Organizing my Dissertation

This morning, Sarah woke up just before 6 am, ate some string cheese, and then we went back to bed. I couldn't sleep as thoughts of my dissertation spiraled through my head. One of my goals for the immediate future is to improve my outline. I started with an outline that was approved by my dissertation committee. After the first two chapters were written, my director recommended that I base the entire dissertation on an expanded version of the second chapter. This fall then I fleshed out the original chapter, forging a new document of five chapters, bringing the page total just on 'Macarius' view of Rest' to about 50 pages. Then I attended a dissertation seminar that encouraged me to take all of the data I've compiled so far and try to look at it from a fresh perspective in the hopes that a more original thesis might emerge. I worked hard at this approach and decided the dissertation would be more meaningful if I looked at 'the place of Rest in the theology of Macarius'. Once I made that decision, I started writing again using a new outline. Now I have about 20 pages of writing from the new outline and 50 pages from the old outline. This morning, I worked at integrating the two outlines. I didn't get very far, but I did see that while it will be take time to integrate all of this material, it will be possible and it will make the project more organized. I found a quote online saying that we're in a world of information overload and unless the material being presented is in a logical, coherent form, it will not be helpful. I'm convinced that the topic is worthwhile, so now I need to take the time to make the details of the topic more approachable. Professor Corliss, from Marquette's Engineering Department, has a webpage that discusses about the dissertation outline as an engineering specification. I found his remarks about 'scope creep and schedule slip' very helpful:

If you are writing an MS thesis or a PhD dissertation, the Graduate School requires an outline. For a dissertation, EECE Graduate Student Handbook requires a proposal. You might be able to get away with doing these near the end of your project, by I strongly recommend you complete them early and that you complete them well.
Why?
#1 Project management. A dissertation is an engineering project, and it benefits from being managed like one. The risk of scope creep and schedule slip is VERY high. No one would consider undertaking a 1-2 year engineering project with a two page Statement of Work, but that is what you are doing. The cost to you of a loose plan is surely AT LEAST an extra semester of lost income, and probably more.
#2 Specification. Related to #1. No good engineer would undertake a 1-2 year project without a clearly specified acceptance test. How will you and your client (your committee) know you are done? Without a tight specification for the output, it is likely that you do work that turns out to be unnecessary, and it is likely that the committee will add scope (work) beyond what was originally intended. The cost to you of a loose project specification is the possibility of committee members continuing to ask, "Yes, that's good, but now you need to do this too."
#3 Protection. You may know colleagues who thought they were done, but one committee member or another kept insisting that they add one chapter after another, resulting in MAJOR delay in graduating. If you have a tight specification, and everyone on the committee agrees in advance that if you do what your plan says, we'll call it a degree; and you DO what your plan says; then it is a little harder for a committee member to demand more. A good Statement of Work protects engineers from unreasonably demanding clients. The time to agree on a Statement of Work is before the project begins.
The above is borrowed from this website: http://www.eng.mu.edu/corlissg/Advice/thesis_outline.html

One of my high school friends who finished his Ph.D. recently believes that one of the keys to finishing is good project management skills. He developed these skills in part through a consulting job. This will be my focus in the next few weeks, developing a clearer, more logical outline, writing a detailed work plan, and writing five days a week, 15 minutes or more on Mondays and Fridays, and longer stretches on Tuesday through Thursday when Sarah's in daycare. The fruit will come!