I am almost at the end of my first year and trying to think about what I can do to improve organising myself and this PhD! Does anyone use for example blogs to help them see at the end of each week what they have achieved? Any helpful tips on how you organise your reserach would be welcome.

hi!here's some of the things I found useful - first of all, writing regularly and producing something for the monthly supervision meeting-I am lucky to have a great supervisor and so this way I can make myself accountable to her and myself at the same time, if that makes sense. In terms of some other "tricks"-endnote was of enormous help to organize my reading,and del.icio.us and citeulike [social bookmarking] helped me make sense of the various web resources that I was encountering on my way.

another thing I recommend greatly is the mindmapping software - you can get it free at http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page, I am using it now to make sense of my fieldwork-it's been invaluable in helping me coordinate getting 40 interviews done within three months at three different locations.and finally,recently I found this - http://www.completeyourdissertation.com/blog/ there's plenty of great resources there.hope that helps,good luck!

Many Thanks AnnieG, I use Endnote in a very basic way, still learning about its application and potential. The web references I will definitely look up.

Excellent advice AnnieG. I do the same. I also keep a diary of any idea -related to my research of course- that come to my mind, what I do and what I intend to do. I update my bibliography regularly and index all photocopies/ articles in separate thematic folders.

What a great idea for a thread! It's nice to see something productive. I will explore those websites too.

In terms of keeping written records, do you find it easier to have separate books for different aspects of your work (i.e lab book, day-to-day To Do lists, computer work/analysis, notes on journals, notes from seminars, general ideas, notes from supervisory meeting etc)? - continued below...

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I have already had bad experiences with recording everything in a general lab book in the past (it makes going back to decipher things horribly difficult) but managing multiple books seems equally daunting. One other thing which is hard for records it that it's difficult to see clearly what aspect of some work will pan out to be useful and relevant in the future, but writing everything is almost as useless as writing too little. I think this will be particularly relevant in the early stages of a PhD.

I guess everyone will have to find a system to suit themselves but if there are any good tips on this let us know :)

I keep all the records of the papers i read, but not well organized, using endnote is a good way, thank you for your suggestion

I keep a blog summarising/reviewing the articles I read. I doubt anyone reads it, but that's not the point - the point is that I know I'm not disciplined enough to take adequate notes, I'd scribble some things down and think "I'll know what I mean". This way, I have to really understand the article as the very fact that my comments are public force me to put my thoughts coherently. Works for me. Just about to try that mindmapping software though, looks good.

In EndNote, add the "Record Number" column to the main view so it shows how it has numbered your references. Then write that number on the top right hand corner of your paper and file all your papers in number order, so you can find papers very quickly.

This avoids having to constantly reorganise your filing system into alphabetical order, or topic order or some complicated combination of the 2. Much simpler by number order.

The mind mapping software is an excellent way of organising the chapters of your thesis. It also works for writing papers.

For organising tasks, I use GanttProject which is free online. It's a project management software so good for organising your time and your to do list.

Try Idea Rover 2.10 software http://www.idearover.com
The program outline-structures your ideas and sources.