TH+ Green Room: My process for finding links, falling down esoteric rabbit holes, and generally getting inspired on the internet and beyond

I love how often I get to connect with Twelfth House readers and listeners on the internet. Seriously, I can’t describe how cool it is to find out someone who you’ve never met in real life is paying attention to the work you create on your little typey typey screen. It’s such a dream.

I get two questions from my internet friends a lot:

1. How do you make time for all of your ridiculous projects?

2. Where do you find this shit?¹

And the answer is kind of the same thing — research! So, here's my process for researching, finding links, falling down esoteric rabbit holes, and generally getting inspired — both on the internet and beyond.

The Two Faces of Research

I break my research into two distinct categories, like a Miley and Hannah Montana situation:

Passive Research

This is when I'm just existing in the world and bam! something interesting catches my attention. I wasn't looking for it, but there it is, beckoning me down a new path of curiosity like some kind of informational siren song. When this happens, I either:

• Save it immediately to my Notion Inbox or Are.na for later (where it joins hundreds of other fascinating tidbits in my digital hoarding collection)

• Dive in right away if I have the time and mental bandwidth

Active Research

This is intentional information-seeking with a purpose. I like to make tasks for myself on my to-do list while I’m planning a project that include specifics about research, like “Spend 40 minutes researching,” otherwise I would just spend 149 hours doing research deep dives and I’d truly never get anything done.

When I’m in Active Research mode, I'm hunting for specific knowledge for:

• A course I'm teaching

• An article I'm writing

• A project I'm developing

• A client deliverable

• A project plan I'm drafting

Interestingly, I rarely find myself saying, "Hmmmmm I should start a project — but what should it be????" Instead, my backlog of ideas is usually informed by all that passive research I've been doing. The ideas rarely arrive when I’m explicitly seeking them out, and usually land on me at inconvenient times, like when I'm in the shower, taking the train with my toddler, or while my hands are covered in slip at the pottery studio.

Passive Research Powers Everything Else

I find that I mostly do passive research, which greatly helps my active research. Allowing myself to sort of wander aimlessly about in passive research mode gives me a lot of non-linear inspiration for current or future projects. Using tools like Notion and Are.na to store what I find interesting so I can return to it when I’m ready for it creates so many synaptic connections for me and I think ultimately leads to a more interesting, unpredictable outcomes for my ideas.

For example, I'm currently working on a microsite project called HOW TO WATCH DANCE. The goal is to make it less intimidating for non-dancers to watch and enjoy dance performances without that "am I supposed to understand what that leotard-clad person is communicating with their arm flailing?" anxiety.

When the idea first hit me, I didn't immediately dive into planning or formal research. Instead, I created a project placeholder and began passively collecting resources in an Are.na board, like a digital magpie gathering shiny objects. I’ve been passively researching for the last week, and some of the things I’ve added included:

• Guides on how to look at art

• Resources for teaching kids about art appreciation

• Examples of elegant, simple microsites

• Design inspiration for fonts and aesthetics

• Non-traditional syllabi examples (because nothing says "fun project" like academic formatting!)

This passive collection has given me so much material that I probably don't need too much additional research to fulfill the basic concept. But because I love the idea, I'll continue actively researching to enrich it further, like adding sprinkles to an already frosted cake. Self-restraint? I don't know her.

Research Triggers & Workflows (Or: How I Justify My Internet Habits)

There are basically three reasons I’m doing research: