I have found that the following actually helps with the keeping things together in academia.

First thing is the book of course. For xmas each year, I give my new graduate students their own copies. Since you are posting here, you probably already have the book, but I also think it helps to reread it every 6 months or so until GTD becomes a habit.

Second, I personally find that relying on a single tool or piece of software for implementing GTD for academics is like trying to force square pegs in round holes. Instead, I like to have individual tools that focus on one sphere of activity. For example, in writing a thesis (disseration, grant proposal, class assignment, class prep) you will have lots of pieces of information to keep integrated. Something like Freemind is great for this. I reckon a GTD purist would say that all these pieces of information are REFERENCE items, but I haven't found a good piece of GTD software that handles this type of information very cleanly - along with the rest of the GTD system.

For implementing the rest of the GTD system there are many different pieces of software (ahem..), paper based systems, pda systems, etc, that you can choose from. My only advice here would be find the one you feel most comfortable with and STICK WITH IT. It is very tempting to keep switching systems (they can be fun to explore) - but that brings new startup costs.

Since what I'm suggesting (Freemind for writing/references and something else for the rest of GTD) relies on two different tool sets, it is very important that you be able to crosslink between the two. This is easily done with Freemind.

I'm faculty (and only about 3 weeks into The GTD Program), so my issues / solutions may be a bit different. The biggest obstacle for me was just the sheer amount of junk in my office !

So far, it's been notebooks for organizing.

One notebook is for the classes I'm currently teaching. 3-hole punch and file the syllabus, class list and my grading speadsheet (Excel), then a pocket (http://store.43folders.com/office-1064954-B0008GM83I-AVE75254_Binder_Pockets_For_3_Ring_Binders_5_Pack_Assorted_Colors) for miscellaneous and odd-sized paperwork (such as the note from the funeral home verifying that Grandma was, in fact, buried yesterday). Also, I've become (especially in the New Year's cleaning frenzy) ruthless about purging. At the end of the semester, everything goes in a box or crate, and then straight to recycle after the end of the next semester. All that gets saved in paper format are my exam keys (so I know what questions were asked) and documentation of any potential problems (i.e., the student whose failing grade can be traced back to the term paper purchased from Papers R Us).

Teaching material (articles, primarily) goes into notebooks, also, because I do go back and flip through it. I no longer print out copies of the powerpoint -- why waste the paper. Long-term, a "Someday," I'd like to dowload all of the articles in digital format and junk the paper.

Next Action contexts are still a bit in flux. There's @Grading; it gets its own context because of the high priority -- exams go back the next class, period (I announce at the beginning of the semster that for every class after that, I add 2 points to the grade -- real incentive !) Then, there's @Office, for all of the bitty things, such as returning a video to the library, finding an article I just know was in Saturday's NTY for class tomorrow. Another context is @Writing, for all the things other than research (i.e, recommendation letters).

If anyone has any good ideas about how to handle GTD for research, I'd Really Like To Know. So far, file folders and those manila accordion files seem to be the best route for me (and color coding the files with articles for my dissertation, by topic,was one of the only good moves I made there). I have a friend who has his entire dissertation research on his memory stick, though that might or might not be possible for everyone. I always need paper in my hand to really take in the information, plus a lot of my research was older articles that just weren't in any database. The thing is, though, that the GTD method should work really well for academic research. It's the type of activity where there isn't usually any firm deadline, so it gets put off and off and off.

This may just be confusing, but I hope it helps some; and I'd really like to hear how other academic types are doing GTD (nothing like doing some research, is there?)

One side note, Lilly252: have you visited www.phinished.org yet??? Lots of good organinzing and time-mamagement strategies get posted there and archived.

Charlotte,

Phinished.org is my savior. have been using the board for at least seven years now (from MA to now PhD).

I agree with you that the system should work with academic research. I just haven't found anything to support that. I have been collecting articles on my topic of research for the last 17 years. Some of the material is just not accessible electronically anymore. So, what do I do with that? I guess I can scan them, but that's just too much time wasted.

On the other hand, am i fooling myself that one day I will go back and actually use that information? Yikes! :eek:

I'll reply some more tomorrow when I've had some sleep. I just wanted to reply quickly to this post before calling it a night.

