Organize IT

When it comes to planning out your life there are two approaches. You either plan from the top down (start with where you want to be and plan how you’re going to get there) or plan from the bottom up (start with what you’re doing now and plan how you going to get to where you want to be). Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages but is there another way?

A little over a week ago Lifehack.org had a very interesting article looking at five productivity ideas the author, Dustin Wax, was not yet buying into. I found it to be a very well written, intriguing read that encouraged a lot of thought. Here’s my opinions on the five ideas.

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.

I discussed mind mapping a few months ago as part of my attempts to use the method as a productivity tool in my life. Recently I came across another online tool  for mind mapping called Mindomo. Like bubbl.us it gives you the option to try it out without signing up so I jumped right in and tried it out.

While mind mapping has had some mention in relation to GTD I have never really used it before, apart from the occasional doodle in my notepad or when I was studying at school/university (even then more on the behest of the teacher). However I have just come across Bubbl.us via LifeDev and I am very interested by it because of its simplicity and ease of use. You don’t even have to register and log in to try it, which is always a bonus in terms of actually bothering to use something in the first place. While it’s early days I am keen to incorporate mind mapping into my workflow and I’ve detailed some ways of doing exactly that below.