This is How I am Organizing My Pre-Thesis Research
It’s a mix of digital and physical tools that will keep me engaged, organized, and most importantly, not surgically attached to my computer.
After a year and a half of the pandemic, I am really tired of looking at a computer screen. This is a problem as a graduate student embarking on her thesis because it means even more scholarship and information is online.
While I am a fan of Google Docs, annotated bibliographies, and journals, some of these methods aren’t as portable as others and I am trying to find a way to both complete my work and do so in a way that fits my lifestyle and needs.
So here’s what I have to work with!
I use a paper planner to keep myself on track with deadlines.
About three years I learned that I tend to overschedule myself, especially when it comes to webinars vs base reality. So I decided the fix to this was to ditch the online calendar that would only show me one or two events in a day and buy a paper planner.
To assist with this, a friend decided to give me one that she loved called Passion Planner. Passion Planner is big on fitting into their customer’s lifestyle and so they released a version that was undated.
Since my friend didn’t know if I had purchased a planner for the year she bought me a small undatedone. I ended up using it in 2019 to keep myself on track to meet my goals after buying date stickers and tabs to make dating and tracking events easier.
The good thing about Passion Planner is that not only do they provide timelines and to-do lists they’re flexible enough that you can fit micro-lists and to-do lists into it. They have an online presence that shows people journaling, using blank space to doodle, mindmap, and more.
Additionally, what really helped me over the years was a monthly reflection page that asks what you accomplished, where you want to improve, and what you intend to do next month.
While my 2019 and 2020 planners were a lot of me flailing and wondering what I should do next, 2021 has been a bit more optimistic and focused. Knowing this, I see no reason to change this system for deadlines and scheduling.
Currently, my planner tracks:
- My work shifts
- My class schedule (when the class is meeting and when it isn’t)
- What I have due on certain days
- Deadlines for multiple assignments and freelance work
- When the full moon is so I can charge some crystals
- The social activity I fit in between all of this
I use a daily planner to keep my doodles, readings, and mind maps
Passion Planner also released a daily version of their planner that allows for more localized lists. This is good for me because sometimes there are things that come up that are as simple as paying a bill or having to drop something off at the post office.
It also has a page opposite of the calendar and to-do list that allows for a space to Mind Map, make lists, draw connections, collect imagery. I have one that I started early in the summer that I quickly abandoned because I didn’t feel like I was using it “correctly.”
During the semester, and especially in a project like this I think it’ll be useful for balancing the rest of my work and making sure that I keep track of what I’ve read, watched, or listened to or to just write memos for myself that I can review at the end of the week that my weekly planner is not conducive to.
Additionally, I also have an HP Sprocket printer that makes stickers out of smartphone photos. So anything I see out and about regarding my topic can later be printed and stuck in this planner as a visual record with notations.
(And if anyone wants to try the system, they have all their layouts available for free on their website you just need to date the week or page, and I’ve seen people who prefer spiral bound make their own planners for a year.)
But, wait you carry these planners around all the time? Don’t you carry enough stuff?
My weekly planner doesn’t usually travel with me but the daily one does since it’s about the size of the trade paperback book.
Does this mean that I am completely foregoing a digital calendar?
No.
Digital calendars are handy and I try to use my digital calendar to keep everything in sync. I also admit my planner is the size of an 8.5" by 11" piece of paper and now has a good amount of chunk to it considering the amount of decorative and motivational stickers I’ve placed in it. (That’s another blog post.)
Sometimes I just don’t want to carry that, and it’s helpful to have all my commitments in something the size of a deck of cards.
I made a Google Drive folder for all my notes.
After digging in over two weeks and knowing roughly where I think that I am going I decided to make a Google Drive folder that will hold annotated PDFs and spreadsheets.
I anticipate this folder to include a master spreadsheet of notes summarizing articles, studies, and other media. This will be particularly important since I think some of the current colloquial conversations around my topic is happening through podcasts.
This will also allow me to index to my related PDFs also housed in the folder and to create general categories where I can cross-reference.
Having this digital hub will make it easier for me to work on the go as well and keep notes as I see fit.
I am returning to the slip box method.
When I did my undergraduate thesis I printed out a lot of articles about gothic literature and they were all over my dorm.
This worked okay, but since some of my materials can’t be printed, and I want to be able to move cards around to construct my narrative by the end of the semester, I am going to be using the slip box method to organize ideas, and citations as well.
Why am I doing this?
Because I have learned that I retain things better after I do them over time, and I like physical and tactile objects. Being about to move things around instead of having multiple tabs open and just focus on the words will allow me to deliver a better product for my dissertation chapters at the end of the semester.
I also believe that it will help me see threads that are presenting themselves early on and even help me track divergent paths as they develop for side projects. (I’m gonna call them side quests on this blog!)