The best I can figure, the only solution is the low-tech way; lots and lots of file folders. The whole idea of scanning would, I agree, be a waste of time, especially since so much of the paper that academics pick up is "Someday" or "Just-in-case" or "One small point of interest here." That is, you want to keep it, you want to be able to get back to it if you ever need it, but it's not something you're looking for today, or maybe even ever.

I've talked to people who keep a database of all of their research materials (cite, topics, etc.), but that seems to be something you'd have to train yourself to do at the beginning, rather than go through six file drawers later on.

One way of disposing of the articles you know you'll never need, but can't bear to toss is to give them away. Seriously. I had several boxes of stuff from my minor area (coporate strategy), and there was no way I'd ever need it. But, the thought of tossing it was unbearable. So, I packed it all up and handed it off to a fellow who came in a couple of years after me. He probably was able to use the material, but if he tossed it, I didn't have to go through the trauma !!!! See, he didn't have any sentimental attachment to the stuff. Hmmm. This idea might be worth holding onto.:)

On a different topic. It's occured to me that the deep soul of the GTD method is the baby step. That is, you identify what you can do in two minutes and do it; the Next Actions often also seem to be two-minute things. The problem for us is that serious research progress needs big chunks of time. There are some things (locating a source, formatting tables and the like) that lends itself to the two-minute bit. But, sitting down for serious writing is different -- I find that it takes at least a half day, to get into the flow and get going. What I'm thinking is that the GTD method will allow me to organize all of the other stuff -- teaching, advising, etc. so that I can have those half-days or even full days, without the worry of "what did I forget"

Sorry to be so long-winded, if that's a problem :o ...but typing this out helped get some ideas straight in my head.

kristin

Charlotte,

Your replies are definitely not long-winded, so please no worries :)

As I mentioned in my original post, I got rid of seven huge trash bags full of articles from previous classes and subjects that I am no longer interested in. My own personal research, on the other hand, I am still interested in. I am now staring at a gigantic pile of files that includes articles from aeons ago. I haven't really referred to any of it in a while, but I'm imagining that as my dissertation time is drawing near, I will be making use of many of these articles.

Last night before going to bed, I was thinking about the best way to organize assignments. I had the idea that I could write the assignments on an index card per the HPDA, and then a few days before my readings/assignments are due, I can drop that card in the appropriate day of the tickler file. This will indicate to me the start date of the assignment, rather than when it's due (which typically gets me into trouble because I have a tendency to procrastinate).

And, for larger assignments, I know the day they're due. I can put that on my calendar, and then a month prior to when they're due, I can put a reminder in the tickler file to start that project.

I'll be starting that system tonight. Will let you know how it goes.

I'm going to try that tonight, by the way. Thanks for making it available!

Ticklers (paper or electronic) are the way to go for assignments. When I was in school I broke assignments down into chunks (kind of proto-NextActions) and wrote those on my calendar a few days ahead, spaced out to allow time to DO the stuff.

Most of the material accumulated for research/writing could be called "Action Support" rather than "Reference". I have a special tray for this stuff under my Inbox. I use the plastic Pendaflex sheaths to hold related material together. When the sheath gets stuffed, I look at the bottom half of its contents and pitch or file anything that has become compost or reference material (i.e. not needed for an impending Next Action).

This was not an original idea -- got it somewhere off the web... let me check my GTD Implementation reference file... ah yes. A post on Edward Tufte's site (found via 43F):
Martin Ternouth's system.

Please tell me your friend has backed up his memory stick (hopefully in a couple of locations)! I read a newspaper article recently about a woman whose flash drive (containing the only copy of her work) was in her bag and the bag got stolen. She was lucky and ended up finding her belongings in a dumpster somewhere.

I believe and hope so -- he's a former IT manager.

My diss was on 3 1/2 disks (ok, it was in the Dark Ages, ca. 1999-2000). Each disk, and the little carrying case, has a large label in [="Red"]bright red letters[/], offering a $100 reward for return. There was a copy on two computers' hard drives, each of which was in a different place. I emailed a copy to myself at both my home and university email addresses. Any major revisions merited a printed copy. My chair had a copy in his email. Towards the end, I was compulsively emailing backups to people from California to Florida and points in between.

