Sometimes you have a very valuable idea, without even realizing it. All you need to do is add clarity to your thoughts, bring that good idea to light and start developing it. And mind mapping is the perfect technique to help you with that, as it gives you an excellent overview of what you need or want to do and where to start from.
Mind mapping techniques enthusiasts believe you can achieve 20 hours of work in 6 hours just by using a mind mapping tool to set your thoughts and ideas.
Here are the 5 ways to increase your productivity with mind maps:
–> Visualize your ideas. When you place a main idea as the central topic of a mind map, you begin to literally visualize it, which means that your brain does not have to find images by itself. By doing this, your productivity advances and, as you add more branches and subtopics, the first central idea slowly takes shape.
–> Turn mind maps into tasks. Mind maps are a great way to brainstorm, develop and expand ideas. When working collaboratively, you can turn the topics of a mind map into tasks, which can be assigned to the team members and you can see the progress with each completed task. By turning the topics into tasks, your productivity will boost, as you delegate assignments to specific people who will handle them against the deadline.
–> Highlight terms with hashtags. Choose a keyword for certain tasks and highlight it with a hashtag. This will save you time when searching inside the mind map or across all maps. Additionally, you can use icons or symbols to mark your topics or subtopics, ease your search and increase your productive capacity.
–> Share the mind maps. Dividing the work clearly ensures productivity improvement. Share your mind map with colleagues, team members or external partners and ask them to give their input on a particular topic. Working in collaboration means that anyone can participate in the mind map development and is free to add more branches to the initial map tree. Afterwards, connect the topics to see the relationship between them: is there room for improvement or not?
–> Leave only the essential. Mind mapping is that one technique that best relates to the way the brain sees and captures information. When you are in the flow of thoughts and you are feeling creative, design a mind map and drop all the ideas as topics, then sort and connect them to capture the substantial concepts.
Mind mapping is much more than another tool for productivity. It unleashes your mind from the limits of linear and rational thought by integrating logic and imagination to allow you to work more efficiently. When effectively used, mind maps can contribute to successful problem solving and decision-making.
Keep it smart, simple and creative!
The Mindomo Team
