People often ask me how I keep up with the literature. Honest answer:

I don& #39;t.

Maybe there are some academics who have time to read every paper that is in their research area. Good for them. I do my best, but I can& #39;t do everything. If you& #39;re like me, know that you& #39;re not alone.

I& #39;ve also found that just admitting this to myself has made a huge difference. It made reading papers fun again rather than just another guilt-inducing exercise where I always felt behind. You can definitely put search engines or a group slack in place to catch the "must read."

And then for everything else, read what you can and let go of the rest. If it& #39;s really important to your research and you& #39;ve somehow missed it, likely it will come up in a conversation with a colleague or as a reference in another paper you read and you can catch it then.