On the other hand, another frend of mine did lose his diss text file (not data, fortunately) to a virus; he retyped from the hard copy, and found that he was able to improve it considerably in the process. There was some weird reason he couldn't scan the paper, I can't recall what.

kristin

Ha, I had a similar trouble. A book was dropped on my USB stick and broke the connection between the USB connector and the storage medium. The only copy of my master's thesis was on there. I was finally able to get a connection and SubRosaSoft's FileSalvage was able to recover it. Whew!

Sort of tangential to the question of implementing GTD for grad students (& other academics):

I'm a grad student in a social science field, with a lot of articles that I am having trouble figuring out how to organize. I kept them in binders according to the class they were assigned for, but now I'm done with coursework and so that doesn't make as much sense anymore as it has in the past. Some of the articles from classes are relevant to my own research, while others aren't as much. Then of course there are all the articles I'm copying/printing out as I work on my research. I'd like to keep everything I have to date around just in case (I tend to keep academic stuff around for a few years after using it - until I am sure I will never refer to it again - but then I DO get rid of stuff!), and mentally having some of them associated with my classes has helped in the past since I can usually remember where to look for something. That isn't really so with all of the non-class research articles - a category like "research" just isn't working anymore.

Binders don't seem like an ideal method anymore either, unless I were to index what's where (e.g., assign a unique # to each article and assign #s to binders, etc.). Should I create categories for articles that are relevant to my research and organize them that way? Should I use bibliographic software to better organize things, or some other method? And how should I physically organize things? A filing cabinet seems like it could work better than binder after binder, except that I move somewhat frequently and have no idea how I'd move something like that from place to place (also, I live in a studio apartment and am extremely short on space).

So...does anyone have ideas? What has worked for you? (Or, conversely, not worked?) The hPDA has been great in my life, sort of a "gateway tool" that has led me to become more organized, in control, and feeling less stress, but the disorganization that plagues my collection of articles is really wearing on me. I have been getting into GTD a little bit at a time (I know, you're "supposed" to implement it all at once, but a gradual approach is working for me). Each small step I take (e.g., capturing each task I have to do in my hPDA, thinking about what I have to get done in terms of projects/next actions, etc.) helps me immensely, and leads me to seek out additional ways to improve my quality of life. My piles of articles are the next area that I want to get under control (and I have a feeling my research is going to suffer until I accomplish this). Any and all suggestions are welcome!

File folders worked best for me on the diss. It seemed that the hole punching would invariably chop out something important. Plus, folders take up less room (I had three file cubes, which were also easy to move around). Binders make sense if the material is something you keep going back to, but with research, I tend to use the reference material intensively, then put it away, with limited later use. File folders are lighter to carry around, too.

As far as organizing, I just broke down by topic and color coded the folders. This was a very disorganized stage of my life, and coping with the dissertation was bad enough without worrying too much about process. All of the articles were listed in a Word file that eventually became the references--no key words or anything, just straight alpha. Any article I ran across that seemed in the least bit useful went into the list; articles I didn't actually have were marked *. I thought about EndNote or some other type of bibliographic program, but by the time I found out about those, I was so far along it didn't seem to be worth it (plus, I hated my topic and did not plan to do anything with it after finishing).

As far as organizing the articles themselves, it wasn't analytical or organized; more organic. For example:

[="Blue"]Cohesion = blue[/]

Folders for: Antecedents (lab); Antecedents (field); Results (lab); Results (field); Conceptual/Review. The logic here was that this was the order and arrangement of my lit review section.

[="Teal"]Group Learning = turquoise[/]

There were half a dozen or so folders there, mostly organized by general topic and / or setting, though all I can specifically remember is having a separate folder for Karl Weick's articles. I'm sure there was some reason, but it completely evades me now.

[="Red"]Psych research on groups = red[/]

General management stuff on teams = yellow For both of these topic, there were different folders; that's all I can remember.

[="DarkOrange"]Goal setting = orange[/]. This was just one folder, because all I was interested in was goal clarity, and I had a recent book that gave all of the general stuff on this topic.

[="Sienna"]Methods = plain manila[/]. Here, each folder was a topic: factor analysis; moderators/mediators, etc. These were actually a subset of a general file on methods, with such thrillers as MANOVA, Cluster Analysis and Survey Design.

For other project, I tend to organize by specific project -- but my research tends to jump from topic to topic. The one area where I have a lot of stuff is job analysis, and there's a similar scheme there -- one folder for conceptual, another with measurement issues, etc. Tried to get those all in purple folders.

