Doing Research with NoteDex

I had a stack of PDFs, a browser with forty-seven tabs, and a Notion page that just kept growing. None of it was wrong, but it felt like all of it was useless. I was 'researching' — but I wasn't learning anything.

Then I switched to one index card per source. One idea per card. And suddenly the project had a shape. The mind map wasn't a deliverable I built at the end. It was the act of thinking.

Here's the workflow I landed on. It's not fancy. It doesn't need a stylus, a reMarkable, or a special app. It needs cards, a flat surface, and the willingness to write slower than you'd like.

One card per source is the constraint

The hardest part of research isn't finding sources. It's holding them in your head long enough to compare them.

I tried the highlight-and-revisit approach. It didn't work. Highlighting feels like progress, but it isn't. Highlighting is a delay, not a decision.

So I changed the unit. One card = one source. The source's name, the URL, and one sentence I learned from it. Not a quote — a sentence. My sentence.

When the sentence takes ten seconds to write, I know I haven't understood the source yet. When it takes ten seconds to write, I do.

The card is the constraint. The card is also the test.

Drag the cards onto a surface and look for shape

Once I had a stack of cards, I'd lay them out on the desk. Not in a notebook. On the desk. Spatially.

Then I'd start moving them around. This one fits next to that one. These three contradict each other. This one is the spine — everything else hangs off it.

Two things happened. First, I could see the argument forming before I had written it. Second, the gaps were obvious. The places where I had four cards saying the same thing from different angles — and the place where I had no card at all.

That empty space is the next move. That's what you actually need to research next.

Annotate as you go, but only the cards that earn it

Not every card gets a comment. Most don't. The ones that earn it are the ones where I disagreed with the source, or where the source surprised me, or where I caught myself making an assumption.

I write the disagreement on the back of the card. The surprise on the back of the card. The assumption on the back of the card. That way, when I'm laying the cards out, I'm not just sorting information — I'm sorting my own reactions to it.

After a few weeks of this, the back of my cards is more useful than the front.

Open the web, the PDF, and the podcast in the same project

A research project doesn't live in one format. There's the article I read in the browser. The PDF I downloaded. The podcast I listened to on the walk. The YouTube interview I queued up for later.

All of them go into the same card pile. Each one gets its own card. The format doesn't matter — what matters is the idea, written as my sentence.

This is the part I underestimated. The mind map didn't form because I had great sources. It formed because I had heterogeneous sources. A podcast said something that contradicted a paper. A YouTube interview reframed a blog post. The contradiction was the insight.

Heterogeneity is not a side effect of research. It's the engine.

Click back to the source when you need the details

The card is not the source. The card is the doorway. When I'm writing the actual project, I click back to the source — the URL on the card, the PDF title, the timestamp — and reread the bit I cared about.

This is why cards have a front and a back. The front is my sentence. The back is the source pointer. The card itself is the smallest possible unit of 'I understood this thing, and here's how to get back to it.'

Without the back, the card is a quote. With the back, the card is an index entry.

The mind map is a side effect, not a deliverable

I used to think the mind map was the goal. I'd build one at the end of a project and feel accomplished. Then I'd never look at it again.

Now I don't build mind maps. I lay cards out on a surface, and a mind map shows up. If it shows up, I take a photo. If it doesn't show up, the project isn't done yet.

The deliverable is the project. The mind map is the proof that I understood the project.

What this looks like with NoteDex

NoteDex is built for this. One card = one idea. Drag cards onto a canvas to see the shape. Click back to the source from the card. Add your reactions, your disagreements, your surprises — on the card, not in a separate notebook.

I keep a stack called 'Research in progress.' When I open a PDF, the first thing I do is make a card for it. The card lives in the stack until the project is done. Then the stack either becomes a project page — or it gets archived.

The hard part isn't the tool. The hard part is letting one card be one idea, when every other note-taking app is begging you to put five ideas in one note. NoteDex makes the right thing easy. That's all I ever wanted from a research app.