From the moment you wake up, you have a gazillion things to do, but between breakfast and your late night favorite TV show, time literally flies by. It’s almost like the universe is literally against you being productive!
However, as much as you would like to believe it, it’s not the universe. It’s you!
And in this post, I will tell you how you can use a simple mind map to become more productive and make sure that you don’t lose any more of your precious time. And if you are the lazy kind, this technique is going to work just right!
What is a mind map?
A mind map is a graphical and organized way to represent ideas and concepts that are all over the place in your head. With a mind map, you can tame these thoughts and place them on a single canvas in a manner that is easy to understand and reflect off of.
You start the mind map with one central idea, to which you can then connect other related ideas or concepts with lines or branches. You can use different colors to highlight different topics and attach images, links, icons or basically anything that would be useful to you on your mind map.
Below are few ways how mind maps help boosting your productivity.
It’s better than a flat list
A mind map beats a flat and mundane list that would simply display the tasks you got to complete within the day. The graphical nature of the mind map helps you take advantage of the visual communication benefits. It’s also easy to understand the hierarchy of the tasks and the inter-dependencies between tasks. This makes it easier to focus on the most productive tasks.
With a flat list, this is not possible unless you make an extra effort highlight them in some other way like colors etc. Also, once the number of items gets bigger it becomes almost impossible to show inter-dependencies.
It’s your personal motivator
Having your mind map beside you will not only help keep track of your projects or tasks, but it will also motivate you to actually complete the tasks because there is nothing more satisfying than seeing the “Done” section of your mind map growing!
And with a mind map, there are plenty of ways to highlight the done section. For example, you can go ahead and collapse a branch in your mind map, add a different color to it or simply add a tick box beside your task. Most modern mind mapping tools have all of the above features so it’s just a matter of picking what suits you.
It helps you keep track of your projects
It’s hard to keep track of all the tasks you have to complete, in your head. Putting them down with all the relevant details on a mind map can actually help you keep better track of what you should do, when you should do it and how you should do it.
For large projects with thousands of tasks then it might not be practical to use a mind map. Although you can get around it with collapsed branches etc that’s not the ideal scenario. A tool should make things easy, not harder.
However for smaller projects with a quick running time, a mind map is an ideal way to keep track of your projects.
It helps brainstorming and better reflecting
Sometimes, you just need to sit down and figure out what you must do to accelerate the progress of the project. If you have a mind map, just looking at it would help you generate new tactics to accomplish these goals. Why? because mind maps mimic the way your brain works, which is bouncing ideas off of each other.
But that’s not the only way it helps with brainstorming. Because of its graphical nature, you can consume a lot of information at once, giving you a bigger picture of the topic you’re going to brainstorm. Also, mind maps group related topics and ideas together, making it much easier to expand on that idea.
Also most mind mapping tools, especially the web-based ones comes with real-time collaboration. So a group of people in diverse locations can brainstorm about one idea easily.
It can be personalized
A mind map is your very own brainchild. While it is based completely on what’s inside your head, it won’t make sense to other people. But it’s okay because it should only make sense to you. So you can personalize it however you want. Every little detail, from the fonts used to the images attached, is entirely your choice.
This makes it very easy to stay focused on your tasks since you’re actually doing something you love.
Getting the help of a mind map to go by can vastly improve your productivity. It’s been done, tested and proven. All you have to do is get yourself to actually do it one day, and you’d definitely find it difficult to do without it after that!