All of us have points in our lives where we have to decide whether we

should continue down our current path or change to another.

As a researcher, I often face a constrained

version of this problem: should I continue on my current research path

or change to another? For a long time I wasn't aware that I was being faced

with such decisions; and, when I did become aware, I wasn't sure how best to

make a decision. Over time I've realised that a simple "stick or twist?"

heuristic mostly works well for me. I don’t claim that anything in this article is

novel, nor do I think I'm describing an approach that’s applicable to every

situation - but it might provide some useful food for thought.