A Researcher’s Paradise: using Notion to productively plan in graduate school and beyond
There is nothing quite like graduate school, or life as a researcher afterwards.
Like many graduate students, my pathway to research started with a fantastic mentor who’s palpable passion peaked my interest. One thing led to another, doors opened that I didn’t even know existed, and I found myself jumping head first into an MSc on women’s vascular function. Eighteen year old me would never have imagined I’d spend two years exploring the relationship between exercise and vascular responses across the menstrual cycle.
But passionate mentors breed passionate students. They have a way of making the academic world of research appear much less intimidating from the outside. The inspiration that emanates from constant innovation, critical thinking and problem solving takes its grip and so begins the at times circuitous journey of proposals, ethics submissions, recruitment emails, conferences and defences.
And so, you chug along. Deadlines approach, recruitment lags & you feel like you’ll never emerge from the deep, dark, dungeons where data analysis occurs. What started as a question of “will I finish on time” almost inevitably descends towards “will I ever finish at all”. Take a moment to imagine the reality TV show of your lab dynamics. If you’re a graduate student you know it’s the “Type II” kind of fun — suffering, and I mean really suffering, in the moment, but hilarious and unparalleled in retrospect.
The challenges we face in graduate work often relate to the chaos the comes part and parcel with coordinating large scale, multi-faceted projects. For many people, myself included, entering academia was driven by intellectual curiosity without at all recognizing how integral project management would be.
This is the organizational system I wish I had during my MSc.
No matter what stage you’re at in research, there’s always a paper to read, a study to coordinate and a conference to attend. And yet, these areas often feel disjointed. I had an endless bookmark tab of papers to read, a folder of my never-ending meeting notes, and I’d be lucky if my conference preparation made its way to a particular spot at all (we’ve all felt the mad rush to submit an abstract am I right?!). I hadn’t quite figured out a system that would connect it all together — until now.
When I work on a manuscript, I want to know what abstracts are linked to it, where they’ve been presented and what other research from my ever-growing reading list informed or guided our work.
Not only that, but I want to see how it all connects to my timelines. When will analysis have to wrap up to submit preliminary findings for an abstract? If recruitment is delayed (…or non-existent…) what kind of wiggle room am I working with?
In my mind, it made sense to connect the abstract with the manuscript that I presented at that conference that year ALONGSIDE my schedule. Word, Excel, emails & iCal just were not cutting it. Don’t get me wrong, Excel is and will always be an old and trusted friend, but just doesn’t allow for the flexibility and accessibly of information that Notion does.
With this system, I can filter papers by study design, publication year, and reading status. I can see upcoming project milestones on quick glance. I have a simplified AND synchronous CV built straight out of my productivity planning app. Just imagine the possibilities.
Link to the notion template here! Cheers to creating a little more consistency among the chaos!