It just always seemed to me that getting caught up in an elaborate organizing routine was a way of avoiding actually writing, so I really tried to not do that. :eek:

I'll try to think of anything else useful -- to be honest, I've tried to block the entire process out of my brian.

kristin

I'm a graduate student in English literature. Here's a quick run-down of the system I've developed over the last year or so.

1. I only have two contexts: "Work" and "Life." I find that as a graduate student many contexts (@Library, @Email, and so on) have very little meaning. I tend to get into one mode, work mode or life mode, and stay in it, so these work for me. I *do* keep an @Errands context, but it's just a single index card that I carry around with me.

2. I find the computer very distracting, as you can see from the fact that I'm writing this post. As a result, I've tried to migrate as much away from it as possible. I use a Moleskine large weekly planner for my calendar. I keep my addresses on my computer--but they're synced to my iPod, so I always have them with me. At night, I actually shut down my computer so that I have to start it up again for a reason in the morning.

3. All of my projects live on large index cards that are the same size as the Moleskine weekly. They have a little W or L in the upper-right corner. I use the big cards *not* to cram them full of info, but because they give me room to write very clearly and to put new items between the old ones. I use a little _ to create a space for a check-mark before each item. These fit exactly into the planner to make a very convenient little book. I have one card that's my 'next actions' card -- one side for Work, one side for Life. It's a different color than the others and goes in the Moleskine.

4. I carry my 'active' projects with me in the Moleskine. I keep waiting projects and so on in an alphabetical file. I use the alphabetical file because I also write down other stuff on index cards. So, for example, if I come up with some really interesting idea for a course I'd like to teach, I'll put it in the file too. I find that, in my field, I have a lot of inactive projects that I still want to remember and think about from time to time. Projects that are in the file have little post-it flags on them to indicate that that's what they are.

5. I have a Levenger "international pocket briefcase," which is a vertical wallet with space for a pen and index cards. I note down a lot of stuff and toss it in the inbox from this - it's a great wallet.

6. For note-taking, I use Levenger Circa. I have a junior leather notebook, a desk punch, and some of the cheaper letter notebooks. This is a pleasure to use. It might not work for everybody, or you may prefer a binder. But it lets me alphabetize my notes, i.e., take them out of a small notebook that looks and acts like a notebook, with dividers, pockets, and so on, and file them away in an easily retrievable form. One great thing is that you can punch all sorts of different paper and stick it in there. You can even file away index cards in your Circa, so if I'm taking notes in a lecture on an index card it goes right into the notebook.

7. I have big hanging file folders in my desk, and one 'action support' folder that I carry things in to and from the library. I don't make photocopies of articles and I don't store them digitally or store notes digitally unless I'm trying really specifically to write something. In general, I like being away from the computer, which tempts me with Metafilter etc. If an article strikes me as important, I'll note it down and put it in the alphabetical file box.

8. I've ended up feeling that ease of filing and capture trumps ease of retrieval. For example, one of my research areas is the study of consciousness. If I read an interesting article, I'll scribble down the title, author, and a sentence about it, and toss it in the alphabetical file under 'C.' I find that I use the system more, and don't worry so much about categorization. If I need to go back and find something it takes a few minutes, but blundering around my own files is a kind of 'mini-review.'

9. I use GTD-style next actions when I can, especially for teaching, where it's very helpful; and I have a teaching notebook where I can write down agendas for individual students, etc. But for long-term academic projects I find next actions don't work, and that a list of deliverables or goals (i.e., "Get document X to advisor Y" or "Write short memo to the file on novel Z") combined with reverse scheduling works better. At the beginning of the week, I'll look over my goals for that week, then schedule in the time I think I'll need into my planner in light pencil. I don't always stick to it, but it serves as a good incentive to really bear down and read that Proust. I rely quite a lot on what Merlin wrote about in his post on "moving parts" and "creating a weekly plan" a while back. I think it works better than next actions for projects in which the next action is HUGE and isn't just an hour or two long, but maybe a day or a week long. I make small daily checklists of two or three items at the bottom of the day column in my planner. David Allen doesn't want you to make daily lists because most people in normal jobs would make a daily list of 10 or 20 or 30 items and then not complete many of them, thus breaking their contracts. But in my job, I can really write down three items ("Finish book X," "Start book Y," "Write report Z") and complete them all. When I start a book, I calculate how many pages I can read per hour, and then use that to schedule the time I'm going to need.

