Recently I was visiting a good friend of mine, Dave Soucy, owner of Perfect Fit in Manchester, NH (Fitness Expert and author) and he shared with me this brainstorming tool called 'mind mapping'. Although the concept of mind mapping is not new, it seems to be finally getting mainstream attention in part due to the many software programs that are now available making the process fun and fast.

If you are like me you probably have used or still use planners, notebooks, post-it notes etc to organize your thoughts, to do's and projects. Doing things this way is a very linear approach--meaning each to-do, note or project sits by itself--disconnected from the others. This makes remembering them difficult as well as it being a constant effort flipping back and forth between your notes to try to put it all in context.

Mind mapping uses the right side of the brain and allows you to think without imposed structure or lists. You begin with a central concept and branch out from there building from that central idea. What happens is that you get a FULL PICTURE approach to a project or even a to do list that enables you to get things done faster--a side benefit is that because the "map" is now a visual reference you remember it better--far better in my experience. To the right is an example of using mind mapping to decide which mind map software to buy and below is an example of a basic mind map of using Web 2.0 for real estate:

it takes a little getting used to, but now that I have been doing it for a couple of weeks I find it incredibly helpful. Here are ways I have used it:

• I created our company marketing plan as a mind map--this not only helps us understand where we are marketing but also provides our clients with an impressive graphic of all the ways we market their home.

• We have a subdivision project that we wanted to create a stronger advertising campaign for so I mind mapped what we currently were doing and began to see other areas we had missed out on.

• With all the social media commitments in this new Web 2.0 world of real estate, I sometimes get off track and find it has been more than a week since I blogged or a few days since I used twitter. I decided to make a 'tasks list' using the mind map method and I posted it on my office wall. It is a visual reminder to do certain things--far easier than a daily to-do list where each day my list gets longer from the undone tasks the day before! Plus as I mentioned, I remember the tasks better due to the "right brain thing". It is really wild how fast you can recall things that have a visual reference vs. a list.

In this age of info overload and the massive juggling of tasks, I found mind mapping to be a huge time saver and it just feels GOOD to have things organized now.

Here are some resources I played with if you consider trying it out:

FreeMind: Open Source FREE mind map software--Nice but I wanted a few more features it didn't have.

iMindmap.com: I ended up choosing this one...$99 bucks but it has many functions that I really liked. It was also mac compatible. Supposedly the maker of this software, Tony Buzan is the originator of mind mapping.

Mindmanager: A rather robust package here...probably more than the average user would use but if you want it all...this is good.

And not to forget the very new app for the iphone, Mindmaker.  Take your mindmaps with you!

Mind mapping may sound "geeky" to you but if you dive in and try it I think you will see it actually appeals more to the creative/visual person and the bottom line is: IT WORKS. Give it a try!

~Sean