We all have priorities, and sometimes the literature review is not at the top of our to-do list. It is very difficult to get anything done under these circumstances. However busy we are, we always have small breaks in the day, 5 minutes here, five minutes there. Imagine if it was possible to use that time productively to put together your literature review. Well the good news is that it is possible. Not only that, it’s not even that difficult. It just takes a bit of organisation to develop a great habit of being ultra-productive. It doesn’t matter when or where you have your little slots of time, there are loads of creative ways to use them to do something worth while.
Plan, Plan and Plan
This is a bit of recurring theme on this site but it’s so important. You need to outlay a bit of time at the start to plan how you are going to use your small slots of time during the day. This way, when you have a break, while you are waiting for something for example, you automatically know what you are going to do in that time to contribute to your literature review. Are you going to read an entire paper? Are you going to scan a few abstracts? Are you going to write a paragraph? Are you going to write a sentence?
You need to know exactly what you are going to do in each fragmented time slot. This may seem tricky as you never know how many time slots you are going to have, or how long they will last. However, if you make a list of steps, i.e. things that you can accomplish in 5 minutes, then you can simply work through this list until you are finished, however many time slots it takes.
You also need to plan how you are going to do the work if you are not in your normal working environment. Maybe you’re in the lab, in the field, shopping, waiting for a bus! You need to have your work in a format that you can access easily. At first the prospect of doing this made me a bit uncomfortable. I used to think I couldn’t work if I wasn’t at my desk…I was wrong. I could not have been more wrong. Using short stops in the day to do work, even away from the desk is incredibly stimulating. Not only are you working against the clock but your in a different environment. Both of these factors really help me to be productive. So if you need to read, print off some articles and carry them with you. Take a pen to make notes and to mark off where you have read up to. If you have a tablet PC like an iPad then carry this around with you, and keep your articles on there to read. If you have to write, again, take your tablet PC or lap top with you. If you’re like me and don’t have a very portable laptop or a tablet, take some paper and a note pad or invest in a Dictaphone.
The most important thing is just to try and start using really short periods of time to get work done. Once you’ve trained yourself to do this it will become second nature. So have a look at your day and see if there are times that you could use more productively. Whether it’s your journey to work, waiting for people, at breakfast etc etc etc. Be creative and let me know in the comments if there are any creative ways I’ve missed.
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