DuckDoro · How to start · Start my thesis

How to start a thesis when you have been avoiding it for weeks

By the DuckDoro team · Updated August 9, 2026

Direct answer: Open a document, name it, and write the question your thesis is trying to answer as a single sentence. That is the whole first move — two minutes, no research, no structure. A thesis is a project pretending to be a task, and projects can only be started one slice at a time.
YOUR FIRST BITE — 2 MINUTES, NO DECISIONS
Create the file, title it with your working topic, and write one sentence beginning “This thesis argues that…”. It can be wrong. You will change it.

Start it now, with the duck

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🏔️ Mountain — It has no visible end, so no amount of starting feels like progress.

Why this one in particular gets avoided

A thesis breaks the rule every other task follows: you cannot see the end from the start. Your brain keeps trying to estimate the whole thing at once, fails, and produces dread instead of a first sentence. That is not laziness — it is a sizing error, and it repeats every time you sit down.

The other trap is that thesis work looks like it should begin with reading. Reading has no edge either. You can spend three weeks in papers and have nothing on the page, which feels like effort and produces no evidence of movement. Writing one bad sentence produces evidence.

Then, in order

  1. Under that sentence, list three sub-questions it depends on. Bullet points, no prose.
  2. Mark the one you already know the most about — that is your first writing session, not chapter one.
  3. Write 200 bad words on it. Do not cite anything yet.
  4. Stop. Note where you got to, in one line, for tomorrow.

What one 25-minute session gets you

One 25-minute session gets you the file, the sentence, and the three sub-questions. That is a genuine start on a thesis, and it is the difference between “I haven't begun” and “I'm in it”.

That is the whole method DuckDoro is built on: pick the thing you are avoiding, make it small enough to begin, and give it one calm session before the day fills up. If you want it as a daily habit rather than a one-off rescue, that is eating the frog — and DuckDoro keeps exactly one frog slot open every day.

Questions people ask

How do I start a thesis when I don't have a clear topic yet?

Write the vaguest version of the question anyway, then list what would have to be true for it to be answerable. An unclear topic is a research question in disguise — you find its edges by writing badly about it, not by reading until certainty arrives.

Should I start with the introduction?

No. The introduction describes a thesis that already exists, so it's the hardest chapter to write first. Start with the section you already know most about.

How long should the first session be?

Twenty-five minutes. Long enough to get the file and the first sentence down, short enough that starting doesn't feel like committing your whole day.

Starting something else?

Start my taxesYou don't know what the first step is, so every attempt to start bounces off. Start a job applicationThe result has an audience, so your brain protects you by keeping it unstarted. Start cleaningYou can't see the end, so every start feels pointless before it begins. All the starting guidesEvery task we've written a first bite for.

The hard one, first.
Every day.

Three things a day, the one you're avoiding first, and a calm timer. No streaks, no notifications.

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