1. Getting ideas.

You probably have at least a few dozen good ideas for an investigative project each year. One or two ideas is all you need. To make sure you're not missing the most obvious ones, keep a pop-up file. Mark file folders 1-31, and Jan.-Dec. If the county sheriff says results from evidence tests are due back in three months, you'll remember to ask him what happened when he doesn't mention them and everyone else has forgotten them. It also will help you keep on top of your daily beat.

2. Research.

Cover a lot of ground early. I like to make a list of everyone who could possibly help me and start calling and visiting them. This is the time before you've narrowed your focus - and maybe before you've presented the idea to your editor. Now is when I'm looking for that punch-in-the-stomach fact that will sell the project.

3. Reporting.

With daily interruptions, keeping your train of thought may be your biggest challenge. Here are a few tricks I use:

• Try making a list of what you've done each day, as well as what you need to do next. That helps you stay focused and see holes sooner. (You can also hand one to an editor who wants an update.)
• If it works for you, make a timeline of events. If the mayor says she didn't know about the unavoidable tax increase before the election, you can ask why she had a special meeting with the finance director four months earlier.
• Along the same lines, a players' tree will help keep straight who's related to whom. Did the investigator go to the police academy with the cop being investigated?
• Keeping a list of sources you've called, their title and phone number saves a lot of time digging through old notes.
• Type your best notes and quotes into a file to find them easily. I also draw columns onto a legal paper and fill them with one- or two-word descriptions of the quotes or points I think I'll use. It helps me remember all the points I need to include, and who made them.
• Keep updated budget lines of your project in the system where others can see them. You never know when the society columnist's neighbor may have mentioned something in passing that just might break the whole thing open...
  

4. Miscellaneous.

Here are some good sources of information:
The oldest person in your newsroom, the Encyclopedia of Associations, Chase's Calendar of Annual Events, your state blue book.