What's On Your Mind?

Keeping track of everything going on at work (or at home) which involves me using my brain sometimes gets overwhelming and disorganized. Without a good tool to help me make sense of everything I'm doing, I'd likely end up just sitting in a corner somewhere playing Settlers of Catan or 2048 on my smartphone. Speaking of which, I do use my smartphone for helping keep all of my thinking organized. It's not the tool I use first, but if I can't get to a computer that lets me run XMind my smartphone is my second choice, I use SimpleMind Free.

Mind mapping for me helps me concentrate and organize my thinking. Because it's freeing to use a mind map and just start putting ideas on the screen without worrying about where they fit into the big picture, ideas tend to flow pretty freely. I even just made a mind map about this blog because I realized it would probably help keep me organized if I did so. Here it is:

I don't ever really think of a map as finished.

Since maps are so easy to add to and reorganize they help me to remember things I've forgotten about and to find things to think about that I may not have originally considered. Very rarely do I have a mind map open on my screen where I'm not adding new relationships to it, adding new topics to it, or otherwise organizing it in a way that works better than it did for me the last time I looked at the map.

The nicest thing about a mind map is that you don't have to share it with anyone. It can belong to you, and take on a life that means something important to your own internal dialogue.  Don't get me wrong, once my maps get into a state where they're somewhat well organized, I tend to share them with my colleagues to get further feedback and input so we can make sure we don't miss anything as a team. And, in general - this kind of diagram is something most everyone understands pretty intuitively without much explanation. However, sometimes I add icons to my diagrams that aren't immediately obvious. I add a helpful key explaining what I mean when I do that.

I'm happy to take input about other things that need to go on the map for this blog.  Feel free to leave me a comment if you have further ideas about what to write, or even larger "topic groups" that you may have in mind. I could write many posts about many things related to engineering in business because I'm so passionate about it, but I also like to know what others find interesting or helpful. Don't hesitate to let me know what's on your mind!