One of the tasks of any large research project is to manage your data.

The data might be numbers, transcripts of interviews, your musings on the works of Plato, a journal of a year in the life of a platypus but it has to be managed. it has to be transformed from a pile to a picture. It has to be sorted and sifted, bits that look alike grouped together other bits moved to another section of the research.

To  group and to classify data involves sorting out the ‘bits’ by the differences and similarities between them. Often identifying finer and more subtle nuances in theses differences and similarities.

When you are at this stage of your research project try taking up jigsaw puzzles.

photo credit: misha.pics.word. It will help!

To do a jigsaw puzzle is to use the same part of your brain that your research needs to classify the data, putting all the bits with blue sky in one pile and all the bits with green trees in another, working out the context by sorting out all the bits with edges and building your frame. Then looking for the subtle differences in the blue bits so you can piece together the cloudy sky.

Build your brain classification muscle, exercise  your brain’s capacity for conceptual distinctions and have fun!

Go get a jigsaw !

photo credit: ♥Sage (crazy busy)