I am in the academics.

I always plan to accomplish a task: often it is a research. I start to read papers and books on the topic I want to publish. Then, after a some days of reading and researching, the ideas in some of the works i read would nudge me to a different direction. As I learn some cool problems and ideas, i slowly, often unintentionally sway away from my original plan and move to a new topic.
- and, then spend some time, on the new topic---again the same thing happens.

I have so many unorganized notes and unfinished projects. This is so annoying.


What method or tool do you guys use to keep yourself on line to your plans?

I am in the academics, too, and will follow this topic with interest as you describe a common problem.

First off, although the ability to stick to a plan has a mostly positive connotation generally I am convinced that some of what you describe is inevitable. As you familiarise yourself with a (to you!) new subject, you realise that at least some aspects of it have been researched earlier, perhaps in other contexts and this insight has the power to modify your initial view - as it by all means should! You should be proud of first familiarising yourself with the work to others. It has become customary in my field to cut corners here and largely ignore everything that cannot be found by half an hour of googling around. It is not only and perhaps not even primarily laziness but a perverted system of never-ending cycles of hectic grant writing, rejections and resubmissions that are only very occasionally being reviewed by someone more familiar with the research subject that penalises a deeper familiarisation methinks.

Anyway, I have a similarly disordered digital workflow in that respect and cannot offer a software that would magically solve it all. I am constantly thinking about doing things differently but that open-mindedness can become a liability, too. One of the better books on that subject is Sönke Ahrens' "How to take smart notes" which I found to be quite insightful.
https://takesmartnotes.com

The one thing I can add here is that good old analog life has had the most positive effect in keeping me on course. Either pen and paper or in the last years an erasable whiteboard that I salvaged when those were replaced by digital ones in our institute. On this I have the names of the students I am supervising (which keeps me from forgetting about the external ones that I don't see very often), collaborators and project titles that move up and down in relation to their relative importance for the day or week. There is enough space to jot down a quick insight or paper that I need to read and the best part is that everything is there in relative permanency, no booting up, no need to remember to open a particular program or file. Whenever my mind begins to wander, that whiteboard is there and drifts into sight. The title of each project at least ensures that despite modifications along the way there is at least some continuity in my thinking.

Sorry if that is not precisely what you have been asking for but it is the best I can offer for now.

Hi Dellu,

I am a consultant not an academic, but I recognise your situation. I have so many ideas about what I could do next that I also find myself drifting from one to the next, leaving a lot of them unfinished. My biggest challenge is focusing on things long enough to see them to completion.

My way of tackling this lies in the process, not the tool. I have learned over time that I am an "incrementally move forwards in steps" kind of person, not a "work backwards from a goal in the future" kind of person. So although I have tried setting annual or quarterly goals, I don't actually translate them into what I do every day. But you could try it and see if it works for you.

What DOES work for me is the "weekly review". I find that planning for a week is a manageable timeframe. Every Monday morning I make a list of 3-5 priorities for this week. And a week later I look back at what I achieved, did not achieve and spent (unplanned) time on. I keep these as simple text notes (with a template) in The Journal, but really any notetaking tool will do. Having all these notes in one place allows me to look back over earlier weeks' priorities to remind me of what I was working on when I get off track.

The other lesson I have learned is to schedule my priority tasks in my week. I use Amazing Marvin, but also here whatever calendar or task manager you use will be fine. Sometimes, when my focus is really off, I will make 3 sticky notes of what really needs to happen and put them on top of each other, so I can only see the top one on my desk. Then that visual reminder brings me back to what I was supposed to be doing.

I hope some of these ideas are helpful for you.

Have you ever looked into Tiago Forte's PARA system? I haven't used this myself, but it does look to me as if it makes sense and could be useful for you. A quick intro. PARA stands for:

- Projects (things you do that have a beginning and and end)
- Ares of Responsibility (things you have to work on but they don't end)
- Research
- Archives

Here's a long introduction:

https://fortelabs.co/blog/why-i-organize-areas-in-para-with-a-taxonomy-of-functional-areas/

You can search the web and find a lot of other information.

Steve

Correction: The R stands for Resource, not Research.

