The MindJet Blog have just had a great post about increasing productivity through Mind Mapping. This post included a link to a Mind Map that displays the way Mind Mapping can be used to increase productivity.
The link provided from MindJet only allows you to download the Mind Manager version so I have PDF’d the Mind Map and made it available here for all to see and enjoy.
The great folks over at MindJet have just released a Strategic Planning Mind Map that I am sure will help us all in taking stock and reviewing 2009.
The Mind Map is broken down into 5 steps:
I think this is a great Mind Map and something that we can all use for planning 2009. You can read the original post over at the MindJet Blog.
You do need MindJet MindManager to open this file as it is a MindManager Mind Map.
Mind Manager, what I consider to be the best Mind Mapping application has just upgraded to version 8.
At this point this upgrade is only for Windows users so if you are a Mac user like me, you have to stick with the version 7 for Mac until version 8 comes out. The Windows version of Mind Manager has always been a lot more feature rich than the Mac version and I have found myself using the Windows version in VMware when I have needed to use some of the more advanced export features of the Windows Mind Manager application.
So, what is new in Mind Manager 8?
Quite a few cool features in there. What interests me the most and will be the reason I upgrade is the addition of the MindJet player. I can now create Mind Maps and embed them into a website. This is going to be awesome from a usability point of view, especially for my Mind Mapping Certification site at www.mindcert.com.
You can see an example of the MindJet player by following this link to the MindJet website. The sample map shows you some of the features of Mind Manager 8.
I am a great fan of Mind Mapping and I have followed the MindMeister online Mind Mapping tool since its first release.
The guys at MindMeister invited me to preview and test their new release, version 3.0 of MindMeister which I am happy to say is now live so I can tell you all about it.
MindMeister version 2.0 was pretty hot, and a great showcase for Web 2.0 application technology. Version 3.0 brings some great new features that really make it the best online Mind Mapping tool.
So, what extra do we get in MindMeister v3.0? Well, as so much has changed the nice guys and gals at MindMeister have created a Mind Map showing you all the new features.
Click on the Mind Map below to go the full size Mind Map in a MindMeister window that you can play around with.
I have managed to get five premium accounts from MindMeister.
The next five people to sign up for my newsletter (sign up form is the top right of this page) will be emailed a voucher code over the next day or so. – UPDATE – These went very quickly, I will see if I can get some more but why not sign up anyway!
Thanks, and be sure to check out MindMeister as it really is a good tool.
Whilst going through some old posts from this blog, I pulled out a review of a great book that I read, and reviewed pretty much within the first month of launching this blog.
The book was the Travelers Gift, Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success, by Andy Andrews. As the blog has just launched, I think I had around 5 subscribers and I knew all of them!
The book talks about the Seven Decisions for Success. These are based around a story that the author takes you on. This is a motivational and self development book that is based on a fictional story, very similar to the great Og Mandino books.
These seven decisions are based upon stories from inspirational figures from history. The seven decisions are as follows:
I created a free Mind Map for you all to download and read. The Mind Map contains the overview of each of the Seven Decisions For Success as told in the book.
Click on the thumbnail above to download the Mind Map or Follow this Link.
Be sure to also check out the Original Post Review of this Book.
I am thinking of doing some more Mind Maps like this so please let me know your thoughts and if you all like these or not.
Feel free to pass this post on and please share it, I would love as many people as possible to benefit from the Mind Map.
I cannot believe that I have never done a Top 5 list on this blog. In fact I have never done a blog entry based around a list before so here goes.
What better place to start than with a list for my Top 5 Productivity Tools on the iPhone.
I love my Apple iPhone. it has to be the single gadget that has most affected my productivity. Being an advocate of the Getting Things Done methodology, I love to talk about ubiquitous capture, and the iPhone is my capture device of choice.
In my opinion, Apple have brought together an amazing collection of tools that you can carry around as a single device in order to help you achieve what is required from your working day, as well as leaving some room for the fun and social aspects of the iPhone.
Here are my Top Five iPhone Apps for Productivity.
I would love to hear from the rest of you to see what your best apps are for productivity on the iPhone.
Thanks for your time.
Andrew..
I recently did a review of MindMaker, the first Mind Mapping tool for the iPhone and iPod Touch. My review outlined a great concept but it was lacking some key features such as the ability to import and export maps and work in landscape mode.
