Using Backward Planning to Complete a Thesis or Dissertation

A day ago, I had a meeting with a graduate student who is trying to complete his master’s degree before the end of the year. He has completed all his field studies, but the lab component of his thesis is only partially done. In terms of the written work, the literature review is 80% done, and he has written little bits of the other sections. To achieve his goal of completing and defending his thesis by the end of the year, there is still a lot of work for him to do during the next months. To help him achieve his goal, I suggested doing backward planning for the completion of his thesis. We used December 1st?as the date for his master’s defence (a step required for a master's degree at this university).

Backward planning is not a classic schedule because you start with the end date of the project/goal instead of the first date. But, from my experience, this is a planning approach that helps students who are targeting a specific date to complete their thesis, dissertation, or defence. Backward planning is not for all situations and not for all students. For instance, I can think of graduate students who have just started their program and for them using a forward planning approach may be a better option. Interestingly, studies that have compared forward and backward planning often conclude that when goals are more complex to plan, backward planning may be the best option.

“compared with forward planning, backward planning not only led to greater motivation, higher goal expectancy, and less time pressure but also resulted in better goal-relevant performance. We further demonstrated that this motivational effect occurred because backward planning allowed people to think of tasks required to reach their goals more clearly, especially when goals were complex to plan” ~ Park et al. 2017. Relative effects of forward and backward planning on goal pursuit. Psychological Science 28(11): 1620-1630.

Regarding the situation of the graduate student who inspired me to write this article, we decided that backward planning would be the most effective approach for him to complete his master’s degree in December 2023. As part of this planning, we (1) organize the skeleton/chapters of his thesis, (2) identify the tasks (small and big) that need to be completed for each chapter, (3) discuss a realistic timeline for each task/step, and (4) identify a few tools (apps, technology, etc.) that could help him manage his time more efficiently.

In the end, I felt that the backward plan helped the student to visualize all the critical steps needed to reach his goal. He also had a better idea of the specific tasks/sections that he can start working on now while waiting for his lab work to be completed. We both agreed that backward planning was the best option for his situation.

What do you think? How often do you use backward planning? Forward vs backward planning — in which situations one is better than the otter?