How most people research maths:
1. Encountered an or a bunch of interesting problem
2. identify a natural structure in the problem
3. Describe the structure with axioms
4. Prove and derive theorems
5. When the framework is established, generalise or abstract to similar objects
6. Rinse and repeat
How I research maths:
1. Choose a structure or mathematical object
2. Generalise it by discarding axioms
3. Use this new set of axioms to construct a new object
4. Make sure the constructed object exists and nontrivial