[munchbunny]

I found a tactic that tends to work for me for the researching phase. I just use OneNote, but there are some tools under the label "mind mapping" that try to explicitly cater to this approach.

Since research for me usually works like traversing a tree or directed graph, I take notes in that style. Usually one concept depends on another, or one problem must be solved before another problem becomes relevant.

At any point, when I'm wondering where I need to look next, I look at the leaf nodes in my graph, rank them by how important or promising they are, and then I have a TODO list with plenty of notes for context to jog my memory.

I've found that by leaving myself those breadcrumbs, I am much more organized and fluid about "executing" on my research, and when anyone asks, I have a good idea of what I know and don't know.