"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle." – Kahlil Gibran
I just got back from a personal trip to see family in Florida. With 15 hours of flying time, I decided it was time to consolidate the information from many of my previously created mind maps into my personal dashboard map. You see, I love collecting information, but if I don’t use it, as Kahlil points out, what’s the point of collecting it in the first place.
So, within a click, I can now access:
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Mindjet’s company and product messaging
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My research on why visualizing information can be more effective than the alternatives
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Definitions of mind mapping
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Instructions on how to mind map
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When to use mind mapping
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How mind mapping with MindManager helps you
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What the benefits are and how the benefits impact teams
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Who’s who in the world of mind mapping (the eco-system)
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Who are our competitors
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Ways to get smarter about mind mapping (sites, training, books, etc…)
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And more research…
Now, this map isn’t complete. Perhaps it’ll never be complete as we’re evolving and I’m learning more about collaboration, information visualization, and mind mapping from other thought leaders, our customers, our partners and our competitors.
Through this exercise, I realized that I had captured a lot of knowledge in separate maps over the last couple of years. I’ll continue to review my old maps and either link to them from my dashboard, use Mindjet’s map linker to pull information into my map, or retire the older map and copy the information into my dashboard.
Reader discussion: While the example above is specific to my own needs, I’m providing it for you ponder…
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What could be inside your own dashboard maps?
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What information could make you more effective that you could easily act upon if you had it within reach?
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Where does one map end and another begin?
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Do you capture information in separate maps and then reconcile them periodically?
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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.
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Yeah – I do something similar. I kind of have dashboards for themes… then delve into maps. e.g. Self-managed developement map covers formal training, infomal, seminars etc. and I have a personal development board from that one… which in turn goes to communications, behavioural, and professional skill maps… etc. So for me – I tend to map in layers – same goes for projects. Project dashboard overall then sub-dashboards that link to other things etc. It suits the way my mind works
Very informative post Michael.
Thanks Christine.
Marcos, yes, I have tons of links in my maps to take me to all sorts of internal and external resources. I agree, it’s an amazing way to keep on top of everything!
Michael,
I’ve also created a dashboard to keep all important information I need to be more productive at my job; for information I mean links to intranet and internet sites, customer info, employee data, links to individual project maps etc.
It’s amazing how this can really help me every day.
Regards !
Michael,
Very helpful to think about this, esp do I have a system for integrating maps? NO. But if I did, I certainly see how valuable it would be. So thanks for pointing out the map linker, I hadn’t discovered it yet.