For the past two months, I’ve been using a mind map as a kind of personal dashboard, giving me a high-level perspective on the most important stuff I’m trying to accomplish. The map augments the OmniFocus workflow I’ve had for quite a while, and has helped me focus my time and energy in a much more decisive way than I had in the past.
Structure
The mind map has three main branches:
Active Projects: This branch contains my crucial creative projects, grouped by high-level life area (job/personal). Each project is given its own branch. Tasks on the critical path to completing that project are the branch’s children, along with any other items or concepts I want to keep in mind (for example, projects metrics or stakeholders). I try to keep the number of projects and their lists of tasks short. I’m not aiming to capture every granular detail, just the major beats of my current creative/work life. In each area, I want to know the stuff that separates success from complete failure. I also include a link to the OmniFocus task list for each project (using OF’s “Copy link” feature), so if I need the nitty-gritty detail, I can get to it quickly.
Upcoming events: In this branch, I give a single node to each important date or meeting on my planning horizon. This is generally a short list of items–travel dates, project deadlines, milestone meetings related to the projects above–and it’s not intended to replace my calendar. Occasionally, I’ll create branches beneath each meeting item, especially if I need to spend some time preparing for any of the events listed.
High-level life goals: In this branch I collect big-picture life goals–things like “Be a strong father and husband”, “Stay fit”, and “Write music”.
How I’m using it
I find myself using the map every morning to think about my upcoming day, and reviewing the map in detail about once every 3-4 days. When I get to the office, I often stand my iPad next to my keyboard with the map open in iThoughtsHD. I open it two or three times throughout the day, usually at natural stopping points between periods of focused work, or when I’m feeling fried or tired.
How it’s working
A mind map’s tree structure lets you see a lot of information at one time without becoming overwhelmed. Its visual/tactile nature is less intimidating than the hierarchical outlines found in task managers, and exploration is especially satisfying in a touch interface. This makes for more relaxed and constructive thinking and planning sessions.
The mind map is also really nice for thinking about multiple planning horizons simultaneously–big picture “I want to travel the world” stuff alongside “Get this project done on time” stuff. This gives me much better perspective on my work than a task manager typically does.
Without doubt, using the map has helped me focus on the most important work, rather than the most urgent. It has also helped me avoid getting entrenched in tasks that feel productive, but are relatively low-value–churning through email for hours, for example.
The things I decide not to put on the map are almost as important as the things I do. By keeping my projects trimmed down to only those things that are most valuable, I’m reminded to examine my life and make decisions about the work that’s actually going to make a difference.
As with any workflow, I’m always fine-tuning, but I’ve found the mind map to be one of the biggest improvements I’ve made to my system in the past 12 months.
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