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For an app to make this list, you need to be able to attach images, videos, documents, web pages, and other assorted extras to your mind maps. Sometimes you need more than a few words to fully illustrate a concept-and doodling is a big part of analog mind mapping. Using an app is all about overcoming the analog downsides, not reinforcing them. A digital mind map tool should have a practically unlimited canvas size, so you can make a mind map as big as you can conceive of, connecting huge numbers of ideas if you want. The app should just fade into the background-the same way your web browser does. After a short learning period to get up to speed, you shouldn't have to stop and think to create a node, or dig through menus to connect two ideas. No app is ever going to be quite as intuitive, but it should come as close as possible. Mind mapping with a pen and paper is a joy.

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For an app to make this list, we dug past the marketing and made sure it was designed from the ground up for brainstorming, not for drawing or creating professional diagrams or charts. These more general-purpose apps tend to lack the features that make creating a mind map digitally as easy as possible, like automatically linking nodes, brainstorming modes that let you get a lot of concepts down quickly, and search. Just because something can be used to make a mind map, doesn't mean it should or that it will do it well. You could even get a key and carve a mind map into your computer screen. While you could make a mind map in them, you could also use PowerPoint, Photoshop, or MS Paint. A lot of drawing, diagramming, and flowchart apps are marketed as mind map apps-but they aren't. While each mind mapping tool on this list has its own unique benefits, they all meet at least the following criteria:

So even though pen-and-paper mind mapping is delightful, it might be worth considering a mind map app. And, worst of all, if you lose your mind map, you don't have a backup. It's not searchable, and you can't easily undo things or make edits. Unless you have a gigantic whiteboard knocking around, you're limited to a fairly small piece of paper. You just start drawing and go from there with almost nothing in your way. Mind mapping with a sheet of paper and a pen is an incredibly intuitive and natural way to work. Who'd have thought before we started brainstorming that Alice Cooper flipping burgers at a family BBQ (or maybe in a fast food joint?) could make for a killer summer ad? What makes for great mind map software? 'Family time' could also link to 'Good weather' and 'Vacation.' 'Burgers' could link to 'Summer jobs.' But by getting all these branching concepts down on paper, you can start to see the relationships between different things and generate new ideas. Some ideas will also connect back to other ideas.

'BBQs' might lead to 'Family time,' 'Good food,' and 'Burgers.' 'School's out' could lead to 'Summer jobs,' 'Extracurriculars,' and 'Alice Cooper.' For example, if the central theme was 'Summer' (say, for a marketing campaign), the first five or so nodes might be 'Good weather,' 'BBQs,' 'Vacation,' 'Air conditioning,' and 'School's out.'įrom each node, you then repeat the process, drilling deeper into the different concepts. Then the fun starts: around your central theme, you create 'nodes' connected by lines, each with its own related idea or theme. You start by writing a central idea or theme in the middle of a blank sheet of paper. Traditionally, a mind map is done with a pen (or, ideally, loads of colored pens) and paper. MindMeister for collaborating on a mind map with a teamĪyoa for a modern approach to mind mapping Coggle for mind map beginners and occasional use

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