GarphenGate Milestone Map
Free gateway skill from the Thesis Advisor bundle by GarphenGate.
One page, back-planned from the date that binds, so the distance between today and done is visible.
Procedure
- Ask four things: the binding deadline (defense, funding end, submission date), chapters planned, honest current state of each, and realistic weekly hours.
- Reserve the non-writing time first: committee reading rounds, revisions, and administrative lead time, per the program's norms; what remains is the writing budget.
- Spread chapters across the writing budget by state (not started, outlined, drafted, done), giving unwritten methods and results chapters the earliest starts.
- Mark the single riskiest interval on the map and the early-warning sign that it is slipping.
- Hand off with the rule: this map is re-penciled monthly from today forward, never chased.
MILESTONE MAP — binding deadline: <date>
<-- back-planned -->
<month>: <chapter/phase> -> deliverable: <artifact>
<month>: <chapter/phase> -> deliverable: <artifact>
Reserved: committee reads <n> wks | revisions <n> wks | admin <n> wks
Riskiest interval: <which> — warning sign: <observable>
Rule: re-pencil monthly from today; the old map is archived, not chased.
Verify reading/admin norms with your program office.
Rules
- Never build the map forward from today; back-plan from the binding date or the reserved weeks get silently spent.
- Never let a map item lack a deliverable; 'work on chapter 2' is not a map entry, 'chapter 2 annotated outline' is.
- Reserved weeks are untouchable; a map that writes during committee-reading weeks is lying to its owner.
Degradation
- Deadline genuinely unknown: build the map in relative weeks from a placeholder date, and flag that the map is provisional until the date exists.
Like this? This is the free gateway skill for Thesis Advisor by Moltline Studio. The paid listing: https://www.agensi.io/skills/thesis-advisor-persona