Chances are that the the words ‘mind map’ bring to your mind an image of a big sheet of paper, with lots of drawings and colors and artistic expression, maybe with many people involved. You can do that kind of mind mapping too and definitely should at least try it if you haven’t yet. It can be a very powerful exercise that can help you integrate your thoughts and discover and appreciate your capability of creative thinking, especially if you are new to mind maps. When reading this blog however, you need to put that image aside.

My focus is on personal, computer assisted thinking with mind maps, the first priorities being speed, flexibility and scalability. My mind maps are dynamic and they are connected. I have hundreds or thousands of notes and ideas in dozens or hundreds of maps that I keep on changing and moving around on a daily basis. If that sounds like a lot that’s exactly the point. There’s no way I can handle that using just a pen and paper, let alone just in my mind. Therefore the computer.

I won’t discuss much about mind maps as a presentation tool or a tool for collaboration. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use them for those purposes. I just haven’t had much experience with those, and therefore I am not an expert to say much about it. Mind mapping is personal, reflective activity for me.

Antti Halla

M.Sc. in Computer Science, software engineer, personal coach, entrepreneur, writer. “Mind maps are the most important personal tool I use daily. And I’ve been doing so for over ten years now. I use them as a notebook, an idea collection, a personal planner and a project management system. The maps help me study, write, solve problems and think about anything in general. Basically, my whole life is in mind maps.”

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