Here's another source of information:

https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Have you ever looked into Tiago Forte's PARA system? I haven't used this
myself, but it does look to me as if it makes sense and could be useful
for you. A quick intro. PARA stands for:

- Projects (things you do that have a beginning and and end)
- Ares of Responsibility (things you have to work on but they don't end)
- Research
- Archives

Here's a long introduction:

https://fortelabs.co/blog/why-i-organize-areas-in-para-with-a-taxonomy-of-functional-areas/

You can search the web and find a lot of other information.

Steve

As Eisenhower, or Captain Picard, or somebody we've all heard of before once said, no plan survives contact with the enemy. :-)

I find that my paying customers keep me quite focussed! Obviously it is a bit different if you are an academic. But perhaps you can 'construct' some sort of customer (e.g. an academic peer who you promise to get a draft to by next Friday).

On the other hand, I would have thought wide ranging research and serendipity are an import part of being an academic? So don't beat yourself up about it!

--
Andy Brice
https://www.hyperplan.com
https://www.easydatatransform.com

Hi Steve - though R stands for resources, for academics it's worth seeing the R standing also for research.The research of others, which most academics need to peruse on a regular basis, is indeed a key resource, in terms of knowing one's field, but also as a process which leads to questions and ideas an academic might not otherwise have considered.

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Correction: The R stands for Resource, not Research.

Here's another source of information:

https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
Have you ever looked into Tiago Forte's PARA system? I haven't used this
>myself, but it does look to me as if it makes sense and could be useful
>for you. A quick intro. PARA stands for:
>
>- Projects (things you do that have a beginning and and end)
>- Ares of Responsibility (things you have to work on but they don't
end)
>- Research
>- Archives
>
>Here's a long introduction:
>
>https://fortelabs.co/blog/why-i-organize-areas-in-para-with-a-taxonomy-of-functional-areas/
>
>You can search the web and find a lot of other information.
>
>Steve

I feel your pain as my mind often wanders when I have work to be done. But, in fairness, I find a bit of wandering healthy for the brain and it keeps me sharp. But back to your question, I use a variety of techniques, but not necessarily in any special order. Timeframes and deliverables are the largest drivers for me, even if they are far out on the horizon. If I know something has to be done by sometime, then that at least orients me on a large scale. Sometimes breaking down the tasks/actions/work/etc. helps me to at least understand the magnitude of what needs to be accomplished. I do not necessarily need to schedule it or add time blocks, but it does tell me what I will eventually need to scale to get there.

Often times I'll grab a piece of paper and just jot down two or three important things that I know I want to work on or try to accomplish in the immediate future. The rest can wait. This helps me focus. It can be done with software as well, so pick what works best for you. If I am having trouble focusing, I try to do a Pomodoro for any length of time, just to force myself to not get distracted. I may not be productive, but at least I am focused on the issue at hand. And, if I am in a groove, I try to stay in it. Email can run my life, and while I try to be responsive, sometimes I am my own worst critic. Not everything need an immediate response. Some things do, but not everything.

Other than that, it is sometimes a game of inches, but I'll take whatever forward movement I can get. Eventually the scenery changes.

Regarding the wanderings, place any information in some type of notebook and come back to it later. Just because a page is on your screen does not make it urgent. I am terribly guilty of that, and am learning to use notebooks to hold information until I can get back to it.

Good luck,

--Ken

I have an engineering background, but was raised by a teacher populated family and neighborhood. I can't really relate to the publish or perish lifestyle. Further, I have not spent any time -doing- any of this, but I've read, with interest, about Zettelkasten in lots of places recently.

If you have not heard of, or already studied about the Zettelkasten method, it sure sounds like a system which was designed for the kind of thing you describe. https://forum.zettelkasten.de/ would be a good place to start, if you are not already familiar with the method.

My simple-minded understanding of it, is to take lots of atomic notes and connect them together manually or using any number of computer aided mechanisms.

I hope someone, here, might find this useful.

I always plan to accomplish a task: often it is a research. I start to
read papers and books on the topic I want to publish. Then, after a some
days of reading and researching, the ideas in some of the works i read
would nudge me to a different direction. As I learn some cool problems
and ideas, i slowly, often unintentionally sway away from my original
plan and move to a new topic.
- and, then spend some time, on the new topic---again the same thing
happens.

