I like to keep a "notebook" of research ideas that I come up with so
that when those all-too-frequent dryspells in research occur, I can go
back and look at my list of ideas for inspiration. Long ago I kept these
in a notebook, then I switched to a computer file, then to a web page.
Recently, though, I discovered a nice way to use gmail for this, and I
really like it.
Here's what I do:
1. Set up a "label" in gmail for your ideas, e.g. "My Research".
2. Set up a "filter" in gmail so that emails sent to (your email address, not mine :-)
your.email+MyResearch@gmail.com
automatically get labeled as "My Research". (By the way, if you've
never seen this "+" feature of gmail, take a look at this link).
3. Finally, set up a new contact named "My Research" that points to the email address your.email+MyResearch@gmail.com.
Then you can just open up a "compose" window and send email to "My Research" in order to enter a new research idea. If you wish to come back and add more to this idea in the future, you can "Reply" to the original message, and the conversation archive will keep track of you entries. You also now have the nice, quick search features, so you can find all messages with the words "economic growth" very quickly, etc.