Done!

When you are working on your Doctorate, there are a lot of important D words.
First you must find a Director who is crucial to the success of your project.

Once you secure a Director, you must Decide on the topic of your Dissertation. 

You then Develop a proposal and find readers who will join the Director on your committee. 

After your committee and the school approves your proposal, you are considered ABD (all but Dissertation).  You can even write ABD on your resume or curriculum vitae and academic types will know that means. 

After lots of hard work, you finally reach your Defense Date.  This is the huge moment that everyone has been waiting for.

But once you pass, it isn't over.  You still have to fix everything up, make any changes your committee requires, fill out lots of paperwork, and have the school review your Dissertation format to ensure it is ready for their publishing.  Then, you can finally Deposit.  If you don't Deposit your Dissertation, you don't graduate. 

Finally, you earned your Ph.D.  Your new title:  Doctor.

Can you guess what Andy did last week?  He is finally Done Done Done! 

"Dissertation students in particular agonize over reaching a standard of perfection that exists largely in their own minds.  No thesis or dissertation has to be utterly perfect; what it has to be is done.  At some point, enough is enough. Give it up and print it out."

Kate L. Turabian from A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

My husband, a perfectionist, read this to me one night and I told him he needed that quote sitting by his desk.  He agreed and so one day, I typed it up, mounted it on some paper, and gave it to him.  It sat next to his computer every night for months!