Dissertation Project Plan Template

It’s a Google Sheet. You can make a copy to your own Google Drive, or download it as an MS Excel file if you’d rather work offline. Either way you get your own copy to change however you like.

Yes. Make a copy to your own Google Drive and change the stages, dates, or wording to match your program.

No — they’re a worked example, there to show you what a filled-in plan looks like rather than to tell you when to start. Type over them with your own. The same goes for the priority and status columns.

There’s no single right answer, because it depends on your degree, your data and how much time you get each week. What the example dates are useful for is the relative weight of each stage: most people badly underestimate the literature review and data collection, and badly overestimate how fast the writing up will go.

Yes. The seven stages are the same either way — topic ideation, proposal, literature review, methodology and data collection, analysis, writing up, and editing. What changes is the scale. A PhD spends far longer inside each one, and usually adds rounds of supervisor feedback the sheet doesn’t try to predict.

Mark the finished tasks as completed and start planning from wherever you actually are. The plan is more useful as a map of what’s left than as a record of what you’ve done.

No. Use it as scaffolding for your own schedule, not a substitute for whatever milestones your department sets. Check their requirements first, then adjust the plan to fit.

Yes, you’re welcome to share it in its original format (no editing allowed). If you want to post about it on your blog or social media, please reference this page as your source.