I was very happy when i received an email from the creator of iBlueSky asking me to take a look at their app that provides competition for Mind Maker. I got the app installed and working right as I was leaving the house to attend the A4U Expo in London.
I was planning on writing the review when I got back from the A4U but I did get the chance to try it in the very first session of the A4U Expo. The first session was from Joost de Valik and was about Search Engine Optimization for WordPress.
Rather than take notes for the session in my trusty Moleskine, I decided to give iBlueSky a live test and use it to take the notes in what was an excellent session.
iBlueSky is very similar in operation to Mind Maker, it is after all a Mind Mapping application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The entry was working out a treat. You are able to use landscape mode and the addition of branches is very straightforward and anybody who has used a Mind Mapping application would be able to pick ip up in no time at all.
There is a default map already installed for you to play around with. The map I created got quite big, quite fast and I found it easy to add new branches, sub branches and also to navigate around the map.
This is in my opinion the best Mind Mapping tool to date for the iPhone and iPod Touch. There were a couple of little niggles which will hopefully get sorted for the next release. These were that the addition of new branches to a busy map sometimes overlapped existing branches. This made organization a bit cumbersome.
The branches were also quite difficult to move as it required an extremely accurate drag to move the branch and not the entire map. Some way of selecting a branch in drag mode would be great. The only other niggle is that when moving a branch, the sub-branches stayed put, creating a nesting overlapping issue.
All of the issues do not distract from what is a great app. Landscape mode works great, although the screen is restricted by the bars at the top and bottom.
The killer feature that really separates this from Mind Maker is the ability to email the maps. Once the Map was created, I emailed it to myself.
The map arrives in four formats:
How cool is that!
Great app, and look forward to seeing more of these cool apps arise for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Oh, and for those of you interested in the session from Joost, which was fantastic as usual. Feel free to download the map by following the links below.
They even have a nice intro video.
Hope you found this of use, as usual, I would love to hear yout comments..
If you haven’t already subscribed to this blog, now is a great time to do so, especially if you want to be more productive in 2009! Follow this link to subscribe in your favorite RSS reader.
Being an avid Mind Mapper, I was excited to see the release of MindMaker, the first Mind Mapping application on the iTunes store for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
I have been using the app for a couple of days and thought I would post a little review of my findings of the app. I am quite experienced in using Mind Mapping applications having used them for around 8 years. My current favorite is Mind Manager from MindJet which works like a dream on my Mac. Mind Mapping works for me and has helped me pass many exams and helps me plan important events.
MindMaker initially presents you with a list of Mind Maps that you have created on the device. When you first install it there is a demo map that helpfully shows you some of the features of MindMaker.
Clicking on an existing Map name will take you straight to that Map in the map view mode. Clicking on the + icon at the top right of the screen starts a new Mind Map with a blank center map piece.
Once you get to a Mind Map the navigation is very simple and exactly what you would expect if you have experience of other Mind Map applications. Adding branches to your map is very intuitive making large maps very easy to produce. The ability to drag branches is nice and the animation of the branches moving is very slick and smooth.
So, what are my thoughts about the app. Well, it is a great concept but I have questions as to how much I would use such an app on my iPhone. I personally use Mind Maps for project planning as well as to brainstorm an idea or technology. I then use them as memory joggers when I need to refresh my knowledge on a subject. The killer for me is to be able to view Mind Maps on my iPhone rather than create them. I am more than happy to create the Mind Map on my Mac and then save it as a PDF and view it on my iPhone using the AirSharing app or similar. This works for me.
Note taking on my iPhone and idea collection is covered off pretty much with OmniFocus and Evernote. I cannot see myself using MindMaker to replace either of these functions.
Version 1.0 is lacking some very important features such as the ability to view the map in landscape mode and the ability to export and import maps. Luckily, the developers of the application seem to have covered these shortfalls in their roadmap.
The current version is 1.0. The developer has announced some features that are coming in later versions.
Version 1.1
- Mind maps can be saved as images
- Support for Landscape mode
- Translucent hideable interface
Version 1.2
- MindMaker will be able to upload mind maps to a web application from which users can download it in different formats.
Future features
- Cross links between nodes
- Reordering of nodes
- Editable colors
- Export to different formats
In summary, MindMaker is a great little iPhone app but I do feel that it is an app that has limited usability due to the input constraints of the iPhone.
I will update my iPhone with the latest versions as they come out and I will ensure that I follow this review up when the updates come out.