January 12, 2026

My research workflow: tools and tips for productive scholarship

Over the years, I have refined my research workflow to balance deep focus work with the many responsibilities of academic life. Here I share the tools and habits that have worked well for me, hoping they might be useful to other researchers, especially those early in their careers.

I use Semantic Scholar alerts and a curated Twitter list to stay on top of new papers. For papers I plan to read in depth, I add them to Zotero and annotate directly in the PDF. I try to read at least two new papers per week outside my immediate subfield to maintain breadth.

All our papers are written in LaTeX using Overleaf, which makes real-time collaboration easy. I write early and often. Even for projects in early stages, I maintain a living document with the current state of experiments, key findings, and open questions. This serves as both documentation and a head start on the eventual paper.