Mind maps with Mindmeister – Review

Mind maps have proven themselves to be a very efficient and helpful organization tool. Right now I use Mindmeister to create my mind maps.

Mind mapping…

Mind map created with Mindmeister

And here is the reason:

Tony Buzan (“Speed Reading”) is the man who coined this technique, and he supports this type of information illustration in his statement that there are single connection points in each piece of information in our brains. The more connection points that are present (or one thinks of!), the easier it is for someone to remember that piece of information. Thus, mind mapping works well in putting information down on paper.

There are many opportunities to implement mind maps:

• Brainstorming
• Sketching/planning presentations
• Test preparation
• Recording meetings
• Creating weekly schedules
• Collecting ideas/planning outlines for blog posts

There are people who use mind maps as a daily to-do-list. That is a little too involved for me, though, because it requires several clicks on each platform before you can even get to the list. However, I use them, for example, to organize long and short-term goals.

Why Mindmeister?

Of course, it’s best to draw mind maps by hand, but that didn’t work out so well for me (it takes too long). So, I looked for a program to do it for me. I tested at least 10 tools and finally decided that I liked Mindmeister the best. Here are the reasons why:

Use – The functionality of the program is convincing. You can style the maps any way you like or add pictures and icons to make things easier to understand. You can also drag and drop individual points or the timeline of changes, and it also allows for the potential to export the maps, but more about that later.

Online, offline, and mobile – Mindmeister is primarily an online application—which, thanks to Google Gears, can also be used offline. On top of that, the iPhone app is useful, since it retrieves your existing maps and syncs them. The iPhone app is, of course, not very convenient to create large mind maps, but it’s enough to jot down a few ideas which you think of away from your computer.

Constant Updates – Mindmeister has been under constant development over the last 12 months since I began using the service, and their support system has answered quickly and provided helpful information.

Collaborative Work – Apart from being able to share your mind maps with others, it is also possible to work simultaneously with several people on one map. I often use Mindmeister with my wife to collect ideas for our online business or to plan vacations. Also interesting: In the platform itself there is a collection of all published maps on which you can participate (à la Wiki).

Export – Last but not least… You can easily export the mind maps you have created in many different formats: PDF, MindManager (mindjet), image files, text files, etc. There is pretty much every format you need.

By the way, Erica published a nice video about how to create mind maps with mindmeister.

What is not so great in Mindmeister?

What is missing for me in Mindmeister is the ability to modify mind maps to make them more comprehensive. One of Tony Buzan’s theories states that the connection lines between individual points should be the same as they are in your mind. This means that thoughts from “Level 1” to “Level 2” should have a thicker connection line than connected thoughts from “Level 7” to “Level 8”, since these ideas are farther away from the main idea. If the “branches” were represented in different colors, it would make the map much easier to understand.

There are still more functions in Mindmeister like the dashboard widget for Macs, API, e-mail to Mindmeister, etc. However, since I have yet to use these functions, I will not discuss them here.

Cost

Mindmeister provides a free account which allows you to create up to 3 maps – which is enough to test the service. If you want more, you will have to set up a paid account. At first I was reluctant to pay the approximately 5 dollar a month fee, but now that I use mind maps practically every day, I have no qualms with the price.

If you would like more information:
Try Mindmeister now

Or just write a comment with your question.