What I mean about research is the continuum of reading, note-taking, and eventually writing. I am passionate about this topic because I am a PhD candidate working on my literature review. Give me a reaction if you can understand the pain of this process. 😆 Let's begin ⬇️

1/ Time waster 1 - Spending too much time on the gathering articles phase. Gathering articles is important however spending too much time on this stage is a BIG time waster especially if you are just stacking the articles up and not reading them.

How to overcome this? Aim for high-quality articles. Set perimeters by creating a filter on how to choose your sources. Remember this is barely the first step to research. The real work has yet to begin.

2/ Time waster 2 - Not taking notes during your reading and choosing to write up at the end of your readings. Remember that our memory is fallible and you cannot remember everything you read. Choosing to write up at the end of your reading means writing with scraps.

How to overcome this? Adopt the write through process. This means you write down emerging thoughts, questions, and reflections as you read. Think of this as a communication to your future self who will be very thankful.

3/ Time waster 3 - Taking the wrong form of notes. Choosing to write ONE lengthy document with multiple ideas or writing the summary of the document. Future you will eventually need to process the document and locate the ideas because they are all linked together.

How to overcome this? Write idea notes. One idea = one note. This will make retrieving notes easier as they are "atomic" instead of having multiple ideas within one document. You may need a PKM tool that can afford you to do this. I use @scrintal for this.

And a BONUS Time waster 4 - Not taking actions on recording the evolution of your thoughts. This is similar to time waster 2 where you don't write down your interaction with the material. Time waster 4 is procrastinating on writing YOUR OWN understanding of the idea.

Research is meaningful when we contribute a piece of us into the work we are doing. Not doing no. 4 is not only a time waster but we are missing out on creating our own legacy in our research.

If you enjoyed conversations like this, you should join @bianca_oli_per Prolific Researcher Community https://gumroad.com/a/833860819/xafyw . Enrollment is open from now till Feb 11, 2023 and onboarding of the community begins Feb 13.

This is NOT a cohort course but a community of researchers, creators, lifelong learners who want to advance their own research skills to create things that are meaningful to them. People who value doing good research and share their knowledge with others.

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