Map types

Here is a brief overview of some of the different kinds of maps that you’ll find yourself creating. Not all the maps can be categorized this clearly, but they often tend to fall into a few recurring categories. The main difference between the maps is their purpose, which leads to different kinds of map structures. They may not be apparent to you if you are just starting mind mapping but will become more so over time. You’ll probably find your own map types that best serve your specific needs. The following are the types I find in my maps, presented roughly in the order that they emerged.

Content

Look around you and list everything you see. That’s content. Make a to-do list of the places you want to see, and that’s not so much content anymore. Write an article about a to-do list of the places you want to see, and it’s content again. Everything is content, in a way. But some things are more than others.

If it sounds a bit confusing don’t worry, you’re not alone. Content is the thing we are really interested about. In the first case, we are not interested about the to-do list itself, but about those things that are listed in it. In the article case, we are in fact interested about the to-do list because that is what we are writing about.

In fact, if you take a strict view of a mind map as a tool, there is no content in mind maps whatsoever. The content is what happens in the real world, as the result. In practice, however, it is useful to consider the edge of your mind maps as the content. This category makes probably more sense if you think it in relationship to the other types described below.

Activity

The focus of activity maps is on how to do things. In my case the activities might be such as writing, programming, data analysis, and photography. You might be interested in running, carpentry, or public speaking. The content of the maps might be such things as best practices, checklists, links to books and films about the subject and so on.

In writing I want to separate the art and science of writing from the actual content I write. I don’t learn about writing just because. I want to get better at it so I can create better writing. If you do handicrafts you might want to separate what you are actually doing, all the specific ideas and designs, from all the generic knowledge related to your art. When you work on your specific designs you can use the activity map as your guide book or reference manual.

Management

Like in any organization doing any work, as the work gets more complicated, more layers of management gets added on top of the people who create the actual content. Management maps are specifically tuned to help you stay organized and to get things done. They might differ in scope, ranging from daily to-do lists to projects spanning several months or programs spanning several years. The main common thing is that these maps are future oriented. They describe a desired state of affairs in the future, a direction to go or specific action steps to be taken. A management map is a boss you meet regularly to discuss what to do the next week, the next month or the next year.

Index

As the number of mind maps grows you might find yourself lost looking for specific maps. It’s time to create an index map. There is typically little or no real content at all in these maps, just links to other maps. The whole point of an index map is to make moving from one map to another relatively easy even if there are many of them. It’s like a corridor that connects many rooms together.

To keep the index efficient you might want to limit the levels and the number of items on each level. You can create a good index using just 3 levels with 5 items on each one. If you think that is not enough, think again. 3 levels with 5 items each lets you reach 5x5x5=125 different maps, or 100 maps if you use only the leaf nodes for links. 4 levels, 10 items each would let you reach 10 000 maps (9000 leafs). A big index lets you reach everything, a lean index lets you reach the most important maps fast.