Having Too Many Resources Is a Double-Edged Sword #32
They may make you feel good but not necessarily quality.
Hello everyone! You’re reading the thirty-second issue of The Handwritten.
Shouldn’t I be happy that I have too much reserach material, Rajita? I can write the best piece possible!
You *may* write the best piece possible not because you have too many resources. But only if you know what to pick and what to filter out.
It may seem pretty basic, like “Oh, I already know this.” But we all, at some point, go down the rabbit hole too swiftly. And we don’t even realise this.
The resources you find online to enrich your work are too compelling to say no to. You would always want to add the best to your work. But in doing so, you forget to pull the brakes and stop then and there.
So how do I solve this?
Let’s go easy-peasy and understand this through the analogy of window shopping (where you don’t really always buy the stuff you look at). The only difference we’ll add to the analogy is, that you just need to collect all the things AKA research material first and decide to keep it or not keep it later.
For this, have a Doc, Notion Page, or Google Sheet (basically, anything) ready. So that you can dump all the research material there without thinking much. I would suggest roughly skimming through the research material and checking for its contents first. This would give you an idea if the material has any potential relevance to your work.
While you dump everything in there, try to add why you did it in the first place. This will prevent you from eliminating important resources. This is how I do it.
Next, you can leave the doc for 2-3 hours and purposefully eliminate or keep the resources later. You can follow this criteria.
Eliminate similar/repetitive resources.
Eliminate resources that are good but don’t align with the work you need to craft.
Eliminate those resources which don’t provide you with enough details, for instance, not enough statistical information.
Keep the resources that help you with the structure direction.
Keep the resources that provide you with plenty of information in a single place.
Keep the resources that have something unique and helpful to enrich your craft.
This filtration process not only helps you with the retention or removal of resources but also helps you check what more resources you can add. Collectively, it helps you have a clear structure and direction of your work in place.
Now that you have all the only-refer-to resources, you can write the best piece possible without worrying about missing out on important information. It will reduce your juggle of skipping between resources.
Let me know if it works for you because it always does for me! The more time you distribute to each task, the more calmly you’ll be able to draft and edit your work.
Let’s Discuss Movies
I recently watched 12th Fail starring Vikrant Massey as the lead actor. Its poster was so compelling that I couldn’t stop myself. Although a friend told me that it has been adapted from a book, I still wanted to watch it because of Vikrant Massey.
I feel this movie might go as one of the finest yet underrated movies again. I hope we support more actors like him whose work is so clean and remarkable.
Handwritten note for you <3
Cya on November 16, ‘23
so good Rajita!!