10. On reading and note-taking, costs of context-shifting, trade-offs between efficiency and depth
Insights
Of late, I have taken a keen interest in the processes of both reading and note-taking. Reflecting on these practices now is all the more relevant, as I begin (or get back to, I should say) an intense period of reading and note-taking, in preparation for my PhD comprehensive exam.
As you pay more attention to these staple and rather mundane academic practices, you will probably realise - as I did - the incredible complexity of choices and interests at work. When engaged in reading, it is no longer self-evident to me what you should pay attention to and what to leave out, what you should dwell on and what you can simply pass by, how you should pace yourself, when you should pause (and for how long) and when you should just blitz through. Similarly with taking notes: what to record and at what level of detail, what you should expand upon and what to simply hint at, which parts you should quote directly and which parts to paraphrase in your own words, whether and when you should add your own reflections and so on.
This just goes to show that any activity - including the mundane ones we are talking about here - can offer up a world of possibilities when approached with openness and curiosity. But this range and complexity need not be overwhelming or paralysing. One way to cut through these litany of choices is to determine and stipulate - well beforehand - your goals and purposes in reading a particular text or taking notes on one. And I would like to stress that these should be your goals - unique to the particular project or context you are currently engaged in.
In my case, I have at least two sets of goals. As I work through the massive reading list I have set for myself, I need to simultaneously prepare for my comprehensive exam (meant to test my breadth of knowledge) and sketch out a draft research proposal (meant to test my depth of engagement). And I am going bananas! These are contrary goals that can take you in very different directions - even if they are not totally contradictory.
At first, I thought I will focus on these sequentially, and not simultaneously. First the exam, then the proposal. But I soon realised that's not going to work, because I don't have the time to work through my reading list twice over. I need to figure out a way to hit both the birds with a single stroke, as it were. After one week of experimentation, all I can say is that I am nowhere close to an optimal strategy. I am still winging it for the most part - although I have identified some strategies and heuristics that can potentially work for the long winter ahead. I have summarised them as a series of self-instructions in this evolving table. I am hoping for new insights on all this, as I continue my experimentation and reflection into Week 2.
I will leave you with one general thought: Reading (or note-taking) for research is a completely different ballgame, compared to reading for general understanding or learning. The former is a more restrictive enterprise - with narrower goals and choices that are already pre-determined by your research problem, whereas the latter is a more open field - allowing space for your personal curiosities and interests at the time. And I should note that most of the heuristics I list in the table are appropriate for a research-driven reading or note-taking practice, and not for the generalist counterpart.
Ideas
This past week, I have been implementing a powerful idea I learnt from the computer scientist and author, Cal Newport. In this episode of his weekly podcast (which I would highly recommend), he talks about why knowledge workers (which includes researchers like us) are almost always tired. His diagnosis is that modern day technologies like email or social media, which are now permanently attached to us through our smart phones and their incessant notifications, force us to engage in non-stop 'context shifting' - our tendency to constantly jump from one thing to another almost seamlessly.
Innocuous though it may seem, this kind of context-shifting has a huge cognitive cost. When we repeatedly shift our attention from one task to another, our brain which was working on the first task now needs to first shut that down and load up all the information that's relevant for the second task in order to help us deal with it. Imagine doing this every 5 or 10 mins, constantly flitting between multiple tasks and devices and you can begin to see the immense toll this can have on our brains and bodies. No wonder, Cal thinks, we are always tired.
His solution to this is simple: just stop doing that. Avoid context-shifting in your work (or leisure, for that matter) as much as possible and learn to put in workflows that are more sequential and not simultaneous. When you are working on A, just focus on A for the time being. Once you finish that, you can then move on to B, C and so on. Don't try to multitask, it is both inefficient and costly. Just do one thing at a time!
I have been putting this into practice in quite radical ways this week and the results have been incredible. Once I start working on something, I stop doing everything else. If I am reading, my usual routine is to do focused reading for 45 mins followed by a 15 mins break and then repeat. These breaks are meant to relax my brain and not feed it with more information, so I try not to check my messages or emails during them. Sometimes I listen to music (and that’s known to help with learning), but not very stimulating ones - classical or instrumentals is a better bet. More often than not, it is just a quiet break when I would do some chore or take a walk and allow my brain to process what I just read and take a breather.
After the break, I would then return to the task at hand and continue with the next session. If I feel the need to do or check something non-urgent while in the middle of a task (including things like references or papers), I make a note of it in a physical paper or notepad that's always next to me - so as to avoid using the internet or phone even for that (I have started keeping multiple notepads for various purposes; more on that, another time). I can only check my phone or email during longer breaks (like lunch) or once I am done with these 'deep work' marathon sessions. Protecting my attention in this way, both during and between work sessions, has vastly improved my focus, reading speed and learning - in just under a week, all because my attention is not constantly being splintered into a thousand pieces.
P.S. Listen to Cal for more awesome case studies! You can watch this in the first 25 mins of the podcast episode I have linked above.
Inspiration
When you are learning the literature on a topic, there is a constant trade-off between efficiency and depth. I wish we lived in a world where I could just embrace slow reading and deeper understanding and show efficiency the door, but we don't live in one. But also, efficiency need not necessarily be a bad thing. Under the right circumstances, it could even be a propulsive force to our complacent selves.
So far, in my preparations for the comprehensive exam, I have been taking the path of depth - making sure that I understand each argument or nuance, that I have thought about the key moves or drawn out their implications. While that has been great fun, it has also been painfully slow - so much so that I am actually lagging behind on my timelines. I need be more efficient going forward, but without also compromising too much depth. And the best way I have come up with to manage this trade-off is to alternate between efficiency and depth at different points in the text - where each is appropriate.
And that is my guiding question for the coming week: Do I need to be efficient here or do I need go deep? Be efficient where there are details you can just skim over and go deep where you must engage more carefully.
Have a balanced week ahead!