How To Defeat Procrastination

Astronomy / Astrophysics student moodboard.

i feel like math is a witch stuff

Zoozve, my beloved

Daily Writing Challenge

Write 5 sentences for your WIP right now.

Imagine a place where you would like to be and write about what you would do there.

What are your OCs pet peeves?

Write a 10 sentence long short story about the object next to you.

Write a summary for a book you would love to read.

Write down 10 words that describe your MC.

Write a micro story about an unusual love.

Explain your MCs motivation in 3 sentences.

Write a poem about an empty house.

Write a 5 sentence long short story from three different perspectives.

What nicknames does your MC have and who gave them to them?

Write a new piece of lore for your WIP.

Write a micro story about someone saying "thank you".

Write about one your OC's tattoos or someone getting one done.

What do you admire about your MC?

Write the dialogue for a scene that's been on your mind.

Write a road trip scene.

Write about your MCs favourite outfit.

Write about something that you can see from your window.

Write about a normal day in your MC's life.

Write 100 words today. It doesn't matter about what.

Write a funny scene.

Write down everything on your mind for five minutes.

Write about your OC's first meeting.

Write a scene in a grocery store.

Write a micro story about an artist and their muse.

Write an end scene, without the beginning.

Write 10 sentences for your WIP right now.

If you like my blog and want to support me, you can buy me a coffee or become a member! And check out my Instagram! 🥰

Fantasy Sociology (what would it do to agriculture if there was dragons)

Fantasy Psychology (the mental effects of having certain patterns of thoughts that generate fireballs)

Fantasy Biology (what if u had lighting sacks in yr cheeks)

Fantasy Chemistry (these r the elements and what u can do with them)

Fantasy Physics (orbital mechanics and magical floating rocks: a guide)

Fantasy Mathematics (its just normal mathematics)

100 days of productivity | 62/100

First day of spring semester!

I can’t believe past me thought 4 classes in one day would be ok I’m so tired

Cottagecore but make it dark

You’re going to receive GOOD NEWS this week.

My technique for Quick Literature Review

Literature Reviews were one of the most confusing things for me when I began my PhD. I would get lost in searching for papers, wallowing in tangential directions, sometimes looking at entirely unrelated stuff. Other times, I’d be trying so hard to read an article and stuck without moving forward.

From my fair share of struggle with literature reviews, I deviced a technique that helped me do quick literature surveys, especially when I needed to write a proposal or improve half-written manuscript or to understand a new method/theory. So, here you go…

1. Collecting literature: Research Rabbit App🐇

This is my go-to tool for literature discovery. In addition to quickly build a literature collection, it helps to see how all the papers in my collection are connected! This is very essential when you write your LitRev, as you will need to draw connections between different works.

Go to www.researchrabbit.ai and search the topic you need articles for, and add them to a collection.

The app will automatically suggest more papers based on your selections and will make connections between the articles in terms of authors, citations or references!

You can also look for other papers by a certain author or similar papers to the one you choose.

(Make sure to stop when you find yourself going down the Rabbit Hole ;) )

2. Extracting information: Skim & Annotate 📑

Once you finish collecting the literature,

quicky read the abstract and decide which ones are important, relevant or new.

Now and skim the chosen papers, and annotate the most important things you find. I usually go for paper and highlighters, sometimes use the annotator in Mendeley

Optional: categorize the articles and assign a colour for each.

(Don’t spend more than 10 minutes per paper. You can always go back and read the article thoroughly after completing this task)

3. Organizing thoughts: The Sticky Note Method 🗂

Here comes my favourite part. I developed this technique inspired by a lot of tools I found on the internet. The Sticky Note Method is to capture, rearrange and construct thoughts.

From the now annotated, categorized collection, write down the essence of each article in a separate sticky note.

(here is where the colour-coding might come in handy: you can use different coloured sticky notes for different categories.)

After doing this for all the papers, stick them in a board/notebook

Rearrange them till you get a coherent flow!

That’s it. Now start writing your review! ;)

the physics students

as requested by the wonderful @starferns

the chalkboard at the front of the lecture hall, covered in equations and graphs

visualizing a problem in your mind, step by step

cold water with ice cubes and a slice of lemon

diagrams drawn hastily on the corner of your paper, scribbled lines and half formed thoughts

replicating famous experiments and demonstrations

watching youtube videos late at night, picking apart complex theories

having an instinct for force diagrams and direction of motion

rushed, messy handwriting

finding beauty in motion and calculation and precision

seeing the universe as unimaginably small and unimaginably large at the same time

a well-worn grey sweater, frayed a little at the sleeves

equations scribbled on your arm until you know them by heart

studying newton and meitner and plank, all those who went before

talking with your hands, forming the shapes of arcs and trajectories as you work through a problem

long hallways and cold, sunny days

late night study groups

staring up at the sky, knowing exactly why and how the planets move as they do

trying einstein’s thought experiments

an old grandfather clock, pendulum measuring the passage of time

pages filled with calculations and precise strings of digits