I want to make something perfectly clear, particularly because it looks like people want to jump and "do research", "collect data", "analyse things" and would rather do any of those rather than read. READING IS WRITING. You NEED to read, to be able to situate your work.

I get tired of having to repeat this ad nauseam. Reading IS writing. You NEED to read. There is no way around it. Skimming all the time instead of actively, deeply reading yields very poor literature reviews, which will get your papers rejected. READ. READ http://www.raulpacheco.org/2018/01/legitimising-reading-as-a-crucial-component-of-academic-writing/

If I am reading an article inside my office, I AM WORKING. I am not relaxing, I am not wasting time, THIS IS PART OF MY JOB. I used to work with consultants who were VERY time-based. They would see me read an article and tell me "which project are you billing your time to?"

I was like "uh, I NEED to read in order to create a literature review from where I can provide a framework for your consultancy project, you dumb-a$$". Those hours you spend meticulously scribbling notes, making sense of how one piece of writing connects with another, RESEARCH.

Would it be nice to be able to just crack my laptop open and have words automagically appear on screen and make sense and connect all the different bodies of literature I need to, and VOILA, produce a paper in 3 days? Hell yeah. I totally would love that. That's not how it works.

Reading IS PART OF YOUR JOB. You don't need to justify that some days, you get to the office, crack a book open, and read for hours. This IS work. Other days, you may get to analyse data. Others, you may get to write full paragraphs. This job is very varied. BUT YOU MUST READ.

Yes, you're not supposed to be re-reading the same thing all the time (that's why you keep some sort of centralised storage and retrieval system, which may include a Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump http://www.raulpacheco.org/2016/06/synthesizing-different-bodies-of-work-in-your-literature-review-the-conceptual-synthesis-excel-dump-technique/) but you DO need to read. </end ranty thread>

ADDENDUM; Reading should NOT be something we do on weekends, evenings, and on our spare time. It's WORK. It should be done during working hours. I worked for a terrible boss who would say "you should be running experiments right now, you can catch up on reading at night".

And we need to stop feeling guilty about reading. I feel the guilt, myself. I have to return an R&R on a topic that isn't water conflicts, but I came across a couple of really key journal articles yesterday, and I have to present a paper on this for a major conference in a month.

Do I feel kind of guilty about reading this and @mariekerothof 's papers today? Yes, of course I do. I'm human and feel the same things you all do. BUT my major grant-funded project IS on water conflicts, and these papers will help me move this project forward. I'm the PI.

So even if I devote 1-2 hours to water conflicts today, I can still work on my other stuff the rest of the day. BUT these are important papers and I must process them. TO NOTE: I'm working on a Saturday because I have several deadlines, not out of actual desire to do so.

Carving time to read: The AIC and Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump combination method https://buff.ly/2DcmR37  even if you don't have the time to deep-read one article a day, you can still do an AIC skim and dump your notes into a CSED row. THEN you can mark said article "TBRMID"

"TBRMID" = "To Be Read More In Detail" :) that's how I note articles I quickly skim using AIC when I realize I must come back to them. </end thread>