What is ThinkTray?
ThinkTray is a tool for thinking with cards and arrows. Select a .tt.svg file in the tree to open it.
Write a keyword on a card, then draw an arrow to connect it. That’s all there is to it.
ThinkTray supports two broad approaches to thinking.
- Think freely — Scatter keywords onto cards and explore connections with arrows (KJ method, mind mapping, model-based thinking, and more)
- Think in frameworks — Visualize established frameworks like PDCA, SWOT, or 2-Axis Analysis
Whether you’re filling in a framework or letting your ideas roam freely, the toolset is the same: place cards, draw lines.
The idea is to make model-based thinking — visualizing and reasoning about relationships between concepts — as accessible as possible. It’s also inspired by category theory in mathematics, with its world of “objects and morphisms.”
If text files are tools for “writing and organizing,” ThinkTray is a tool for “arranging and thinking.”
Five tools
Switch between tools using the toolbar buttons on the left, or with keyboard shortcuts.
| Tool | Key | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 🖱️ Select | V | Select cards or lines; rubber-band to select multiple |
| 🤚 Pan | H | Drag to scroll the canvas |
| 🔲 Card | R | Click on empty space to add a card |
| ↘️ Line | L | Click on empty space or drag from a card to add an arrow |
| 🪟 Table | — | Drag across empty space to add a table (table card) |
Regardless of which tool is active, you can always click any existing card or line to select it.
Place cards, draw lines
ThinkTray’s workflow comes down to two essential actions.
Place a card — Take a keyword or thought from your head and give it a physical form, one card at a time.
Draw a line — Declare “there is a relationship between these two cards” by connecting them.
Open the demo from the tree. You’ll see cards and lines already laid out.
Why does this count as “thinking”?
When you think inside your head, ideas drift like fog — hard to grasp.
Writing an idea on a card makes it a fixed, concrete object. Drawing a line makes the fact “A and B are related” visible.
When you try to draw a line and hesitate — “wait, which direction should this arrow go?” — that moment of hesitation is thinking. The line you draw is analysis.
ThinkTray is the place where you work through that hesitation with your hands.
Don’t try to organize from the start
First, scatter keywords onto cards as they come to you. Rearrange them later, form groups, draw lines. This order is the natural flow of card-based thinking.
This act of “placing cards and drawing lines” is the core shared by many card-based thinking methods: KJ method, mind mapping, Zettelkasten, and more.
Thinking in tables (table cards)
Alongside placing cards freely, you can also lay out a row-by-column table first and fill it in afterward — a table card. Pick the 🪟 Table tool in the toolbar and drag across empty space to place one.
- The outer frame and grid lines can be resized, added, removed, split, and merged after the fact
- Regular cards can be placed anywhere inside the frame, at any size — they don’t need to respect cell boundaries
- Setting up the framework in advance, rather than placing cards freely, makes it easier to compare and categorize items against each other
This is a good fit for frameworks that already have a fixed shape, or for adding lanes to a flowchart.
Table cards are also used in “Mandala Chart,” which breaks one goal down across 9 squares, and “4P Analysis,” which lines up two analyses to cross-check each other.
Embedding SVG
You can paste icon or shape assets in SVG format from the web into your diagram.
Copy SVG code to your clipboard, then right-click on empty space and choose ”📋 Paste SVG,” or press Ctrl+V (Mac: ⌘V).
Pasted SVGs can be moved, deleted, and duplicated just like cards. Double-click to add a text label. Because they’re vector graphics, they stay sharp at any zoom level.
TextTree doesn’t ship with any icon assets of its own, but pairing it with a free SVG icon site makes it easy to bring icons into your diagrams. See the Related Apps, Sites & Books page for a few examples.
Creating a file
Right-click a folder in the tree → New File → give the file a name ending in .tt.svg, such as notes.tt.svg, and it will open in ThinkTray.
First steps
- Card tool (
R) → click empty space → add a card. Double-click to type text. - Line tool (
L) → drag from a card → add an arrow. Release over another card to connect them.
For other operations, check the ? (Help) button in the top-right of the editor. Changes are saved automatically.
Don’t finish your analysis in one sitting
Thinking rarely wraps up in a single pass. Coming back to a diagram after a few days often reveals connections you missed the first time, or makes you want to add something new. ThinkTray is built with that kind of revisiting in mind.
Duplicate to explore a different angle
When you want to try the same theme from a different perspective, right-click the file in the tree → Duplicate to create a new version while keeping the original intact.
Add to it over several sessions
Rather than trying to finish everything in one sitting, it also works well to add a little at a time, whenever an idea occurs to you. The demo’s “How to Use ThinkTray” folder has three versions of the same theme, built up in stages.
| File | What it adds |
|---|---|
| How to Use ThinkTray | The first pass: just the relationship between “Me,” “TextTree,” and “TextTree User” |
| How to Use ThinkTray 2 | A layer deeper — the stakeholders around that core relationship (requests, motivation, and more) |
| How to Use ThinkTray 3 | Adds the channels people spread the word through (blog posts, videos, mentions on X, search), reaching all the way out to people who haven’t used TextTree yet |
Layering iterations like this often reveals things a single pass misses.
What loops reveal
As you draw relationships, you may find arrows circling back to form a loop. In the demo’s “How to Use ThinkTray 3,” following the arrows from Me → TextTree → TextTree User → (word of mouth) and back to Me traces out exactly one such loop.
If you found a loop while thinking through personal or organizational growth, it might represent a positive cycle — a virtuous circle of improvement.
If you were analyzing a difficult situation, it might be a warning sign of a negative spiral.
Where the name comes from
A “tray” is a vessel for holding things — a place to set something down. ThinkTray is named for exactly that: a vessel for your thinking, a place to set down whatever’s on your mind, just as it is.