Knowledge Cycles should be short, and that you, consequently, better have many of them
Note: Take breaks. Getting in zone is nice and all, but sometimes that means you end up going down the wrong path for a long while without realizing it. It's like swimming underwater in a void for an hour before looking up and getting your bearings. Sure, you made good swimming progress, but were you even going in the right direction? Take breaks to allow the brain to do what it does best: clean the mess, reassess and get a fresh perspective for a minute.
Keeping the cycle short also helps to avoid trapping into the Collector’s Fallacy, which basically states that when we own a text, be it on paper or PDF, we tend to think we ‘have’ the knowledge it contains. * We need to make the knowledge our own, though, and work with the text. This includes taking lasting notes. Instead of researching for a while and amassing potentially relevant texts, you process the findings early. This way, you won’t get overwhelmed in research findings.
Note: Boy oh boy do I ever do this. Draft early, draft often. Iterative writing. Go through the cycle repeatedly. * Research * Read * Write notes * Add to the outline/project/draft Do this to ensure we're on course and seeing the big picture.
There are four levels of reading
Note: (http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/how-to-read-a-book/) Very useful process. 1. Elementary Reading - Basic 2. Inspectional Reading - Skimming 3. Analytical Reading - classify, state book purpose, list out parts, define problem author is solving 4. Syntopical Reading - make all the terms your own; instead of author's problem, focus on questions you want answered; realize that an "issue" is when you have multiple answers to your question (which is good).