Notion is a kind of free-form database for organizing all kinds of information, including notes, projects and tasks I use it to manage everything related to my graduate studies. Once you’ve established a strong reading habit, it’s crucial to make sure your notes are organized and accessible. I like to read on my couch with a fancy coffee at my side. Make reading enjoyable so that it’s something you look forward to. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb (and, if possible, in another room). Disconnect your computer or tablet from Wi-Fi.
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Read papers in a PDF reader instead of a browser tab (tip: some reference managers such as Zotero have built-in PDF readers, which will automatically extract your highlights into searchable text). Having a manageable number of papers can greatly reduce procrastination. If you’ve got a large stack of papers to read, either set aside a block of time to make it manageable, or purge and start afresh. If it’s interesting, I read it more carefully, highlight important text and write up a quick summary.īlock out time. For example, I first skim the paper quickly.
For example, I set aside a couple of hours on Friday mornings to read any papers I come across during the week.ĭevelop a workflow. Here are some suggestions:īuild time into your schedule. The key is to set up a streamlined routine. This is the tricky part - you have to actually read the papers. Then I can close the browser tab (so satisfying!) knowing that it’s safely stored so I can find it again later. When I find a paper that I want to read, I immediately add it to my reference manager. These programs provide browser plug-ins that allow you to save a paper with a single click, as well as word processor plug-ins to add in-text citations and build bibliographies. But reference-management tools such as Zotero, Mendeley or Endnote provide more than just easy-to-create lists of references they also store and organize your papers in a database with folders, keywords and tags. If you’re still formatting your references manually, you absolutely need to start using an automated system the time saved in manuscript preparation is immense. These track the citation networks that connect papers to each other, allowing you to get a handle on the most groundbreaking papers in a given area.
If I see anything interesting, I add it to the ‘Read Later’ folder.įor deeper dives into a specific topic, you can try literature-mapping tools such as ResearchRabbit, Inciteful, Litmaps and Connected Papers. For most papers, I just glance at the title and scroll past. Every morning, I dedicate five minutes to scanning through my feed. To keep my feeds organized, I use a feed aggregator popular options include Feedly, Inoreader and NewsBlur.
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You can even subscribe to specific PubMed or Google Scholar keywords, which update as new articles are added. Nearly every major journal has its own RSS feed, as do preprint servers - look for the orange icon on their home pages. RSS allows users to subscribe to content from specific websites. RSS (‘Really Simple Syndication’) feeds provide, well, a really simple solution. I also signed up for journal e-mail alerts, but these quickly overwhelmed my inbox, and I soon started to ignore them. But because I often got distracted by irrelevant tweets, that wasn’t very efficient. I used to find new papers by aimlessly scrolling through science Twitter.
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In the two-plus years since, I’ve iterated through many versions of my workflow, and after lots of trial and error, I’ve finally found a literature-management system that works for me. But rather than devastation, I felt relief: I realized that it was time to give my workflow a major overhaul. The volume of papers was so overwhelming that I found myself procrastinating, making the problem even worse.Īt some point, having so many open browser tabs caused my ageing laptop to crash, and all my tabs were lost. I frequently misplaced my reading notes, or failed to take good notes in the first place, and had to read the same papers again. I had no way of tracking whether I was missing key studies in my topic area, and no system for keeping up with the new papers coming out daily. Yet despite good intentions, my efforts fell flat, due in large part to inefficiency. I spent long hours poring over papers, determined to master the literature in my research area. It was an important period of transition: I was working out what project I would focus on for the next five years, and knew that success would require a strong intellectual foundation. I was in the first year of my PhD programme, having just joined my thesis laboratory. “I’ll read that later,” I told myself as I added yet another paper to my 100+ open browser tabs. Many researchers struggle to keep on top of all the papers they need to read.