Use your time wisely between conducting user research sessions

Image credit: Etsy MyLamaMoon

Here are 16+ ideas on how to use your time between conducting user research sessions, and during no-shows, wisely.

1. Debrief on the previous session(s) if you haven't already

2. Share a quick update with your stakeholders. Ideas include:
    A. Recap of how many sessions completed 
    B. Remind them about future sessions and how to join them 
    C. Highlight a key quote, observation, or another takeaway 
    D. Update on what you’ve learned about an assumption

3. Create a teaser for your next stakeholder meeting or share out to build interest and excitement

4. Rename your notes, screenshots, recordings, and other study artifacts according to your anonymous participant naming convention

5. Clean up your project file folder. Ideas include:
    A. Remove old drafts and docs
    B. Update your research plan, screener/recruiting criteria, incentive changes, and discussion guide docs to reflect any revisions

6. Populate your teams' incentive processing form (with details on participant sessions completed)

7. Think about creative frameworks for synthesis. Consider new frameworks!

8. Identify emerging themes thus far

9. Do a quick retro activity about the study, or a portion of the project (e.g. the recruiting experience). I love the Atlassian frameworks: 
    A. Start Stop Continue 
    B. Mad Glad Sad
    C. Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For 
    D. Anchors and Sails

10. Upload the previous sessions for transcription and or into your video editing software

11. Take a walk or stretch!

12. Write down your reflections on this project in preparation for your future case study. Consider:
    A. Physical and emotional takeaways
    B. Challenges overcome
    C. Lessons learned
    D. Details about your role and who and how you collaborated with stakeholders

13. Identify past studies and secondary research to triangulate your data

14. Reach out to your customer support team, PM, Eng, designer, etc to find out if they have seen or heard about X feedback and or have any data to substantiate your learnings thus far

15. Jot down the new research questions that are bubbling up

16. Make your lunch! We all know that eating in between sessions is rough if it’s not prepared in advance!

How do you like to spend your found time between user research sessions and during no-shows?