10. I buy as many books as I can afford and use post-it flags _sparingly._ I find that this is more efficient and more useful in the long-term than either lengthy written notes, the transcription of passages, or photocopies. This is frustrating--I wish I could have a watertight system for this. I've asked about it on Ask.Metafilter and gotten some good resposnes--but in the end I've decided, again, that working faster and in an intense and uninterrupted way is better than spending ages filing and storing material that I don't know I'll need.

11. Finally, I've found that the 'life hacks' side of this whole discussion is very helpful. Get up early, get exercise, come up w/ little tricks to make yourself work, find a good working environment - or a series of them - and get nice tools that you like to work with.

Oops, I forgot one:

12. I have found that a great way to segment up your own work and thoughts it to print things out and to really use drafts. For examlpe, I have a "teaching document" that I use as a repository for ideas and strategies in my teaching. Rather than make a loose collection of notes, I chose to make an "actual" document, with contents, structure, reusable writing, and so on. I print it out and keep it in a folder. Every now and then I revise it, and print out a new draft to replace the old one. It says something like "Draft 6" and the date on the front page. The previous drafts are on my computer. This way, I don't have to refer to the computer, I always have a finished document on hand, and I'm adding to it and taking notes in an organized, meaningful fashion.

I'm a year into my English PhD, and I've found that the EndNote software is an excellent way of keeping track of articles and anything important I need to keep.

EndNote is a really easy-to-use piece of software which acts as a virtual catalogue for your papers. You can list each item as a journal article/book/book section etc and then add any info (including any notes you've made while reading it) in the same entry. I then file the paper copy in an alphabetical file system. When I want to find, the search functions allow you to search by author, title, word etc, which makes it very easy to find. You can also add keywords to each item, such as "Chapter Two" or "Teaching Material" etc which is helpful when doing chapter revisions etc. Apart from being super organised, it appeals to my inner (or not so inner, at times) librarian tendencies, which are becoming v. apparent with new label maker etc!

I know this is a harder system to integrate if you've already started accumulating and filing, but I'd highly recommend it if you're just starting out. I feel very secure knowing that I can generally find what I'm looking for with one search!

This is my first post to this site - I'm loving it! Apologies if EndNote has been mentioned before, but it's worth a second mention :)

I didn't see EndNote mentioned before either. It's certainly a useful tool.

I'd add that if you are inclined towards free software or work with BibTeX, you might also want to check out a similarly useful program on OS X: BibDesk http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/ (Note, I started that project, so of course I like it, but lots of other people like it too, so you don't just have to take my word for it)

All the features described above for EndNote exist in BibDesk, including some nifty features that try to make it easier to add references you find on the web.

There isn't anything directly related to GTD in BibDesk, although it has good applescript support, so you could imagine a script that kept a list of next actions in sync with papers marked with the keyword "to-read"...

Good tips, Josh. I'm a PhD student in geology. I often find the computer to be distracting (hence, as you said, me writing this post).

I tend to do a lot of correspondence via email though so have to be on the computer with some regularity for that, as well as spreadsheets, etc. I have found the advice of Merlin and others to only set one's email auto-check at 30+ minutes to be a step in the right direction. I can now recognize onrushing distraction when I begin to check email every 5 minutes.

And writing things down consistently has lowered my stress levels. The next step is to start doing the Weekly Review.

someone asked about electronic v. file folders for disseration research.

I do both.

I have PJ folders for "projects" which are actions.... (like write this section on this paper.)

and I have PM folders which are reference/ideas. And the PMs are as specific as I can make them: PMTheoryDrivenVoting PMDecisionMaker PMValueOfCausalInformation. So a "paper" might be composed of many PMs, or put together in various ways.

I also have a PM folder on my computer, with identically named subfolders. So if it's a physical thing, it goes in the manilla folder, if it's an electronic thing, it goes in the electronic one. And some have no electronic format, some have no physical format. So the "physical" and "electronic" are the SAME FOLDER, just in different formats. There's no need to commit to one *format*....

I also work on a wiki with some other academics. I organize my wiki work in the exact same manner. And of course, they all refer to each other.

Hope that's helpful.

I am a *cough*undergrad*cough* Computer Science student, and I've tried a lot of different methods of GTDing.

