The art of nonlinear reading - How to read research notes/papers/books?

Reading a text can be linear - you start reading from page 1 and go to 2, 3, and so on till you finish the text. Novels, Stories etc. are read in this fashion. The sequence does matter as they represent the evolution with time.

When we read a paper, book or notes given by a student, our objective is to understand what the text wants to say. For this kind of technical content, there may be paragraphs which we need to read twice or more; some of the paragraphs need not be read as we already understand what is written in them. Reading the content in an order decided by us is what I call Non-linear reading. It is suitable for studying the research papers, books, notes. I found it very useful for studying the notes/papers given to me by students.

There exist a third category of reading - skimming. In this we just skim at fast pace through entire content just to get an idea of what the text is all about. This does not help in understanding it,  but to decide that whether I should spend time in reading it.

Since the text is usually organized in paragraphs, we can decide the read a para at a time. One can repeat a para if needed. Viewing the index at the beginning is very helpful in deciding what section to be read first. Within a section, we can use skimming to identify which para to study first. I found that this technique allows us to understand the content in perspectives. I could find lot of flaws in papers written by my students when I used non-linear reading, as it seems to allow us to also have a big picture of what we are discussing in the paper.

Every mistake, flaw identified is an opportunity to improve.

In my posts, I have talked about various tips to improve performance. All these can be arrived at by almost anyone by using simple principle. This most important and should have been mentioned first. On daily basis, whenever you find something wrong, or an error, or make a mistake, try to find what can be changed in your habits, procedure, mechanisms so that such wrong/mistake will not happen. This makes you agile and adaptive to continue improve oneself for a desirable life.

Meditation

I thought of writing about it after observing that how people under perform due to stress, take non optimal decisions in given situations. The technique is simple. One need to spend some of the time with himself or herself. One can sit at any location, any stable posture and close the eyes. In fact, the idea is that the environment around you should not stimulate any of the sensory organs. Thus, a peaceful place (no sound), closed eyes (no visual info), any fixed posture (usually padma-asana or any other stable posture will be fine, no spatial awareness through compound functions of senses, no touch and taste), environment devoid of smell is desirable. One need to observe what is going on in mind without interfering with the chain of thoughts. Sometimes, thoughts ceases to exist, that is also fine. This provides the time to your mind to relax and give an opportunity to process the thoughts and ideas which cannot be focused upon in normal routine. It is like clearing backlog. This detachment exercise helps your mind to observe the better options in a given situation and decide a better option than what you can normally do. In order to keep the mind in this better state, doing the practice at regular intervals is advisable. The interval can be adjusted based on the stress levels and lifestyle.

One can also observe the breadth inhalation and exahalation without trying to control them, in their natural form. Idea is basically, do not try to control anything but become aware of whatever is happening.

Another form of meditation is where we do'nt let loose the mind to have its own chain of thoughts. When you want to focus on some work, you can be interrupted by sudden urge to finish something else. When you shift your focus on the other work, you forget to come back and the original work is left unfinished. One need to discard the signals/request for doing something else when you are doing primary work (the work on which you want to focus). You can do it by saying it that you will do it later. If you realise you are doing something else other than the primary work, you can stop and tell yourself that it will be done later, and shift yourself to primary work. An example of this is when you are studying and a phone call comes. You can either continue with the study and tell yourself that phone call can be taken up later. Most of us will take the phone call and then forget what we were doing. Usually the moment you realize that study is your primary work, you can abort the call with reminder to take it later and move back to study. With practice, one can learn to divert the distractions and keep focus on the primary work (in this case study :-) ).

Effective way of discussion.

For quite sometime, during discussion with my students, I used to listen to them. When I am not clear, I used to ask questions about it. I was not comfortable with this method. Usually as the students are not experienced, and sometimes they are working on a problem, which I have not been involved deeply, it was difficult to comprehend what the student wanted to say. This usually will lead to situation, when  the comments and suggestions, new ideas will take more number of discussion meetings on same aspects. During discussions, taking one's own notes - scribblings, which indicates what is discussed, specific question, their relationship with each other, is useful. These notes allows oneself to get a snapshot of the whole discussion. One can de-focus from details and form a bigger picture, ask better questions. One can identify the missing links. Once these are easier to identify, it is simpler to decide on what should be done next. This allows the students to get much better feedback. So, the key is take your own notes and use them for quick recaps at various stages for an effective discussion. One can identify also the undefined stuff, missing links, vague arguments also in this fashion. These inputs once given back to students, can provide better guidance to the students' research.

