anything even remotely close to writing, we agreed on a project plan. How else would we have been able to get anything done?

I am not going to tell you what your planning process needs to look like, but here’s how Sonja and I did it.

Everyone’s reaction when I told them I wasn’t going to write my thesis alone.

1. First off, we summarized the problem we wanted to solve for Timeular (the Austrian start-up we’re writing our thesis for). After that, we wrote a first draft for our table of contents. Under every heading, we wrote any idea that came to our minds.
2. Needless to say, We wanted to include lots of useless stuff. We threw that out. And we still do (since we are still writing).
3. From our table of contents, we derived clear topics and tasks.
4. We put these topics and tasks in our project plan and assigned owners. It also included deadlines and an estimate of how many hours we would need to invest. With this setup we were able to work independently from each other and come together where needed.
5. We always discussed why we needed to include certain things in our thesis and why we excluded others. Why commit to anything that does not help you finding answers to the questions most central to your thesis?
6. Most importantly: Stick to your plan as best as you can. But don’t become a slave to it. There will always be delays — take them into account when planning.

No matter how good your plan is, some parts of it will always happen differently than you expected. Either because a survey takes longer than expected, or because the last two weeks in your job were just too busy and you’re tired.

You’re not a superhuman, don’t be too hard on yourself if you just can’t be bothered sometimes. You can do it.

Early Bird And Night Hawk Hunt Differently …

If you’re one of those teams where everyone is always in synch, thinks the same thoughts and has an endless amount of motivation and discipline: Hooray, good for you! But here’s the thing: That’s probably not gonna be the case. You and your project partner may be friends, you might even admire each other’s work, but you will most likely have radically different ways of achieving your goals. And that’s okay. It has to be if you want to make it work.

How I envision Sonja and me working together.

There’s the early bird. That person is pumped for getting their hands on relevant literature way in advance, creates invaluable data insights, makes sure everyone sticks to the project plan and writes 40 pages of your thesis months before your actual hand-in date. That person is, quite honestly, the all-around perfect partner (Sonja).

And then there’s the night hawk. That person takes some time to get their head wrapped around what’s even going on, broods over ideas, pushes the thought of sitting down and writing away as long as its acceptable — until the panic kicks in. And then, right before the early bird is about to freak out, the night hawk sits down, and writes as if their life depended on it (that’d be me).

The point is: The moment you decide you’re going to work on your thesis together, you truly are in this together. And that means you’re going to have to accept that your minds will not always be in the same space. That sometimes it may feel like one is miles ahead while the other one cannot seem to catch up. Or that one is always stressing out while the other does not see any urgency yet at all. But it is going to even out. You have to — and definitely will — meet the same deadline after all. In that you got to trust.

Calm each other down—

or kick each other’s butt when you have to.

… But They Help Each Other Out. Every Time.

No matter what you do when you work on your thesis with your peer: Remember you’re not alone in this. Unsure of how you should tackle the next chapter? Ask your partner. Not confident of what you’ve just written? Ask him or her to review it. Had a breakthrough the night before after you’ve wrestled with seemingly every sentence? Share it! The beauty of not working on a thesis alone is that you got someone who just has to deal with your panicked or over-enthusiastic you if he or she wants to pass.

Sonja, keeping things together like …

But how do you — after all the planning and solitary work is done — stitch all those loose chapters together, you may ask? Well, if you are lucky enough to live in the same city and are able to sit down at your favorite coffee shop — do it! Sonja and I unfortunately are not as lucky. She lives in Graz, I live in Munich. So we scheduled weekly calls. And bi-weekly calls with the Timeular team. And we also text nearly every day. It worked out well for us.

The point is: Find a cadence that ensures you actually have some updates to talk about.

Get It Done. Hand It In. Celebrate.

We still have some time to go until that happens. September 17th 2018, to be precise. You can be sure we’ll go for a drink or two (or three) by then.