Friday, September 11, 2009

Is it possible I might one day do research again?

My new job is time-intensive, but yesterday I managed to get a little ahead on class prep, and today I had some time to think. I wrote up an abstract and made some lists:

goals for the year

materials to get from the library

ideas I might want to pursue in the future

I keep most of such notes on the computer, and I have a terrible time keeping track of such stuff. On the list of goals, in fact, is "for the love of God, reorganize the files so I can find things." My system of electronic file-keeping broke down once I moved beyond my dissertation materials, and whenever I try to find an idea or reference I wrote down, I end up searching in five different folders, opening and closing a dozen different files before I find what I'm looking for. 

I think I have a pretty manageable agenda for the year, and we'll see how things go.

Now back to paper grading and class prep.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I had that same problem when I moved on from the diss! Now, I have a folder titled "current work," which holds all my notes, translations, reading lists, etc. for whatever I'm working on, with subfolders for each project. It isn't perfect - I often have translated bits and pieces in my archive folders, for example - but it helps.