Mind mapping, originated by Tony Buzan, aims at capturing what’s going on inside your head. In this video, Buzan calls it a “swiss army knife for the brain” and makes all sorts of claims about how you should do it in order to get your mind absorbed and intrigued in the ideas you’re mapping.There are a bunch of desktop tools for mind mapping including the no-cost Java-based FreeMind, the popular and very expensive MindManager from Mindjet for both Windows and Mac, and ConceptDraw’s MindMap, also for Windows and Mac. For devoted mind mappers, it’s probably worth your time–and maybe some money too–to get a feature-rich tool on your desktop.
If you only mind map occasionally or if you want to collaborate in real-time with your colleagues, maybe you’d rather use an online mind mapper or brainstormer such as bubbl.us, Mindomo, or MindMeister. These tools don’t conform to Buzan’s principles of mind mapping in all respects, which call for free form curving branches and multiple colors, as shown in the hand-drawn mind map here, created by Graham Burnett. However, they’re still useful for collecting your thoughts, taking notes, or sharing your ideas with your colleagues.
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