Days 1 & 2Practise last week's skill on your own work
The first two days are spent doing the thing you and your coach worked through in the session: rebuild the search you started together, tidy the references in your library, set the styles on your own file, or rewrite the paragraph to the structure you agreed.
This is the smallest, most achievable kind of progress: applying a skill you have just been shown, on the document that matters. Most PhD students find these the most productive days of the week.
- Apply the toolDo the technique on your real work, do not just admire it.
- Small, sure progressA skill you have just been shown, on the file that counts.
Days 3 & 4Advance the chapter into new territory
Now the harder practice. You push the skill into new territory: a fuller search, a tougher synthesis, a stretch of writing, using the tool you are building, on your own work or a set exercise.
This is where doctoral work feels lonely; you sit with the page until words arrive. Even imperfect drafts are better than none, and your coach will sharpen what you wrote.
- Defended blocksTwo or three protected hours, around work and family.
- Draft anywayThe cost of writing nothing is a session with nothing to work on.
Day 5Bring your practice, send your questions
You send your coach what you practised this week: the search you built, the library you organised, the paragraph you drafted, the styles you set on a working file.
You add two or three specific questions, the places the technique did not click. Sending it by Day 5 gives your coach two full working days to review your practice before you meet, and that is what makes the session substantive.
- Two or three questionsSpecific gaps, not a wish list.
- Sent by Day 5So your hour is worked, not wasted on catch-up.
Day 6Your coach reviews your practice carefully
Behind the scenes, your coach goes through what you practised: noting where the technique slipped, which step to demonstrate again, and the hands-on work to do with you tomorrow, the search to rebuild, the citations to fix, the styles to set.
You are not idle on Day 6. You are reading, practising or resting. But the substantive coaching work for the week is already under way on what you practised.
- Reviewed beforeSo the hour starts on substance, from the first minute.
- Worked through afterThe fixes for your session are prepared in advance.
Day 7Your sixty-minute hour, hands-on
You arrive with your practice already reviewed, so the hour is substantive from the first minute. You share your screen and do the technique together: rebuild the search, fix the citation style, set the section breaks, sharpen the paragraph, while the coach guides and you drive.
You leave with three concrete things to practise for the coming week, so the momentum carries straight into your next writing days.
- You drive, coach guidesThe technique done together, live on screen.
- Three next stepsEvery hour ends with clear practice for the week.
After the sessionA written summary of the fixes
Within five working days of your session, a written summary of the fixes follows, so nothing from the hour is lost and you can act on it in your own time.
That summary, plus your three practice tasks, is what turns one live hour into a full week of forward motion, and it repeats, week after week, until the thesis is written.
- Within five working daysThe fixes in writing, yours to keep.
- Momentum, repeatedOne hour a week, compounded across the engagement.