Does anyone else spend more time organizing their research than actually doing anything with it

Asking because I caught myself doing this for about six months before I admitted it was a problem.

Had a beautiful system. Folders inside folders, color coded tags, a reference manager that was genuinely impressive to look at. Every paper I read went in immediately, tagged correctly, filed in the right place. Felt productive every single day.

Then my supervisor asked me what my argument was and I had nothing. Not a rough answer, nothing. I had read extensively and organized everything perfectly and had not once sat down to actually think about what any of it meant for my research question.

The organizing had become the work. It felt like progress because it looked like progress and nobody was checking whether the filing system was producing any actual thinking.

The shift that helped was forcing myself to write something after every reading session before touching the reference manager. Even just a paragraph about what the paper meant for my argument and what questions it left open. Ugly, unpolished, just thinking on the page.

The writing showed me immediately what I had actually understood versus what I had just filed away. The gap was embarrassing at first but at least I could see it.

Anyone else fall into the organizing trap or find a way to stop it before it cost them as much time as it cost me.