An Eagle eye view of Your Ideas
Mindmaps allow you to start with a main idea, concept, or theme. From there, you can use ‘dart board’ tactics to throw out related thoughts, to branch out into sub-ideas or sub-topics, and then branch out even smaller. The basic concept is, by drawing (on paper or on the computer) your thoughts will lead to other thoughts you’ll uncover along the way. Other details you weren’t considering before. To map out your thoughts gives you a whole different visualization and taps a whole different part of your mind as opposed to using things like project management software, a spreadsheet, or a word document outliner.
See The Big Picture
Mindmapping helps you to see the entire scope of a project or concept. You will see which categories of your process are major and those that are minor. I, for example, was having trouble defining functionality for multiple domains I own, the functionality of each domain, and the component parts and structures for each domain. After laying out a few mindmap versions (paper is also OK if you wish) I was able to more clearly see my various domains and relative subdomains, pages for inclusion and function. This increasingly became clearer by the creation of various branches in a mind map.
Re-Think Decisions
A mindmap aids in rethinking decision processes. In the above domains organization example, a mindmap surely helped me to re-think decisions. I could re-organize my structure, reallocate and re-purpose resources. If I hadn’t mapped it out, I might not have thought through at a deeper level for these objectives. You can do the same.
Talk / Present Through Maps Faster
You can be in a meeting with a long 10-page document doing your presentation, and perhaps take a lot longer to say what you want to say, finding the right content to read, etc. Alternatively, if you have your speech or presentation laid out in a mindmap, and perhaps, just keep the regular docment readily available with cues or key numbers, you may find yourself progressing through a speech, or presentation with greater articulation and clarity, more organized, in shorter time in getting to a point. You might get to the point of being able to do everything exclusively with only a Mindmap and cued with short keyword notes. Instead of spend an hour for a presentation, you might find that you can present in one quarter of the time through the power of having a visual map. It becomes a much easier way to “see” all the information you need to speak / present more clearly.
Tools
From my personal experience I have used Xmind, for Colloborative Minds, as perhaps my most often used tool. It is compatible on both Mac and PC. It used to be a commercial software but now is completely free. There is an online Pro version subscription model for those who might want to become more involved. Xmind provides various templates to get started in mindmapping … organization type, project management, journal reading, and others. I personal favorite though is the brainstorm mindmap. It starts out with the most basic mind map, one that provides you with a starting point for a project or task theme. From there, you simply ‘dartboard’ ideas, any idea, that might be related. Once you have sufficient content on this imaginary ‘dartboard’ you can start dragging elements together in a cohesive and logical assembly pattern to construct the basics of your mind map. From there, you can expand into further depth as you evolve your plan. There is also another program called Freemind. Although not as fancy and robust as Xmind, it gets the job done quite handily. It is open source and also cross platform.
There are a myriad of other programs out there you can try if you like. However being these two solutions are free and cross platform as well, I’ve concluded they serve my needs quite well.
What should you map out? Try solving a decision with it, or creating a project with it. You won’t ever know unless you try it. If you find out the mind map experience to have been useful and productive for you please do comment on what you uncover through your own experience.