Can we modify our habits and attitude?

One of the possible techniques of modifying the habits and attitude can be reminding oneself of the correct way of doing something, or not to do something. Every time you deviate from what should be done, you remind yourself of the correct way. This trains oneself and after a time, you tend to do what you were suggesting to your self. Although, it is possible, when you are doing it right, you do not remind yourself of the correct way. One day you may again endup doing it incorrectly. For important things, you can remind yourself everyday. This ensures that you will always do it correctly. For non-important thing, you will achieve a balance where you do it most of the time in right fashion and sometimes incorrectly and then you remind yourself.  For example, when you drive and you realize that you have not fastened the seat belt, you should remind yourself that one should fasten the seat belt before starting to drive. After sometime, you will come into habit of fastening the seat belt.Similary, if you remind yourself everyday, that you should not waste your time, you will end up following it. This reminder comes in category where you should provide suggestion to yourself regularly and not when you find that you are not doing it.

This technique of behavioral modification will not work, if you cannot observe that you are doing something in wrong way. In case, your friends or others tell you what is wrong in your actions, you can listen, decide on whether to take or discard the input, and then suggest yourself.

Finding truth using arguments

I have seen almost everyone arguing about one thing or other. People argue for various reasons. Most of the time, I have found, whether knowingly or unknowingly people argue to feel better, by winning the argument. I am somehow uncomfortable with this. Should we argue only for sake of winning an argument. During school days, we used to participate in debates. One used to get "for" or "against" a certain issue for proposing the arguments. Once, you have been given a "for", a thought somewhat gets implanted, that I need to justify and win this argument.

Arguments can also be seen as method to gain insight into different viewpoint and to build an evolving hypothesis to find truth. But in order to use arguments for this purpose, the persons involved or listening to the arguments, need to get detached from the arguments. They should be willing to adapt new arguments, relinquish older ones. When one listens to lot of arguments, there can be confusion. It is essential that argument worth looking into should be filtered. Usable arguments can be grouped in multiple clusters depending on the hypothesis they favour. Some arguments are isolated and if they are violating fundamental axioms, should be discarded. As the arguments evolve, usually few hypothesis will remain. By evolving the hypotheses, we can come closer to truth which we are seeking.

Management of tasks & distractions

Managing Tasks

Breaking into multiple attempts/sessions

One of the problems faced by persons involved in research is their usual involvement in mental tasks which require multiple sittings. For example, it is usually not possible to sit down and keep on thinking till you find a solution. Normally, you will get stuck mentally (mental block) or bored/tired. When attempted over multiple sittings, it becomes easier to incrementally make progress. During a sitting, when one is no more making progress, simply stop and switch to next task in the list.

Maintaining a list

We can maintain a list of tasks to avoid remembering them. One can do it using Google Keep (https://keep.google.com) or Google Tasks or any other method (like maintaining a list on the paper). One need to find a way to manage all the tasks mentioned in the list. The tasks can be thinking about something, physical activity, reading etc..

The objective should be to finish a task as soon as possible once it is taken up. Instead of leaving a task halfway, it is better not to take it up in the first place. Further, it is important to utilise your time efficiently so that maximum amount of work gets done.

Each task can be done till one feels bored or tired. Each such duration can be called slot. Most of the tasks will be done in multiple slots spread over multiple days. Slot end will depend on the cues as mentioned. Whenever a slot ends, next tasks from the list can be picked up based on your liking, and attempted. Everyday, we can begin with the task from the top. After doing top few tasks (say top two), we can switch to doing tasks in the list in any order based on what we like to do. Now, we can continue spending time on each new searched task as per our liking. If tasks are arranged in reducing priority, and our search for task starts from top, we can maintain the order of task taking care of importance and what we like to do. This way, when a task is picked up, we tend to choose important as well as the task which we will perform best at that time, first. A task gets removed only when it gets finished. As we are doing initially top few tasks (say top two), they will be progressed continuously on daily basis ensuring the continuity and surely will finish in shortest time.

