How To Research Efficiently

  • Article

Building guidance takes a lot of research.  Over the years, I've learned how to do this faster and easier.  One of the most important things I do is setup my folders (whether file system or Groove)

Initial Folders

 /Project X
 /Drafts
 /Research
   /Reference

Folder Over Time
Over time, this ends up looking more like

 Project X
  /Builds
     /2007_05_26
     /2007_05_27
 /Drafts
 /Reference
      /Articles
       /Blogs
      /Bugs
       /CaseStudies
        /Docs
       /Slides
     /Source X
       /Source Y
       /Source Z
   /Research
       /Braindumps
     /DataPoints
     /QuestionsLists
     /Topic X
        /Topic Y
        /Topix Z
    /Tests
      /Tests X
        /Tests Y
        /Tests Z
    /Whiteboards
        /Topic X
        /Topic Y
        /Topic Z

Key Points

  • Factor reference from research.  Reference is stuff I pull in from various sources, such as slides, blogs, articles ... etc.  Research holds the notes and docs I create.  This way I avoid mixing information I create with information that I reference.  Having a place to store my reference information helps me optimize when I'm hunting and gathering resources in batch mode.  I also find that it saves me time when I have to go back and figure out where information came from.
  • Factor stages of information.  In my basic workflow, I move information from research to drafts to builds.  (where builds are guides)  Keeping them separate makes it very easy for me to know the current state of the information and it gives me a safe place to re-factor and make changes.  Research is effectively my sandbox to create documents and organize my notes as I see fit.  Drafts is where I have to make decision on what and how to share the information.  Builds is where I produce a shareable set of information.
  • Have a place for whiteboard captures.  Whiteboards is where I dump pics from whiteboarding sessions.  I'm a fan of doing braindumps at the whiteboard and quickly dumping to a place to reference.  If it's just text, I write it down.  If it's visual, I take a pic and file it.

I use this approach whether I'm doing personal learning or building 1200+ page guides.  This approach helps me spend more time researching and less time figuring out where to put the information.

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