The Wonsys Blog

When I got my first Mac I saw there were a few apps bundled with it. One of those apps was OmniOutliner, but it didn’t really caught my eyes until a while later.

One day, I stumbled again upon OmniOutliner and decide to try it out to see what it was capable of. After just a few minutes of playing with it, I fell in love, got a license for the latest version and started outlining like crazy. For those of you who aren’t lucky enough to know what it is about, OmniOutliner is a very polished and well-thought-out outlining application.

I was new to the whole outlining thing, so it was a great discovery which really allowed me to manage my thoughts, to-do lists, projects in a much more structured and productive way. By outlining my thoughts I was able to collapse just what I needed to see, take a glance at my next tasks and so on. But after a while I realized it wasn’t enough. I liked it and everything, but I started to find it to rigid and felt like it really missed one thing: outlining is not visual and I’m a very visual-oriented person. I started researching on the matter and happened to find out about mind mapping.

A mind map provides a way to visually develop a concept: you have a topic and start building around it radially. You have branches, sub-branches and so on and you’re supposed to put one keyword per branch. You’re also advised to heavily use images and colours because the brain is supposed to like them.

The app I first tried out was FreeMind which, given the not very OS X-like interface, didn’t click for me. So I decided to keep outlining. Then after a few months I was testing a mind mapping Web app, MindMeister — which, BTW, is very well-done –, and I finally got mind mapping. I preferred not to rely on a Web app for this task mainly because it’s something I NEED to use even when I’m offline, so I was back on FreeMind.

Don’t get me wrong, FreeMind is a great app which I think is nearly perfect. It has great import/export capabilities, it’s stable, open source, and so on. Unfortunately, it’s not OS X native, so the interface is kinda ugly. This is when MindManager came in: it’s probably the most widely used mind mapping app and it happens to have a Cocoa version for OS X — not a lame Windows app converted to OS X.

The only issue — if we can call it such — with MindManager is the price tag, which isn’t exactly cheap. But if you do the math and realize how much it could improve your productivity, you realize it’s actually pretty cheap, because it pays for itself in just a few hours. Of course, if you think it’s still expensive, you can do wonders with FreeMind — remember, I’m a bit paranoid when it comes to the interface, thus I need to have a native and good looking app — which is by far the best alternative, either free or paid, to MindManager. I’ve tried a few others app, too, but none seemed to be easy and clean enough to enhance my productivity. Your mileage may vary, so try a few apps and see what you like.

What’s great about mind mapping is the fact it provides a visual reference, it really frees the brain, because seeing all those connections and branches and keywords is very stimulating. I use mind mapping for almost everything, from project management to to do lists, but what I like it the most for is for brainstorming. When I’m stuck on an idea, building a mind map really allows me to start thinking fast: I type the topic and begin writing everything that pops up to my mind building branches and drawing connections. Plus, you can easily go from an outline to a mind map and vice versa, because they’re very similar. Actually, a mind map is a graphical version of an outline.

If you’re already outlining or would simply like to try something new, give a shot at mind mapping: you won’t be disappointed.

This post was written by Michele 1 year, 3 months ago on May 13th, 2007 late evening.