Another review of my project

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How I prioritised tasks, strengths and weaknesses I am facing, and how I will manage my time as I continue my project.

   Firstly, I have found that I have settled into this method of planning very smoothly and it is making my research much more time effective as I don't have to spend excess time deciding on a new point of research every time I begin a post. As I already have access to a short list of the most important points of research for the coming month or so, I simply have to refer to that to immediately get an idea of what to research. So by creating a list of things I am interested in researching during every review of my project, I am in the flow of understanding where I want to progress so can choose ideas more quickly.

   Since March 14th 2020, I have changed my path a little from my short-term plan but I have still stuck to 4 out of 5 of the goals I set out to achieve by April 30th. The reason being that I had thought about my main weakness which is the evaluation of my sources and made the decision to focus on improving myself on that front in exchange for aiming to only complete 4 blog posts instead of 5. I added a new column to my source evaluation document to explain how useful the sources are and how I can link the source to my past or future research. I am approximately 3/4 of the way through catching up on my evaluation and having all my sources up to date with more detail. Although I know that this has taken a lot of time and hard work to catch up on, due to it being on a separate document, I often get disappointed as I see my blog and wish I had progressed further and it looks like much less work than I have actually completed. 

   Despite my self-critical attitude on the quantity of blog posts I have completed, I can recognise that a strength of mine is the depth and quality of my blog posts. For example, a single blog post can have up to 3 or 4 sources as I get so invested in my research that I don't want to leave anything out. However, a few obstacles I have had to face since my last review include my inordinate amount of procrastination and incessant ability to be so easily distracted. It doesn't help that being off school due to quarantine has meant that I am working from home on my project so it is easy for me to get distracted by something or other. 

Comparing my goals to what I achieved

Goals that I set:

Blog posts to complete chronologically include:
  • Reasons for cancelling primary research idea.
  • How false memories are formed.
  • The two main paradigms of false memories.
  • Most recent scientific breakthroughs or explanations on false memories.
  • Can people prevent or reduce the production of false memories and if so, should they?
All to be completed by 30/04/2020

Comments:


  • I aimed to complete these posts by 30/04/2020 but it is now 23/04/2020 and I have finished all but the bottom bullet point as I would rather spend the rest of this month doing source evaluation.
  • I decided that the final post 'Can people prevent or reduce the production of false memories and if so, should they?' was the piece of research I wouldn't do. As I am building research and getting closer to thinking about my dissertation, I cannot imagine where I would make this information useful so I need to prioritise more useful tasks.
  • I'm relieved I finally made a very straight forward post on how false memories are formed because I realised I had never explicitly made it clear and I beat around the bush a lot. This post was very necessary for my research so that for my final dissertation and presentation I can incorporate the information so that I can make the concept of false memories very clear.
  • I feel like I set realistic goals quantity wise which didn't stress or rush me to get things done with less care but also didn't allow me to slack off or waste productive time.

New plans going forward

Long term plan:
May: Continue research (No need to take a break in research anymore as exams are cancelled).
June/July: Finalise research.
August/September/October: Work on and complete first draft of dissertation. 
November: Complete final product.
December: Prepare and complete presentation.


Short term plan:

Blog posts to complete chronologically include:
  • The case of George Franklin.
  • The case of Paul Ingram.
Both to be completed by 31/05/2020
Additionally, complete all source evaluation to ensure the document is up to date.

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