I have made loads of notes on books and articles that I now consider irrelevant or off-topic to the way I see this research going. Is it still worth using them to form a small part of the literature review or would that just be a tangent? I am wondering whether to just file them away incase they ever come in handy again (I don't see that happening right now though), or just get rid?

I think I would just file them incase I ever needed them in the future - no point throwing away work until you are sure you will never use it?

NEVER throw anything away! Lost track of the number of times I've had to come back to something I thought was totally irrelevant, but turned out to be very important later on.

Keep everything, but make sure you have note of the note, if you see what I mean. I've got stuff filed away that I used ages ago, but some of it I've forgotten about until I've been searching for something else- or occasionally I've come across the article again and printed out another copy .

I have two filing cabinet drawers for this purpose -one for photocopies/PDFs filed by surname and then one for synthesis documents (I write a mini essay on what I have read)/rough notes also filed under surname. I then use my endnote to know where I am up to. You can attach word documents and PDF to the endnot reference s I always have a copy linked to the reference and a hard copy printed out with extra handwritten notes on. I find this invaluable as sometimes only a small section of an article is relevent but I always know I have the information somewhere!! I worked in admin for two years so had organisation instilled in me!