I have so many unorganized notes and unfinished projects. This is so
annoying.


What method or tool do you guys use to keep yourself on line to your
plans?

I'm not an academic and my needs are different from yours, but given your need to manage various stages and tasks for multiple projects I'd look into using kanban boards for your projects. The most common and easiest to use are probably Trello and MeisterTask. Both have free tiers, MeisterTask has education pricing tiers, and Trello offers 50% off its Business tier for .edu customers.

If you have notes you want to attach online to various projects another option is BaseCamp Personal is completely free, and with it you can make spaces for up to three projects, work on these projects with up to 20 users, and store up to one gigabyte of data in those projects.

Also worth looking at TickTick, which supports attachments and kanban views (you can alternate between a List and a Kanban view).

It also supports extensive note-taking as well as task management, and has a powerful tagging function, as well as “smart search” support.

As a general platform, it’s rather impressive (and not overpriced).

Todoist also has kanban boards, but I wouldn't recommend either for project management with file attachments as being particularly robust

Hi Dellu. I can relate.
Don't know how much of my lifetime I spent losing myself in reseach I could not use.

This is how I proceed today when researching (for a book or any other project). It's not perfect but has saved me a lot of time.

1. I define a desired outcome.
That can be anything from "find out more about ..." to "find numbers to substantiate my point" to "find out what I do not know" ...

2. The last 30 or so minutes of the time I reserved for research, I do a review:
- What have I found out? I write the most important findings down.
- Have I come closer to the desired outcome? If yes: Fine.
- If not: Have I found something worthwile? What is it?

3. Depending on the project and the research results: I may need to check whether the desired outcome is still valid or whether I should better change course.

4. I check what I wrote down and decide whether I need to research more.

satis wrote:

I'm not an academic and my needs are different from yours, but given
your need to manage various stages and tasks for multiple projects I'd
look into using kanban boards for your projects.

I would also suggest that you look at the Kanban _Method_ for managing the flow of your work (of which going off on a tangent may even be an integral part, as others have noted). It is well suited for knowledge work, both at a personal and a collaborative level.

As for related tools, personal Kanban can well be done with a physical board if you have a single work location. Having ADD, I find permanently visible simple physical cues --similar to Prion's whiteboard-- much more effective in helping me focus than sophisticated software windows which can be hidden behind my browser.

I am very pleased to find so many constructive suggestions and directions in here. You guys are so great: feel so home in this small blog for years now.
Talking to you guys here like talking to a nice experienced family member. So many insights here.

@Prion:

“How to take smart notes” which I found to be quite insightful.

I heard that is a great book on how to take notes. I will check it out; it might help me. As to your advise on the use of paper and pencil, I totally agree it is one of the most effective tools to focus on sth. I will try to set up sth here in my home office.

@Cyganet: the weekly reviews: You reminded me the time I was reading a book on Agile projects. The writer has same concept of reviewing progress on the weekly basis. I tried to do a review for a few weeks. But, I didn´t keep it for a long time. But, yah, I think you are right:

Planning a specific project for a week: and, then execute that single project and review it at the end of the week probably what I need.

Reading The PARA system suggested by @Stephen also gives the same suggestion.

Reading the Para system, the whole system is about narrowing down responsibilities so that they would be actionable, concrete projects that can be executed in fixed time range.

The Para system, is by the way, very similar to the Agile system.
The Kanban seems more of a task management. The Agile and the Para focus on narrowing vague responsibilities into actionable, concrete projects and task.

@Amontillado: yes, I have read about the Eisenhower in the “the seven habits“. But, I never tried it, nor did I know anybody using them. The Captain Picard, never heard of it.


@Andy Brice: Yes, constructing some kind of hypothetical deadline; or promise sb to give a draft is a brilliant idea.
@ Ken also the same idea. Putting a time frame is really magical to me. I remember the times I did magic in a few days when I have sth to submit for a professor.
I am going to try to get a good fried who can read my draft.


@David, Andy and others who think serendipity and relaxed rambling is fine: totally disagree with u. As Prion noted, the academic is a very harsh game: focus is very important: would go down the hill, otherwise.

