Researching

The next section in my How-To book is all about the researching. I'm guessing researching is a lot like brainstorming in the sense that it's really a "to each their own" kind of thing, but the ideas in the book were interesting. Once you've figured out what kind of story you're going to write (after the brainstorming), there will inevitably be some things you need to research. If you are writing a story based on a certain time period, you will need to know the clothing styles, customs and the basic day-to-day life in that period. Depending on where your story takes place, you would need to know such things as climate, diet and regional information about said place. What about your character's occupation? You may need to research a little more than a few ER episodes if your character is a doctor or a nurse. This is all pretty basic information that most writers would have thought of.
According to the How-To book you should have most of your research done before attempting to write your novel because within the research your story will develop. That's not to say that researching isn't going to go on a long ways into the book.
My issue at this is point is; by reading this book I technically am researching. But I don't already have an idea in my head for a specific novel to correspond this information with. Then I think I should start to plan my novel, but I don't want to do so and bypass important information I'll acquire from the book. It's kind of a catch 22.
Regardless of the setbacks and confusion, I plug on...