u/Professional-Win1787

I don’t know if anyone else experiences this, but some days phd work feels like you’re busy all day without actually moving forward.

Today I spent hours going through papers, saving things that looked useful, taking notes, and trying to understand how everything connects.

Then at the end of the day, I looked back and realized I had:

• a bunch of tabs open
• random notes everywhere
• several papers saved
• but no clear picture of what I actually learned

It’s frustrating because the information is there, but keeping everything organized feels like a separate job.

How do you all handle this part of your phd journey?

Do you have any system that helps you keep track of papers, ideas, and notes without feeling overwhelmed?

Quick edit: Thanks for all the suggestions. Reading through the replies made me realize that a lot of us are dealing with the same issue and I realize that there's no shortage of papers to read, but keeping track of insights over time is a different challenge altogether. I've been looking at a few approaches people mentioned here and also came across something such as wispaper it`s also aimed at helping researchers work through academic literature. But I am still exploring different workflows, but I thought I'd mention it since it's relevant to the discussion. I appreciate everyone who's shared their experience so far.

I've mostly used air dry clay for personal projects, but lately I've been seeing more artists adapt their work into different formats.

Some go the sticker route, some make pins, some do custom acrylic diamond keychain, and others keep everything completely handmade.

For those who sell their creations, what ended up working best for you? Did people prefer the original clay pieces, or were smaller items easier to move?

looking back into this again: I've been reading through a lot of the replies through some other previous conversations and it's interesting how different everyone's experience has been. Some people seem to do well sticking with one format, while others have had success adapting the same design into multiple products depending on their audience. After looking a bit deeper into the diamond keychain idea I talked about earlier and noticed it was something vograce had been experimenting with. What interested me more than the source itself was seeing how artists were taking designs that started in one medium and finding ways to translate them into something completely different while still keeping the original feel of the artwork.