I’ve been reading a lot of research papers lately and by following citations and researchers on Twitter I end up with a lot of papers that I’m interested in reading.
I currently have a pile of papers (about 50) in a queue folder that after I read I place into obsidian and atomize concepts.
How big is your pile and how do you manage it?
My instapaper has 3000 articles in it
Damn, that’s a lot. Do you have a system to read through it all, or do you rely on search?
I have a set of sources either awaiting review or in some stage of processing that is similar in size to yours.
One thing I did was go through the list and create a few outlines capturing links to the sources on specific topics. That way I can decide I want to read about a particular theme and can select high quality sources I’ve queued up from that list.
I only do this occasionally, and many of the sources I process are processed as I come across them. The ones in my queue are of varying lengths but tend to be more complex and require more effort, hence they are often processed incrementally.
Interesting system. I like it! You end up with these outlines that work as some kind of topic group. So when you’re in the mood for processing in some topic area, it’s easy to find the right item in the queue.
i have about the same size queue for papers, but like 100 articles in raindrop, and 130 videos on my youtube watch later playlist, and probably around 40 books on my to-read shelf .___.
Interesting tidbit: After I created those outlines I’ve mostly never really looked at them again nor am I particular about adding new unprocessedsources to existing outlines. So much for it adding value. ¯\_(́ ◡◝ )_/¯ It takes time and aintnobodygottimeforthat.jpg.
My reading inbox is maintained in Obsidian alongside my zettelkasten and has 117 items currently in it. I don’t maintain a list outside of Obsidian anymore. If it is potentially interesting I toss it into the inbox. Some sources I spend a lot of time on, others a little time, some never get touched. Occasionally I go through and prune sources that I never got around to because they are no longer interesting.
Processing of sources typically happens incrementally. Work on source A a little bit, then sometime later on source B, then source C, then back to source A based on interest, etc. Over time the rough notes are grouped together and then spun out (using the Note Refactor plugin) into individual notes capturing the ideas.
with consideration of perdition I tried to prioritize for this 2 years essay/book/video/blog-links in “pocket” with tags: like: "book-list-1 (for high priority) to “book-list-10”. although still I have near-100 book to read in tag “book-list-1” but probably I relieved myself from thinking of another 3000 listed book. importance of list-2 to list-10 is that I can play and think more freely about concept of list-1 and my expectation about it’s content. -and need & capacity of mortal-entity’s life.