In case something more important comes up, it can be added to the task list in the end, and the list can be reorganised by single bubble sort iteration towards top. Further, every evening, we can do a single iteration of arranging the task by moving most important task to top using bubble sort. So, most of the tasks will be done on daily basis for some time and it will allow good progress on them. Alternatively, one can partition the task lists in blocks from bottom to top keeping some overlap between consecutive blocks. In each block, we can identify most important task and move it at the top of block. This can be done from blocks from bottom to top. Finally, we can rearrange all the (top 10 or 15 tasks) in top most block in order of importance after bubble sorting from bottom to top of block.

Thus we retain the prioritized list of tasks, and also do it as per most important few (two) tasks as well as what we feel like to doing.

Sometimes, we are not doing an important task and doing something less important like checking emails, Whatsapp. Whenever you realise that you are doing something that is distraction, try to stop doing it. It is OK, even if you do not start the next listed task immediately. You should stop doing whatever you are doing unless it is the intended task for next 10-15 minutes. The chances are that work on intended task will start within this period. Once the intended task progresses, you can keep on working until you are tired/bored or feel to stop the task. If you cannot start the task in this attempt slot, then next important task can be taken up, by again defining next 10-15 minutes attempt slot. Controlling distraction will guide you to do the next best task. It is important to postpone distractions and add them to task list if they are important, to be done later. Once you have taken care of distractions and you are now back to the task to be done, simply ensure either you should do nothing or do the task in next 10-15 minutes slot. Slowly you will start doing the task. It is like letting the task begin at its own pace.

Managing Distractions

Once we are able to start a task, it is important we keep our focus on it till either we get tired or work gets finished. During a work, we need to avoid distraction. If you recall something to be done it should be postponed for later unless it is more important than what you are doing at that moment. One can simply note down that (obviously it must be less important than what you are doing) on a sheet of paper, and continue with what you are doing. Sometimes, you do'nt see the task moving further. In that case, let your mind do nothing except the task for next 10-15 minutes so that the task can start naturally.

Once you decide to move over to next task, the task noted on sheet can be seen and done if it is important. Normally, the task which you remember while working on something, may not be that important, but for fear of forgetting them, one tends to preempt the current task and move to it. Recording it on a sheet of paper, takes care of this fear, and thus one can do it later.

For focused work, bringing focus back to work, and avoiding the movement of focus on something else, both need to be suggested to self. One should suggest himself to immediately stop first and note the stopped task for later action, then go to mode where you do nothing except the task for next 10-15 minutes slot. This will let the task be happening at its natural speed.

The movement of focus on something else, is avoided by putting the distractions to paper for later handling. Also, never think of not doing the distracting work, but always think of it being postponed for later.

So, we should not discard the unproductive tasks but we should set the priorities right.

Another problem, one may find in bringing focus back to work, is the fear of getting too involved in the work and loosing on the other tasks. This fear does not allow one to start the work itself. I can call it the starting trouble. This is baseless fear, as normally we will get bored or tired after a certain time and then switch to something else. But if some task is addictive, then one can put the alarm for a certain duration say one hour, when you can switch to next best task from the list.

The above method works quite fine and does not require any mobile, clock etc. except to take care of the starting trouble and uses one's own mental and body signals for better work performance.

Sublists

We can also make multiple sublist and copy the tasks depending on grouping criteria to this sublist. Each sublist now can be assigned a one or two hour slots, when the task from these sublists are executed. Example of such sublists can be - personal research problems, papers to be read, books or papers to be written. We can also use daily single iteration of bubble sort in upward direction on these sublists also. As the tasks in sublist are also there in main list, these task will also be done in duration other than specified for sublist if they are on priority in main task list.