Being a computer science student, I was initially inclined to try and get GTD on my palm and laptop. I have only found that because I think of using the computer as fun, it's hard to really focus and be organized with GTD on it. CS projects unfortunately are the same way :-/

As an undergrad, I have lots of small bits of work to complete by the next week. Usually math homework, or something equivalently small. This is where I suggest a physical tickler file. It has saved my life roughly in the thousands of times. Look at your calendar and pick a day to do that work, put it in the file, and when that day rolls around, add it to your NA's, and get it done.

Also, because of the multiplicity of what undergrads usually have to accomplish, having a decent number of contexts helps tremendously. I have @Dorm, @Computer, @Internet, @Class, @Agenda, @Errands, @Dublin ( My hometown.. for stuff I need to do when I get back ). Separating dorm, computer, and internet have helped with productivity as well.

And force your room mate to use your inbox. Labelling it will help them locate it.

Ok, I'm definitely not all "implemented"... but here's what I've started and it's already been helping!

First, I run Kinkless kGTD. I can set that up with various projects and subprojects... [i.e., those 5 major projects your thesis is revolving around, and the 20+ subprojects which support those 5 that all have major numbers of tasks to complete...] I try and keep these to tasks only, and ideas for brain-storming in the future. Kinkless allows me to put references to folders of files etc., into the system as well, so I can simply click on a folder icon to bring up the files which may be required for my work in that area quite easily. It syncs to iCal, so iPod integration etc., is possible, but I'm finding I'm not using that as much.

What I have been doing as of late, is keeping a Moleskine cahier, with a rubber-band around it, and about 5-8 index cards slipped inside. The cahier leaves me space to brain-storm on the fly, have those middle of the hall-way discussions with the supporting scientists around the university, and keep my notes together. I print my iCal calendar out for 2 weeks onto an index card (3x5) by first printing it at 5x7 and scaling down to 3x5 in preview (fairly simple). I bought a small iP1600 from Bestbuy the other day ($50) for printing the cards needed.

I also print out the kinkless task/project cards for when I'm away from the computer. So far the calendar has been critical, as well as a blank index card with running dates for an on-the-go inbox.

For journal articles, I have to plug a fantasic program on the mac- BibDesk. Completely free and constantly being updated. Excellently stable at this time. Since I write in LaTeX, I need a bibtex database for my journal articles anyways. BibDesk also organizes my articles by first-author quite nicely, and is easily searched as well. [Not to mention it auto-completes in many programs- with latex and bibdesk and iTeXMac, everything just works. Couple that with mac's Preview and cropping /saving out of journal articles critical graphs etc. and you now have a powerful system for writing your thesis!!]

For my e-mail, I have thunderbird working through Yamb and Growl notifications. So, if an e-mail comes in, and it's not time-critical, I can simply ignore it without even having to bring my e-mail app forward. If it's time critical and a short item, I can go do it, or slip it into my inbox to complete. I also have a @action folder in my inbox that gets run through every couple days to ensure I'm doing items needed to be done which are e-mail related but may not be critical enough to be in my kGTD inbox. For the first time, my inbox is actually fairly blank, and items get dealt with and filed away based on the 2minute rule. :) As long as it's work-centric at the time, this should be helpful not hurtful.

Finally, I'm also attempting to file better on the computer... things for work go in the major work directory, then get filed in appropriate sub-directories. If there's something I'm working on, I bring an alias to the desktop, but nothing sits in 'nowhere' folders which aren't filed anymore. [At least in principle. ;)]

Oh! A bit more about the bibliography app and filing... when I search on say ISI knowledge web, or on Engineeringvillage.org... the output can be imported directly into BibDesk, and from there, a simple drag and drop into Bibdesk shuffles off the journal article under the first-author name. :) Very seamless.

My office at the moment needs serious help, however, as I have not yet implemented everything here. I do have a label-maker and have used it numerous times to organize items, but it's just not complete yet. Things are under the gun for me now, and I can't devote time to it, as I'm already 6 months behind on a project (yikes, eh? well, the research world can be like that sometimes... :(... ) it doesn't do well for the brain, however, to know you have these things hanging over your head, and that's where kinkless helps. It eases up on that pressure, as you know where to look for those items that can't be lost. :)

Ok, I've typed too much, I better get back to work. I wish you the best of luck with your Thesis!! I hope I can get through this year as well. :?

