Day 10 — Recording research ideas
There is a limited number of slots in the working memory. Also, you don’t remember everything that crossed your mind. The only way to keep track of ideas is to offload them in some form of notes.
Sine doctoral studies are a lot about developing new ideas and turning them into (novel and new) scientifici contributions, idea note taking seems to be of high importance.
The progression from idea to published scientific article can be represented as a funnel. At the top we have raw hunches and ideas. As they progress down the funnel, some are killed, frozen or recycled to earlier stages. Few will reach the end of the funnel.
But how to increase the chances of getting something significant at the end of the funnel?
To me it seems that two primary ways are:
- increasing the volume and heterogeneity of ideas at the top
- applying consistently a wide range of filters and quality/significance checks throughout the funnel
It doesn’t make sense to be too restrictive at early stages. Because even ideas that are not relevant might spark new and useful ideas.
Anyway, right now I’m just writing down new ideas in Google Keep, which is a default note taking app in Google suite. It’s readily available on my phone and laptop, so I can jot dow ideas almost at any point.
