Do you feel like you’re stuck in your bachelor’s thesis and your thoughts? You just can’t get any further and have a complete jumble of words in your head? Then you’ve come to the right place. I’d like to give you some tips to help you overcome writer’s block. Writer’s block can have many different causes, e.g. personal stress, excessive demands, a cold and much more. The first tip I would like to give you is not to panic. It’s completely normal to struggle with writer’s block from time to time during a process like a bachelor’s thesis. The important thing is that you get out of it.
1st tip: Distraction
Take some time away from your Bachelor’s thesis. Do something else to balance it out. Meet up with friends, get creative, listen to music or watch a film. It is always important to create a certain balance to your writing. Nobody can write non-stop 24/7 and that’s not healthy either. So always try to plan fixed breaks. This might help you avoid your next bout of writer’s block.
2nd tip: Intensify your research
Let’s move on to the next tip. If you’re finding writing difficult at the moment, you can get new input. True to the motto: research is always possible! Above all, it doesn’t hurt. The more familiar you are with your topic, the better you can convey it in writing. So expand your research a little. Perhaps take another look at peripheral topics that you have so far ignored or go into even more detail than you have done so far. You are sure to find a few more sources that you can incorporate into your chapters.
3rd tip: Continue writing elsewhere
My next tip is to take a step back from the current chapter. Continue writing in another chapter first. Writer’s block often only occurs in certain parts of the text, but things flow much more smoothly elsewhere. The theoretical background in particular can sometimes be very dry. For example, I liked writing the methodology section because it’s about how you proceed. It’s much easier to get into the flow of writing. Trust me and try it out! Another way to continue writing somewhere else is to change location. Maybe try the library? You won’t have any distractions there and can focus completely on your Bachelor’s thesis.
4th tip: Use time for formatting
If you no longer feel like writing, you can start formatting your texts. This includes line spacing, margins, paragraph length, page numbers, headings, figure names, etc. As a rule, each university has its own guidelines containing all the rules you should follow when writing your Bachelor’s thesis. This can take some time. So the sooner you start, the better.
5th tip: Check the interim status
To get rid of writer’s block, it can sometimes help to visualise your progress. I used to do this regularly to update my schedule and realise where I actually stood at the moment. You can read my article with the Bachelor checklist for more information.
Get an overview of where you currently stand. What have you already done? What is currently in progress? And what to dos are still pending? Then check whether you are still on your original schedule and adjust it if necessary. You should always build in enough buffer time for phases like this at the beginning. Once you have gained an overview, you will hopefully realise that you have already achieved a lot. You can draw new motivation from this and start writing again after a break.