As to Zettel: I personally find it more of a problem for me than a solution. Collecting so many notes that I might use in the future, crafting wonderful atomic notes, cleaning it up, etc, is a way of procrastination, way of avoiding the hard work of writing that ugly draft.


@satis: I have recently learned a plugin in Obisidian that can do a Kanban. But, I really don't know much about Kanaban.
Is Kanban effective for private projects? I had the impression that Kanban is mostly for teams. It also seems like just a regular todo list with some graphic stuff. I probably don’t understand what Kanban is.

Dellu wrote:

@satis: I have recently learned a plugin in Obisidian that can do a
Kanban. But, I really don't know much about Kanaban.
Is Kanban effective for private projects? I had the impression that
Kanban is mostly for teams. It also seems like just a regular todo list
with some graphic stuff. I probably don’t understand what Kanban
is.

Kanban is at heart a simple organization tool - a visual system for tracking progress of work over a project lifecycle - which does not need to be for teams. I don't use mine with anyone else. You can make one at home with Post-It Notes on a wall, or index cards on a corkboard. You create columns that reflect workflows, most simply as TODO/BACKLOG, DOING, and DONE. It's easy to see at a glance what needs to be done, be done next, and where you are in the process.

As an example, here's an editorial calendar example done by Trello, which you can open and peruse.

https://bit.ly/3jLh7V1

A freelance writer friend uses a version of this to keep track of solicitations, work in progress, payment for work, and his social media posting schedule.

Obsidian can do kanban in a rudimentary form, but I greatly prefer the power and flexibility and intuitiveness of a real kanban system like Trello, which utilizes color labels and tagging, lets you have checklists within 'cards' and see how far along you are, can integrate with calendars, can attach files and add due dates, and a lot more.

As recommended earlier, I suggest you take a look at some material on the Kanban Method, such as:
https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/kanban/

Some key points of relevance to both teams and individuals: visualise the flow of work, limit work in progress (WIP), stop starting and start finishing.

The Kanban Board, nicely described above by Satis is the main tool of the Kanban Method, as it is used to visualise workflow. However, the values and principles of the Kanban Method are also very important. Such principles include
- Start with what you do now
- Agree to pursue improvement through evolutionary change
which can be very important in overcoming resistance to change.

I like this methodology, @Franz – nice, tight approach.

Franz Grieser wrote:

Hi Dellu. I can relate.
Don't know how much of my lifetime I spent losing myself in reseach I
could not use.

This is how I proceed today when researching (for a book or any other
project). It's not perfect but has saved me a lot of time.

1. I define a desired outcome.
That can be anything from "find out more about ..." to "find numbers to
substantiate my point" to "find out what I do not know" ...

2. The last 30 or so minutes of the time I reserved for research, I do a
review:
- What have I found out? I write the most important findings down.
- Have I come closer to the desired outcome? If yes: Fine.
- If not: Have I found something worthwile? What is it?

3. Depending on the project and the research results: I may need to
check whether the desired outcome is still valid or whether I should
better change course.

4. I check what I wrote down and decide whether I need to research more.

Cyganet wrote:

Hi Dellu,

My way of tackling this lies in the process, not the tool.

I think Cyganet has hit the nail on the head. Without a process you will continue to flounder. Tools are developed to help a process. Without a process they have little value. To this end, I would encourage you to to define a process that works for you and then obtain the tools that will best help that process. I have personally found that Kourosh Dini's, "Being Productive" course (not affiliated) immensly helpful in developing my own process. You need to be able to establish habits and focused priorities.

At some point we all come to the realisation that we have the tools to do the job, but lack the process and hence motivation. I'm amazed how some people are so productive with pen and paper and others with a single outliner tool. I believe it has to do with process and would encourage you to make that your main focus. Establish a baseline process and tweak it as necessary. The greatest fallacy in the digital world is that there is a tool that will solve all my problems.

I'm probably revealing more about myself than illuminating issues for others, but... This is really all a matter of discipline. Any process will work if you're disciplined in following it. No process will work if you're not disciplined. I guess the key is finding a process/tool that makes it easy to stay disciplined to following it. The problem with CRIMP (at least for me) is that it becomes a built-in excuse for not being disciplined.

