Last week’s ‘Getting Things Done’ conference (day 1 / day 2) was packed with some great insights and even better people! There’s a natural synergy between mind mapping and productivity which led to many great conversations with everyone from professional organizers to retired generals, famous authors and journalists to IT managers, consultants, and business managers. Now that the conference is over, it’s back to ‘doing’ the work instead of discussing ways to do it better!
Learn about GTD and Mind Mapping: If you’re unfamiliar with GTD, I’ll be hosting a webinar on March 24th at 10 AM Pacific Time which will highlight my experiences implementing GTD along with how I complement it with mind mapping.
Recently, I’ve been asked by several customers how they can learn more about mind mapping. Beyond our online training for MindManager, I’ve jotted down some good resources books and online resources that can also help you get started.
Getting Started Mind Mapping
There are many books and sites on mapping. After reading several, I realized the material is pretty redundant. Ultimately, how you map is personal reflecting your individual style or your team’s collective approach to mapping. There is no right or wrong way to mind map as the maps created are reflections of your thoughts. A great start is to familiarize yourself with the concepts of mind mapping, then forget the rules and develop the style that best works for you!
Books To Help You Get Started:
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Idea Mapping Jamie Nast offers a great guide to get started making mind maps
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The Mind Map Book Tony Buzan also offers several books on mind mapping of which I’ve liked this one
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Chuck Frey’s e-books Chuck offers several eBooks that have a lot of best practices and map examples in his two eBooks: "Power Tips & Strategies for Mind Mapping Software" and "The Mind Mapping Manifesto"
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More books for Mind Maps
Websites and blogs that I frequent (including some useful Mindjet pages) that will inspire your mind mapping:
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Mindjet Map Gallery: List of map examples from Mindjet
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Mindjet Newsletter & Customer Stories: Packed with customer stories and examples, these pages illustrate many ways to take advantage of mapping for personal and professional success
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Mindjet Webinars & Events: Sign up for free webinars that explain how to use Mindjet software, hear customer stories and view different mind mapping uses
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BiggerPlate Map Gallery: Search, share, and rate MindManager maps
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MindManager Community: Gathering place for mappers to exchange best practices and help each other out
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The Mind Mapping Software Blog: A collection of tips & resources for beginning and advanced mappers by Chuck Frey
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Idea Mapping: Jamie Nast’s collection of client mind maps which are both hand drawn and developed with software
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Published and Profitable: Roger Parker’s site which covers many useful templates and ideas for using Mind Mapping for Writing
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Applications of MindManager: Andrew Wilcox’s site which covers many great uses for MindManager
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Assistive Technology: Brian Friedlander is a frequent contributor to Mindjet’s newsletter
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The Mindmap Blog: Chance Brown is Learning and Development Specialist and Visual Mapping Consultant
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Peace of Mind: Steve Rothwell is a frequent contributor in our online mapping conversations
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Maplicious: I recently met Chris Blatnick at the GTD Summit. Chris started with a bang but hasn’t updated in a bit. Let’s encourage him to keep blogging, it’s great stuff here!
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Lite Mind: Luciano Passuello has put together a lot of great content to help us ‘Explore ways to use our minds efficiently’
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IQ Matrix: I enjoy checking out Adam Sicinski’s completed maps about leadership, life, learning, and success.
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Power Mapping: A nice set of mind map examples by Larisa Brigevich using Jamie Nast’s approach to mapping
If you’ve used other resources that you’d like to recommend, let us know in the comments section!
About the Author: Michael Deutch is Mindjet’s Chief Evangelist, content contributor for the Mindjet Blog and the Mindjet Connections newsletter. Get more from Michael on Twitter.
[...] 20+ Mind Mapping Resources [...]
Bill, I can’t find that resource and the employee that created has left our firm. I apologize for any inconvenience!
I’ll have to look into that further when I’m back at the office tomorrow. Not sure.
Mike I just wanted to check to make sure you understood my question or reference. I was looking for the tutorial “Generative Programming with MindManager and XSLT” on an earlier blog posting of yours. Is that what’s being updated?
Our product team is revamping our documentation. In the interim, you could post questions on any of the MindManager forums. The most likely one that would help would be the yahoo group for MindManager developers. You can find it here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MindManagerDev/?v=1&t=search&ch=web&pub=groups&sec=group&slk=4
I was also looking for the tutorial?
Thanks in advance!
Bill,
It looks like it was attempting to route to the labs project. Either http://mindjetlabs.com/cs/files/folders/mindjet_labs/entry1380.aspx or http://mindjetlabs.com/cs/files/folders/mindjetlabs/entry20.aspx
Hope this helps.
Michael
Thanks Eric, Matthew, Adam & Roy! Keep Mapping!
Bill, I’m going to ask around about the link that you mentioned. I see that it no longer links to a resource on our site.
Michael
I started a blog last year that looks at tips and techniques for those new to mind mapping.
Hope it can be of help to people.
http://mindmapswitch.com
Hi Michael,
Great list here! Although my blogging frequency has slowed in recent months, hopefully your readers will find some of my articles on mind mapping interesting.
http://eric-blue.com/category/mindmap/
What about mind mapping macro or programming resources? I wrote a macro to help me with printing but it fails in one aspect and I was told by support that they don’t provide macro support.
I was also trying to find this link but it appears to be broken… Generative Programming with MindManager and XSLT
I left out another great Mind Mapping Blog in my previous comment. This blog belongs to the great hand drawn Mind Mapper Paul Foreman. He shares a wonderful range of inspirational Mind Maps on his site, and has also written several ebooks about Mind Mapping, creativity and other topics. I would highly recommend checking out his blog:
- http://www.mindmapinspiration.com/
Thanks for the mention Michael.
This is a very good list of resources. 2 additional Mind Mapping blogs I read regularly include:
- Michael on Mind Mapping – http://www.michaelonmindmapping.com/blog/
- Mind Map Switch – http://mindmapswitch.com/
Don’t forget WikIT the mind mapping wiki:
http://www.informationtamers.com/WikIT/index.php?title=Special:AllPages
And the massive mind maps directory (classifed by map type and tagged by topic) here:
http://www.topicscape.com/mindmaps/
Roy
Jamie, Of course you’ll be on the list! And, I’ve been checking up on Larissa’s maps in her recent posts, I think they’re really nice. She’s providing some good examples, including some nice ways to get teams excited about using maps for meetings.
Michael,
Thanks for including me in this wonderful list of resources. Larisa will get a kick out of it as well!
Jamie