Anyone seriously interested in this line of enquiry might find my summary of "Getting What You Came For," one of the most popular "getting a PhD" guides, interesting: <a href="http://peterc.org/pedia/getting-what-you-came-for/" rel="nofollow">http://peterc.org/pedia/getting-what-you-came-for/</a>
I've always found that "Networking on the Network" (<a href="http://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/Research/Advice/network.html" rel="nofollow">http://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/Research/Advice/network.html</a>) is just a great guide that deep dives into many aspects of success in the research. The paper contains a lot more steak than the linked blog post.
another very important point in your graduate studies is to get regular feedback on your draft thesis and research, all to often have i heard of the stories where a prof would finally take the time to review the work properly and the feedback to the student would be that they did something incorrectly which invalidates months sometimes years of research!!!!