I hear you! Perhaps we can start a CA (CRIMP's Anonymous) group and give out chips when we've not purchased any new software for a period of time?

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

The problem with
CRIMP (at least for me) is that it becomes a built-in excuse for not
being disciplined.

I'd fall off the wagon too much.


Simon wrote:

I hear you! Perhaps we can start a CA (CRIMP's Anonymous) group and give
out chips when we've not purchased any new software for a period of
time?

Dellu wrote:

I always plan to accomplish a task: often it is a research. I start to
read papers and books on the topic I want to publish. Then, after a some
days of reading and researching, the ideas in some of the works i read
would nudge me to a different direction. As I learn some cool problems
and ideas, i slowly, often unintentionally sway away from my original
plan and move to a new topic.
- and, then spend some time, on the new topic---again the same thing
happens.

I have so many unorganized notes and unfinished projects. This is so
annoying.

What method or tool do you guys use to keep yourself on line to your
plans?

It sounds to me like there are a lot of different processes and stages mixed in here, with different time frames.

My suggestion would be to break down and model the entire process (whether as a flow chart or a set of lists), so that you could develop specific workflows and toolchains that suit each stage.

E.g. being at the exploratory stage, where one is developing a research question, exploring the literature, developing ideas etc. is very different from the development stage, where one would be aiming to develop specific e.g. 10-k word articles for specific academic journals, and then that's different from the publication management stage, where it's about tracking at what stage each draft or conference paper or journal paper under review is.

One can develop specific systems (workflow + toolchain combination) to deal with each of these stages.

This is not only about information management but self-discipline management and focus management, so different tools and approaches are required.

One challenge is that these stages and processes overlap. So while you're starting to work on (and being distracted by) a new problem or new paper, an old paper resurfaces after being rejected by the nth journal, needing further revisions and resubmissions, and so on.

So one can be distracted from one research process by another research process, and both are important. Then it becomes a prioritisation issue, i.e. working on them in discrete time periods (finishing one thing, before starting with another).

But all of this is easier said than done.

I like Franz’s ultra-simple, time-delimited approach – after 30 minutes, what have I achieved, and how will this affect my research priorities going forward?

What new priorities should I add to my list? And which should I abandon?

Neat!

It matches my own experience of the gradual unfolding of a subject area, when ongoing research often reveals aspects that didn’t figure in the preliminary overview, but turn out to be highly significant.

Dr Andus wrote:

Dellu wrote:
>I always plan to accomplish a task: often it is a research. I start to
>read papers and books on the topic I want to publish. Then, after a
some
>days of reading and researching, the ideas in some of the works i read
>would nudge me to a different direction. As I learn some cool problems
>and ideas, i slowly, often unintentionally sway away from my original
>plan and move to a new topic.
>- and, then spend some time, on the new topic---again the same thing
>happens.
>
>I have so many unorganized notes and unfinished projects. This is so
>annoying.
>
>What method or tool do you guys use to keep yourself on line to your
>plans?

It sounds to me like there are a lot of different processes and stages
mixed in here, with different time frames.

My suggestion would be to break down and model the entire process
(whether as a flow chart or a set of lists), so that you could develop
specific workflows and toolchains that suit each stage.

E.g. being at the exploratory stage, where one is developing a research
question, exploring the literature, developing ideas etc. is very
different from the development stage, where one would be aiming to
develop specific e.g. 10-k word articles for specific academic journals,
and then that's different from the publication management stage, where
it's about tracking at what stage each draft or conference paper or
journal paper under review is.

One can develop specific systems (workflow + toolchain combination) to
deal with each of these stages.

This is not only about information management but self-discipline
management and focus management, so different tools and approaches are
required.

One challenge is that these stages and processes overlap. So while
you're starting to work on (and being distracted by) a new problem or
new paper, an old paper resurfaces after being rejected by the nth
journal, needing further revisions and resubmissions, and so on.

So one can be distracted from one research process by another research
process, and both are important. Then it becomes a prioritisation issue,
i.e. working on them in discrete time periods (finishing one thing,
before starting with another).

But all of this is easier said than done.