Comments on: Ways to keep track of ideas http://ergodicity.net/2009/04/08/ways-to-keep-track-of-ideas/ a process whose average over time converges to the true average Thu, 24 May 2012 18:00:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: liz garnett http://ergodicity.net/2009/04/08/ways-to-keep-track-of-ideas/#comment-2272 Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:33:39 +0000 http://ergodicity.net/?p=1168#comment-2272 I keep what I call ‘thinking books’ – large, hard-back bound notebooks in which I mull over ideas in old-fashioned handwriting. Because they are bound rather than loose-leaf, the organisation is inevitably by date – they are in effect journals of how my thinking develops on a project. The ideas usually need more formal collating and processing before they get into full written form, but the chronolgical organisation makes the act of revisiting and re-working ideas very clear, and reminds me that theorising is an interative rather than linear process. Very low-tech I know, but it’s a system that’s worked for a PhD and two books, so at least it’s tried and tested!
liz

]]> By: Michael http://ergodicity.net/2009/04/08/ways-to-keep-track-of-ideas/#comment-2269 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:02:38 +0000 http://ergodicity.net/?p=1168#comment-2269 My text file generally has sections for various classifications of ideas. It’s become three text files for three major categories with subcategories semi-hierarchically arranged. The most important ideas are on the top of each subsection. Eventually some of these ideas graduate to actual formal documents, or at least comments on these documents. However, this is one of several systems I have, including notepaper (for non-text), LaTeX (for embryonic papers), C and MATLAB with comments (for algorithms), emails (for collaborative ideas) and small special-purpose text files (for whatever doesn’t fit elsewhere). I keep all these files synchronized to a mobile device so that if two of the three computing devices containing them are destroyed, I’ll still have the electronic documents. Redundancy, as always, is key.

]]> By: asarwate http://ergodicity.net/2009/04/08/ways-to-keep-track-of-ideas/#comment-2264 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:35:27 +0000 http://ergodicity.net/?p=1168#comment-2264 The “shiny” problem is killer — i guess the filing system is always greener on the other side… of the cubicle. Ok I’ll stop analogizing now.

]]> By: brandy http://ergodicity.net/2009/04/08/ways-to-keep-track-of-ideas/#comment-2263 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:18:27 +0000 http://ergodicity.net/?p=1168#comment-2263 I have an “idea box” – a little index card box on my desk with little index card dividers for different genres of ideas (since some are more design than research). Some of them I just have a title scribbled at the top to remind me what it was, some I have more concrete steps written out below.

Maybe someday I will be a grownup researcher and need those 5 categories, too. For now, very little is beyond 1 or 2.

I go through organizational systems like once or twice a year, though, as far as actually organizing the projects. I just can’t stay on top of one, and then the next one looks oh so shiny.

]]>