David Hollingworth

I’ve been an avid fan of mind maps since I saw a colleague use one for recording meeting minutes. The way all the notes seemed to fit an organized structure, rather than just being a list, really spoke to me.

When I asked him how he’d produced the map he pointed me at MindManager ® from Mindjet.com. After using the trial version for a short period I just knew I had to have this tool in my armory.

What can you use Mind Manager for? Here’s some ideas drawn from my own experience;

• Collating large volumes of data. I love the ability to view the big picture and then drill down to concentrate on specific branches.
• Goal setting. Put your goal as the central topic, add an inspirational image, then brainstorm all the topics you can think of that will get you to your goal.
• Planning a novel. Put your idea at the center, add your characters as branches and develop their personalities off these. Add your plot lines as other branches and link your characters into the plot.
• Career development. Put yourself at the center and add branches for your skills, knowledge and desires. Identify strengths and areas where you need to improve.
• Blogging. Add information about your blog postings on themed branches. Create links between topic where they refer to each other. Use the information to plan the development of the topics within your blog.

The list is, literally, endless. There are other mind mapping tools out there and Mind Manager isn’t cheap. So why do I think it has the edge over other products?

1. A good supply of map templates and styles as well as regular newsletters providing more suggestions and templates.
2. Great export facilities so that I can save mind maps as PDF files or import them into My Life Organized (more on this fellow in a later post).
3. If I were a Microsoft ® Office ™ user I could synchronize with Outlook or export maps to Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Project. As it is I can export to a very nice HTML format.
4. Plenty of built in images and icons to help visually enhance the information.

All round it’s a very professional package and highly functional. So I was delighted to hear that Mindjet are going to be releasing version 7 of Mind Manager at the end of May. I’ve had a sneak preview and it looks divine; but I’ll have to wait to see if the beauty of the new version goes deeper than just skin deep. Either way I can’t see my life now without Mind Manager.

One of the most difficult things for me to do is to take a break from the keyboard. When I’m in the zone I just want to keep typing; but over the years this has had a detrimental affect on my neck and shoulders.

I even had a little message pop-up occasionally to remind me, “Every hour take a 15 minute break.”.

Did this work? Did it heck!

Then I came across Workrave. This little program is designed so that I have to take a break when it tells me to. It’s very flexible and can be set up so that:

• You periodically take micro-breaks of a short duration.
• Less frequently you have to take a longer break where you do some stretches or take a walk around.
• It will even limit the total amount of time you can spend on the computer each day.

So now I have a set up where:

• Every 8 minutes I have to stop using the keyboard for 30 seconds. This is a micro-break.
• Every 45 minutes I have to take a 10 minute rest break.

Because my day is very open ended at the moment I have switched off the ‘total time allowed each day’ facility.

When the break time arrives you get a audio and visual (pop-up window) reminder. If you ignore these then the pop-up starts to flash, first orange then red. However there’s no escaping your break because if you continue typing Workrave will add on the extra seconds you need to complete your stoppage.

The rest breaks advises you to get up from the computer and do something else. It will even pop-up a series of exercises to perform to help relieve fatigue and muscle stress.

You can, it you choose, postpone or even skip a break if you simply must; but then that rather defeats the purpose of running Workrave. I’ve been using it for less than a week and I can already feel my shoulders are less tense.

Oops time for a micro-break….

I’ve seen some debate recently on the question of the tools we use to get things done and the systems we use to get things done.

Leo, in his ZTD Habit 1:Collect expounds the virtues of simple tools (paper and pen) over complex tools (PDA, organizers).

Over on lifedev.net Glen rounds off a posting on ZTD with the comment:

…the tool isn’t going to make you any more organized.

It’s all about the system, baby.

I actually believe it’s about both and that you need both to be productive.

Suppose I have two pieces of wood and a screw I want to use to join them together.

Firstly I need a tool to do this task (someone hands me a screw driver at this point); but the tool is no good without a system.

The system is that I put the pointy end of the screw driver into the recessed head of the screw and turn it in a clockwise direction.

So the job gets done because I had a system (turning my had in a clockwise direction) and a tool to implement it through.

I agree 100% with the idea that the simpler the tool the more likely it’s going to be used and that’s why I have a small notebook for dumping my tasks into as they spring into my head. That tool supports my system.

Over on Zen Habits Leo has proposed some interesting variations on the GTD methodology, calling it Zen To Done (ZTD). I’m not going to reproduce Leo’s material here; but I would like to expand on the areas I’ve found the most use.

One of these is in the area of choosing which tasks I’m going to work on. I’ve felt that one of the shortcomings of most of the productivity stuff I’ve read has been that they’re very hot on getting the stuff into your trusted system; but not so hot on getting it out again.

By that I mean they don’t offer a lot of advice on how to decide what to do next.

Leo’s suggestion is to look every week for the Big Rocks. These are the projects or tasks that I have to get completed over the next week. These are the things that I choose to focus on and these become my weekly goals. So at each weekly review I look for 2 or 3 Big Rocks and then at the tasks that are contributing to these. It’s those tasks I have to get done next week.

Next comes an interesting part. As part of my weekly review I used to block in time for the tasks I wanted to get done so I knew from my calendar each day what I should be doing morning and afternoon. GTD recommends the calendar is only for the “hard landscape” that is things that are immovable like meetings, appointments etc.

As I’ve been adopting GTD over the last 12 months I’ve also followed this suggestion and worked off my Closed List instead of my calendar. ZTD, on the other hand, is suggesting I should go back to blocking in time for my Big Rocks.

I think, for now, I’m going to avoid using my calendar for scheduling Big Rock time and continue to work off my Closed List. I’ll let you know if this changes and why.

Now, where did I leave those rocks?

One of the recurring themes of this blogs is going to be about productivity tools. What I find useful and why and what I don’t use and why. For me productivity is part tool and part method - tools are great but you’ve gotta know how to use them!

So what’s in the tool box this week? One of my favorites is Google Reader. I’ve tried a few feed readers over the last couple of years including:

• Feed Demon from Bradsoft
• Live Bookmarks in the Firefox browser
• Microsoft Outlook
• Mozilla Thunderbird

OK, not a huge list, I’ll give you that. However none of these readers have inspired me enough to persist with feed reading like Google Reader has.

What do I like about it? One of its big pluses is that it’s right there in my browser - no need to launch another application. Also its simplicity of design and execution have made it very user friendly (to this user at any rate).

So that’s my number one tool for the moment and using it I’m discovering a huge amount about productivity, happiness and getting things done. If you think Google Reader sucks or if you have a strong leaning in another direction then share your preferences here.