Mind Mapping

Not much blogging this week.

I've discovered some open source "mind mapping" software - Freemind so I've been playing with this.

At first I wasn't sure that it would be of any use, and probably just an interesting exercise. I've found that I can use it as a structured "To Do" list, annotated with notes and a selection of symbols.

It only took half an hour to figure out how to "drive" the software and I was away.

I've found it useful at work today, since I've built up a pictorial representation of all of the tasks that I've got 'on my plate' at the moment, how they link together and where they're at. The next time that the boss asks me what my workload is I'll just print off a copy (or publish it as HTML).

I've also built up a 'DIY' jobs to do map for home - a somewhat sprawling network of uncompleted tasks!

I reckon that it's useful for keeping notes and track of anything that has a loose structure (or where the structure is not known in advance) and is subject to a lot of change.