A rabbit hole is where the real thinking is. The tangent that seems off-topic is often the thing that connects two ideas you didn’t realise were related. [[Lots of inputs and a strong filter]] is what makes this possible: a well-stocked system gives you enough material that tangents lead somewhere rather than just away from the main path. In design work this looks like walking through a use case in slow motion, checking every affordance, every edge case, every assumption made quickly in the first pass.
Speed is useful for covering ground, but depth is where problems hide. [[Breadboarding over wireframes]] is the structural practice that keeps the conversation at a level where rabbit holes are still findable, before the wireframe has made everything feel decided. [[Non-linear note making]] is the note-level equivalent: follow the link rather than the main path, because the connection you didn’t plan is usually more interesting than the one you did.