Mapping your research

Prefer watching a video over reading an article? Check out our video tutorial:

1. It lets you quickly gather everything that seems interesting and easily sort it out to organize later. It serves as an overview of all your information and thoughts.
   
   
2. It holds your map. Everything that's on the whiteboard, becomes a search query that Contextminds uses automatically to show you more search results and suggestions.
   
   
3. It holds you prompt. The map also becomes the prompt for GPT, so you can generate content or outlines from it with one click.
   

So how do build your map on the whiteboard? First, make sure you know how to research and gather the results on the whiteboard. Now, let's look at adding custom items that help you organize the research results and connect them with your own thoughts.

Apart from adding items from the search sidebar, as results of your research,  you can add the same type of items (topics, keywords, questions, headings and content styles) from the item toolbar. That's useful when you know exactly what to add.

To add an item from the toolbar, drag and drop it to the whiteboard.

Once you drag the item, you'll be prompted to name it. Enter a name and hit ENTER or click anywhere on the whiteboard.

Pro tip: double-click on the whiteboard where you want to add an item, then select the item type from the drop-down menu. It's faster than drag and drop!

Grouping items into lists is a great first step to organizing them. Add a new Frame from the item toolbar and enter the name of your list as its label. For example, "focus keywords", "articles to reference" or "further reading." 

Finally, drag and drop the items into the frame to add them to your list. Reorder the items as needed by drag-dropping them again within the frame.

As your map gets bigger and more complex, it's useful to add links between items to represent their relationship to each other and to remember your train of thought later on.

To add a link, hover over the first item. Small arrows will appear above and under it. Drag either of them to another item to create a link.

Hover over the central part of a link and click the small circle to add a label to the link. Use a label that explains the relationship between the items.

Resize items in order to make the important ones larger and less important smaller. That will make your map easier to read.

To resize an item, drag its bottom-right corner.

Notes are useful for adding more detailed information to your map. Because they're not part of the map, they do not influence search results or GPT-generated text.

There are two types of notes.

To add a sticky note, drag it from the item toolbar, jot down what you need to remember and hit ENTER or click outside on the whiteboard. Sticky notes have a yellow background with smaller text.

Click on an item and select Add note. In the note sidebar on the right, write down your note and save it with the "send" button. The note will remain attached to the item and will be visible whenever you select that item.

Here is how to orchestrate all the features to create your perfect map:

1. Place items you gather during research on the whiteboard. Put closely related items close to each other, but don't overthink it at this point.
   
   
2. If you get an idea on your own or from your client, add custom items from the item toolbar. Again, place them close to other related items.
   
   
3. If you need to add a longer explanation, add it as a note attached to an item.
   
   
4. Once you've gathered everything, start reorganizing by dragging & dropping the items on your map. Identify groups of items and place them into lists inside frames.
   
   
5. If needed, draw links between items to represent how they're related.
   
   
6. Resize items to emphasize the important ones.

👉 Next tutorial: Use your map as a search query