"If I can do it, it's trivial: Once you have seen the solution to a problem it appears trivial. Then it is tempting to say `that's too easy, I'll try something else'. This is a non-terminating loop! Your solution won't be trivial to other people (probably it will be wrong or over-complex) and should anyway be used as a basis for further work. Motto: do the easiest thing first, then stand on the shoulders of these achievements and do the next easiest thing, etc. - a better infinite loop."<p>This is good advice for life in general, not just for researching.
One thing a friend of mind did during their PhD which he said was very useful was to <i>always</i> have his thesis. Every month he took a few days and wrote up his current state of mind and conclusions were. So over a period of years he went from rough outline to final thesis without ever having that 'OMG got to write everything up' moment. It also have him a lot of practice writing. Yeah — he ended up throwing away and backtracking a few times — but he was <i>so</i> chilled compared to his peers when it got to the end of his doctorate.<p>(and by curious coincidence one of the authors of this piece, Ben du Boulay used to be my boss many moons ago ;-)
Submission note: this submission was inspired by another recent post, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8399587" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8399587</a> and is on a similar theme, though again mainly focussed on AI research.<p>A PDF version is also available (linked below), but I thought it'd be best to submit the original HTML version for mobile readers, and those who prefer not to use PDFs.<p><a href="http://www.cs.duke.edu/~chase/cps300/resbible.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.duke.edu/~chase/cps300/resbible.pdf</a>
Forget to add "already been done" or "too trivial a problem" after "2.1 Solving the world". The secret to being a PhD is enough knowledge of the field to choose the "right size problem" to churn another paper in six months, a degree in four years, and tenure in seven years.<p>There are fields outside my own where I have significant book knowledge. But I dont know enough about the research frontier to choose the right size problem.