Research Diet

"Research diet" is a term from Steven Pressfield's book Do The Work! Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way. (Normally, I would require this book, but this semester I've decided to assign Austin Kleon's Getting Real: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad, instead.) It means limiting the amount of research you do if it distracts you from getting to work. Research is important, but you can get caught up in "preparing to work" and NOT getting to the work. Pressfield calls for putting yourself on a research diet, limiting yourself to three books or resources on your subject, and importantly letting the ideas percolate as you work, i.e. "letting the unconscious do the work."