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Note-taking method

Best Linking Your Thinking for Designers

Build a networked thought system through deliberate link-making. For designers, the working week is scattered moodboards, design critiques, and research that never gets referenced again. The rest of this page is the method, cut for that week.

By tentus team · Updated 2026-09-20

What Linking Your Thinking actually asks of you

Make the link while the connection is hot — thinking happens in the linking, not in later reorganization.

A home note acts as launchpad, and pockets of related notes get pulled up by the task in front of you, not by category. The test of a good session is that you left a trail you'd want to walk again.

How designers put it to work

  1. 1

    Critique with its context

    Feedback lands captured next to the frame it refers to — including the feedback that contradicted last week's. Design rationale lives in the record, not in the designer's memory of the meeting.

  2. 2

    A pattern shelf, not a moodboard pile

    Inspiration is stored by the problem it solved — empty states, pricing pages, onboarding — so the shelf answers a brief, not just a vibe. Sources stay attached for when the client asks where it came from.

  3. 3

    The dropped-direction log

    When a direction dies, the reason is captured next to the work. Six months later, when someone suggests the same direction, the link answers before the meeting does.

The capture habit, the linking, and the retrieval are the parts tentus automates — linking your thinking without the daily upkeep.

Try it with tentus

tentus makes Linking Your Thinking practical for designers. Capture, link, and retrieve without the busywork.

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