I’m currently evaluating different publishing workflows for my academic writing. One option that seems to be increasingly popular is the use of RMarkdown as a source document, from which you then compile into HTML, LaTeX or whatever else you need.
For the code used in the document, RMarkdown not only supports the execution of R, but a whole bunch of languages, including Python, thanks to the knitr package.
One problem I had when I first came across RMarkdown a couple of years ago is that it didn’t really support using virtual environments when using Python.
A couple of days ago I attended a phenomenal workshop on monthly planning hosted by Sebastian Marshall and Kai Zau, the guys behind Ultraworking. In the QA section of the workshop, we talked a bit about tools to help us track what’s going on in our lives so that we can later look at real data when we evaluate and not rely on gutt feelings. I shared a simple process that I currently use to track my sleep but that is so versatile that you can literally track anything with it that fits into a spreadsheet.
Since starting my PhD a just a couple of weeks ago, I already have a reputation amongst my office mates that I’m particularly structured and orderly about my stuff. If that judgement is correct or not I cannot say (I personally don’t find myself that orderly or structured). But I thought it might be interesting to write up the system that probably has had the biggest impact in my earning this reputation: the way I deal with the large number of articles and books that I (we all!