Why I Read One Journal Article A Day

A journey of overcoming low motivation

I kept it a secret for far too long — I’m a graduate student who has survived far too long in academia for someone who … doesn’t quite read journal articles.

It’s finally caught up to me, and I must start reading more regularly to really get into the depth of my field. I’ve come to this conclusion multiple times, gotten overwhelmed, and then avoided these distressing feelings by refreshing my email, waiting for the next task.

This year, however, things have really changed. I started small, by reading one journal article a day. Even with such a small step, something carried day in, day out, has been super beneficial.

The foot in the door tactic works!

After reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, I was intrigued by the idea that the biggest change actually comes into existence when you change a small thing, repeatedly.

He reviews how rigorous exercise regimes are unsustainable and change rarely sustains itself, yet implementing a small change such as having individuals track their food intake snowballed into larger changes in diet and exercise.

The same goes for reading, as I’ve learned. Rather than committing to a too-large goal, I kept doing one small task daily. Though I usually read one article per day, some days, I fall into a rabbit hole and start discovering, or at least adding other similar articles to my database.

Learning to evaluate and prioritize research

Part of the overwhelming aspect of journal articles is that they can be somewhere between 5 pages of dense jargon to up to 20 pages of an in-depth review of a subject matter. Neither of those numbers is friendly to someone who already is afraid of reading.

In setting my goal of reading daily and carrying it out, I committed to reading at least one journal abstract a day. This sounds like skirting around the matter, but was actually crucial for the success of this habit, and helped me develop the important skill of evaluating and prioritizing research.

The abstract of an article is the point of entry where you evaluate whether something is worth further evaluating. Some days you’ll click into a piece because of the title but realize the design or results for the experiment aren’t really that riveting. Yes, there’s academic clickbait too.

Yet other days, solely reading the first sentence of an abstract will get you pumping your fists through the air, aghast that no one has recommended this precise piece to you yet.

Starting small has not only helped me build momentum but also build efficient skills to determine what is valuable within a context.

Don’t read to recall, read to recognize

Part of being daunted by the world of journal articles is meeting senior academics who recite the exact year of publication, authors’ names, journal when recalling a particular study.

They are from an era where they physically received these journal articles in print. We are from an era where everything can be searched up in a blink of an eye. We each have different strengths.

Instead of reading to memorize the exact details of the study, I read to familiarize myself with the field. Little tidbits that intrigued me as well as overall patterns across certain research themes within the field will emerge when you read across multiple pieces — and neither requires you to precisely remember the paradigm.

Therefore, I read not to recall the exact details, but to be able to recognize just enough that if I need to refer to something again, I can pull it up from my database and reread it.

You didn’t ask but here’s my analogy: It’s like walking through a grocery store a million times because of other routine buys. One day you need Panko crumbs and although you don’t know exactly where they are on the shelf, you know the general area, from having brushed past the section numerous times on your other excursions. When I think of a journal article that I need to retrieve for a refresher, I quite literally imagine a Panko crumb box. I don’t know why. This is a tangent.

You’re building a mental mind map of concepts, patterns and papers to be aware of.

In routine, there is growth

Most importantly, graduate school and academia are long-distance runs. I have tried too many times to batch read too many articles at the same time and never truly have the time to have those ideas percolate.

For me, reading a daily article every morning became a routine. When I turn on my laptop, my journal article manager opens automatically.

Some days, it gets me right into the mode of reading and then tackling other tasks, because I’m already started and thinking about different projects from a new lens.

On days where I genuinely need a mental health break and everything is too much, I can bank on tiny steps done, day in, day out on building the foundation I need, bridging over the days where I truly need a break.

Conclusions

I never thought I’d be that person who stuck so rigidly to routines. Instead, I realize that I choose to stick with these routines because of how far they get me,

• whether in allowing automated habits to triumph over waiting for motivation, in
• learning how to prioritize efficiently for true value, and
• to build a system that manages information so that I’m not doing something that a computer can do, infinitely better.

What about you? What are your tactics for ensuring that the prep work you need to complete for a job is done ahead of time?

Lucy (The Eggcademic) [she/her] will continue experimenting with tracking different habits and routines… and trying out life hacks! Let her know somehow (bat signal?) if you have any suggestions on what to try!