Forgive the prolonged online absence. Time seems to have speeded up since the World Fellows retreat at the end of October, and as we draw into the closing 3 weeks of the program the tempo is increasing yet further towards terminal velocity.
The good news is that the threads of this semester seem to be drawing together into a coherent picture, and even (dare I say it) a vision of the next chapter of my life. The bad news is that I am in the middle of a World Fellows field trip to Washington, DC, and have only about 20 minutes to write this blog (a blog post normally takes me about 2 hours). So I don’t have time to go into a life-changing phenomenon right now. Tease!
So, in haste, I would like to highly recommend mindmapping
as a way to avoid mental meltdown when facing a state of chronic cognitive overload. I have been mindmapping like crazy over the last few weeks as I attempt to assemble my thoughts. Not only do I use it to try and figure out how to save the world (!!), I also use it to plan presentations, prioritise To Do lists, take notes on seminars, and just about everything else. Is there really any problem in the world that can’t be mindmapped?!
Over the years I have tried out many applications. Here are a few super-quick reviews of my favourites:
Goalscape: still love it, still use it, but some recent ideas have just felt better suited to a different kind of graphic. Here is what I had to say about Goalscape back in 2010 when I was using it to plan 2011.
MindManager: used to use it, and it’s good. Can’t remember now why I moved on to something else. Check it out and see if it’s for you. Chances are that it’s evolved a lot since I last used it and it might be just what you want.
Inspiration: recently recommended by a Yale professor. I tried it and liked it, and am still using it for some mindmaps. It allows more flexibility in the positioning of the bubbles than does Novamind (see below), which really matters sometimes when mapping lots of interrelationships. Nice and easy to add fun graphics to liven up your mindmap. Also available for iPad.
Novamind: my current app of choice. Very handy that you can collapse entire branches of the mindmap when not working on them, making it easier to manage. In a complex mindmap, without collapsing branches, you might find yourself spending a lot of time watching the beachball of death (Mac). It also has tons of top tips on the multiple uses of mindmaps from the founder, Gideon King, which really helped me get up to speed.
iThoughtsHD: this is what I use on my iPad. Quick and easy to use. And it can export to Novamind, or MindManager, or various other apps, via Dropbox, one of my other all-time favourite apps. This is how I get the mindmap off the iPad and onto my laptop quickly, seamlessly, and painlessly.
Other News
Rather a nice interview published on Discovery.com today. Thanks to Stephanie Pearson for the profile.
For those of you in California, a date for your diaries. I will be speaking at the Ignite event, organised by my publishers Hay House, in San Jose in mid-March next year. Check out the Ignite website here. Scroll all the way down to the bottom to find my picture on the left. If they organise the speakers in order of books sold, I suppose that the fact that my Pacific book doesn’t come out until October 2013 would account for my lowly position!
Must run now – am late for our World Fellows dinner at the Cosmos Club!
I love mindmapping. It allows me to brainstorm on my own too. Thanks for the tips, Roz 🙂 I hope you are enjoying your stay at Yale!
Into the last week now – boohoo!