I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the tools I’m trying out for organizing and managing my thesis. It’s been a while since I tackled a project as extended as this one (the last one that comes to mind is the honors thesis I wrote in my undergrad–which, being a thesis for the sciences was much more clear-cut and straightforward). There are a couple reasons why I’m interested in the tools I’m using for my thesis:
- If I’m doing a thesis about idea generation and execution, then one of the ways to study that is of course see how people go about doing this. But of course, I’d be neglecting a very rich source of information if I didn’t reflect on the ways and methods in which I was going about this process as well. After all, my thesis is pretty much a case study in the process of coming up with and developing ideas!
- I’m aware of the pitfalls of having to organize lots of information from disparate places together, especially in an academic setting, such as not being able to recall a reference, trying to synthesize information from different disciplines, or trying to organize my own notes, which might be scribbles on the margins of a paper or something typed up for myself in an email, so I’d like to avoid some of these issues before I get too deep into gathering data and diving into the literature if possible!
So what are the tools that I’m using right now for my thesis?
MindManager 9
I’m using this mind mapping tool to organize my literature review findings. I’ve been making mind maps pretty much ever since high school, and it’s a technique that I’m comfortable with. Unfortunately, the folks over at Mindjet have just changed their business model to be a subscription-only one focusing on enterprise customers, so I’d imagine it’s quite difficult for the average consumer to start using this program now. What I like most about it is that I can just “brain dump” everything I’ve been reading into it and organize it later, and since it’d digital (I primarily use it on my desktop), it’s super easy for me to just type notes in.
I’ll email myself random thoughts and ideas that I have for my thesis to myself. It allows me to have a “conversation” with myself, and I can keep it marked unread if I want to revisit it later.
Post-it Notes
For random thoughts too, when I don’t have access to email or if it relates to something that’s on paper (in other words, where that post-it is matters). I’ve been trying to organize these post-its into a section of my sketchbook.
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Sketchbook
My sketchbook is what I typically use for (sketch) notes in classes, but I’ve also dedicated a section of it to corralling all the random thoughts and post-its I have for thesis.
A Big Moleskine Binder
I keep all my protocols and consent forms in here, as well as interview notes before transcribing them.
Google Apps
I use Docs and Spreadsheet for data collection and to write up things I want easy access to anywhere. Calendar helps me schedule and keep track of interviews.
Dropbox
I have a folder called “thesis” where I’m keeping all my PDFs of papers, anything that’s in Microsoft Word, and probably other assets (e.g. Illustrator files, Photoshop files) in the future. The syncing is particularly helpful for when I’m working between my desktop at home and my laptop at school.
Despite my best attempts to streamline everything, a lot of the information for my thesis lives in disparate locations. Some of it is physical, some digital, some are easy to share with others, some not. And I believe that this in itself is a hindrance to the creative process (or at least mine), because there’s no way I’ll ever truly be able to see everything together in one place.
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