the abc for your phd

You opened your laptop at nine. It is now eleven; the chapter is still where you left it, and you have started calling yourself lazy.

This alphabet is for that morning. Twenty-six short entries, one per letter, each about one thing that stalls doctoral work and one small move that gets it going again. Avoidance. Feedback that landed hard. The literature review with no bottom. The supervisor meeting with no agenda. Rest, and why scrolling doesn't count.

Each entry is three or four sentences and ends with something you can do before you close the file. Read one. Read all of them. Skip to the letter that matches today.

• A to Z, one page spread per six or seven letters, six pages in total

• Entries on avoidance, deadlines, feedback, guilt, hard days, imposter feelings, the literature review, overwhelm, perfectionism, quitting, rest, supervisors, time, the viva, writing rituals, and saying yes

• One small action in every entry, small enough for a bad day

• A clickable link on the last page if you want to talk any of it through

• You are doing a PhD, and some weeks the work moves and some weeks it doesn't.

• You have read the productivity advice, and it slid off by day eleven.

• You would like something you can open at 11 pm that doesn't tell you to try harder.

I am Maria Stefanidi, a PhD coach based in Athens. I coach doctoral researchers through the parts of a PhD that do not show up in a progress report: the lost weeks, the feedback you have not opened yet, the plan that worked on Monday and fell apart by Wednesday. The ABC is the shortest version of what I say in coaching, free, so you can keep it on your desktop.