[Also- wanted to mention- rsync for the mac thesis-writers out there... I'm working on a multiple-computer backup system that on a single click will backup all critical work files... :) I'll be back to mention it when it finally works. :) It's all possible with rsync in Tiger... or RsyncX with lower X mac systems.] Now, go back up that Thesis!!

-Allen

Does anyone know of a free or cheap windows-friendly alternative to Endnote? I'm having way too much fun with their demo, but I can't afford to shell out two hundred bucks for it. Thanks!

I have enjoyed people's posts about getting that thesis done, and organising life around academia. I handed my doctoral thesis in on 31 Aug 2005, and I am still waiting for it to be marked. So I read many of the posts recognising the dilemmas and challenges, and I am always looking for hints to get the perfect system

Regarding keeping references, and not buying EndNote. I found applying the principles of EndNote by writing any reference I thought was useful in an alphabetical list in a Word document, making sure the reference was as accurate and full as possible and noting where I found it, where I had filed it, library reference number etc, and any brief thought I had about it was really helpful. I also used this list to cut and paste into subject/topic lists as it suited me. When I finally obtained EndNote I actually found that the ease and simplicity of my model suited me better. And actually used it, with a lot of cutting, in my final submission.

I found with all the articles that I collected that in the end I filed most of them by author, but initally I had filed many by subject. As I became more and more familiar with my subject area the authors became more important, so I gradually shifted to filing much more by author. The critical thing was having them filed in cardboard boxes that were close to my computer, because as I wrote I was referrring to them so much.

I also think the GTD idea of having an in basket that every thing goes into is fantastic, but one has to be religious about clearing it regularly. I carry about a cane basket that I put everything in (thoughts captured on paper, paper that is given to me, things to do, articles to be filed) as I travel through my day, knowing that I when I'm at home/work and it's quiet I can sort it at my leisure.

The most helpful hints I came across for actually completing were to write before I checked email, or went on the internet, to do at least 15 min of writing a day, and to regularly write for three hours as the first thing I did in the day before I did anything else.

Oh wow. How did you achieve independence from computers??? please do enlighten!

works on MacOS X, and in principle it ought to be possible to get it working on Windows if you can fulfil the library dependencies. That might be rather a lot of work, though.

Another possibility is using the built-in bibliographic database support in OpenOffice.org. I don't know how good this is, though.

Two completely free options are Bibdesk (mentioned earlier, http://jabref.sourceforge.net/)">http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/[/url]) and Jabref (a java based app, [url]http://jabref.sourceforge.net/). Both are under healthy development and are growing in features and compatability. Currently both are for the use of BibTex, but I think I heard that Bibdesk 2.0 will move away from that format to a new one.

it's the way to go, little rsync scripts. any students out there: rsync a mirror of your Documents folder on your university account. then you'll never have "forgotten to print out that file" from home ever again....

Not to lead people back to the google boards and away from the "mothership," but there were two relevant discussions there that not everyone might have seen:

GTD for academics Academics/writers/advanced students on GTD

I have a tablet and a desktop PC. I use MindManager and the Add In Result Manager implementing GTD templates. I do everything from there and it works fantastically once you get going. I also have OpticBook Scanner and Acrobat 7.0. I scan all my books to PDF and using Acrobat make the text searchable. I then break up my books into chapters which I create links to in Mindmanger. From MM I can set up my task, take notes, organize, and on and on. Then using the Result Manager Add-In GTD I have templates that provide all kinds of feed back. MM lets me take all my Outlook emails and with the click of a button impport into MM where there I take action.

Endnote is $200? When I bought mine it was $100 for students.

I found Endnote to be very helpful when I was writing my thesis...the Cite while you Write feature was worth every penny. As far as organising my research, I was lucky in that most of my research was available in PDF form. I found it very helpful to have a (virtual) folder that had all my articles in it. I renamed the articles by author and year, since when they get downloaded to your HD they usually had some sort of esoteric alpha-numeric name that didn't make any sense to me.

This way I was able to organise my bibliography folder the same way Endnote organised the information, and I could tell at a glance if I had all the data (articles) input into Endnote.

When I was writing my literature review I was easily able to find the article and then use the cite feature of Endnote. Another cool thing Endnote does is format your bibliography when you are done.