For the Love of Mind Maps

Would it sound too crazy if I said that Mind Maps changed my life? I use them to take meeting notes, make high level software designs, track my weekly activities, and manage software projects. Mind Maps provide a perfect way to structure unstructured information … and let’s face it, most of the info we have is semi-structured at best … not everything fits into a spreadsheet people!

Who Knew?

As good as Mind Maps are for pictorially capturing complex data, I was surprised to discover that they also work well as a discussion platform for teams. While at Schlumberger I regularly reviewed the Mind Map for our software with my team, setting priorities, tracking overall progress, adjusting assignments, marking  task completion levels, and adding captions and notations. I’ve continued this practice with my other clients, because employing Mind Maps for technical projects fits beautifully with today’s Agile Development methodologies.

A Mind Map a Day …

… keeps the Fuzzies away*. I utilize Mind Maps on a daily basis, and even employ them as a “diary” to track my weekly goals and activities. Every day contains nodes for To Do, In Progress, and Done. Every Monday the previous week’s map becomes the starting point for the current week’s map, as I review incomplete or partially-completed tasks, remove old and add new ones.

Choose Your Tool

Of course there are many good productivity tools available to help one manage goals, track tasks, define schedules and steer projects. But for me personally, I like the “open canvas” afforded by Mind Maps … they provide a good middle ground between too-little-constraint and too-much-freedom.

On Windows and MacOS I use XMind, and on iOS I use iThoughts. Below are a few samples of project-related Mind Maps I’ve authored:

* from the old phrase “An apple a day keeps the Doctor away.”