Mind Maps

[liralen]

Are fun. It's a more graphical way of representing what, essencially, is an outline. Taking a central concept, breaking it down to the next level and then connecting thoughts, data, and organizations of other thoughts and data to that level and so on and so on.

It's an interesting way of breaking thing down and still keeping track of them.

There's a free tool available from http://freemind.sourceforge.net and some examples at http://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/mind-maps-examples.htm. And it's proving very useful for tackling some big problems I'm having with respect to organizing what I know about a BIG system. The only limitations I deplore are a lack of Undo and an inability to connect one leaf or branch to another leaf or branch, though the latter, I understand, is a much, much harder problem than the original one this simple tool tackles.

And, yes, it's proven very useful for the first several stage of a snowflake approach to my thinking about a novel. Don't have a clue where that's going, but it's been fun just noodling with it and trying to answer my own questions.