 March 30th 2007
 Technology & Tools
 3 comments
It seems that mind mapping is a hot topic at the moment with a lot of sites discussing it. In contrast to this, having covered my own experiences of mind mapping recently I have now hit a brick wall. Beyond doing rough scribbled mind maps in my notepads for brainstorming purposes I have not had any other practical use for it. My hope was to implement mind maps in my GTD system. For instance, I would have a sheet of paper for each project with a mind map of all relevant next actions. However, I found that nothing beats a simple to-do list.
While I was researching about mind mapping I recently came across a blog dedicated to the topic. Of particular interest was a detailed chart comparing the main web-based mind mapping tools out there (two of which – Mindomo and bubbl.us – I have covered in the past). The chart goes into much more depth than I would ever want, though if you are interested in mind mapping and want to take it further I suggest you check it out. It’s interesting to note how much more feature rich Mindomo is. However, as I have discussed previously, this isn’t necessarily an advantage unless you are wanting to create very attractive layouts. That’s useful for presentations but for personal use? An effective productivity system has to be quick. If you spend half your time tweaking the layout of your next actions mind map then the system will fail on you.
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I’ve tried a couple of the commercial mindmapping programs, MindManager included, and found them all inferior to the free, simple and intuitive FreeMind. It has become my most valuable app, and I use it for everything from elaborate goal planning and brainstorming to creating hierarchal inventories and family trees.
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I tried Personal Brain. It works great with Ubuntu, but not as good as with Windows. However the full version costs a small fortune!
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts everybody.
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