Mind Map – Many of us have been making lists for a while. It’s been a nervous couple of years and you may struggle to shut down whirling thoughts. A mind map is more creative than a list because you can start with a central idea and use more than pen and paper to build a creative structure that features ideas equally.
What’s a Mind Map?
A mind map is a structure that features an inspirational idea or goal that you can enhance with other ideas peripherally. For example, you may want to create a mind map around your goal to eat healthier and enjoy your food more.
Around this great idea, you can create 5 spokes if your goal is to eat small meals. Each of those 5 spokes can include lean protein and fresh produce. From those ideas, you may want to track
- what foods match your cravings at different points of the day
- how much cooking do you honestly want to do
- what changes you will need to make to your budget to make these changes work
Big changes can start with a lot of energy but rarely succeed. For long-term success, your mind map needs to point to tasks that you currently do and that you can quickly expand.
How to Start a Mind Map
Decide if you want a top-down structure or a hub and spoke design. You can quickly change things up with Adobe Express and add graphics and animations to help you enjoy getting to your goal.
Going back to your dietary goals, you could set up your mind map with animations to remind you of the things you already do, the skills you already have, and the goals that will take some “fresh brain” work.
Invite In Others
You may have a group of friends with the same goals. If they need to stick with three meals a day and snacks, they may choose to boost the graphics on your shared mind map. Full meals may need to be a different shape than the original small metal spokes. Snacks may need to be a different color. Lines to each of the meals can be solid; snacks may float on the screen.
Make Room for More Spokes
If one goal is to eat more salmon, you may have a spoke pointing to a salmon and salad meal. Brainstorm around this with more spokes on quick and low-fat ways to cook salmon. Add links to coupons and local sales. Link up some simple salad recipes. Add notes on working with both fresh and frozen salmon.
Allow Ideas to Flow
With Adobe Express, you can just keep linking and adding ideas on various levels, both around the central topic and around the spokes. Your mind map can store as many ideas as you can come up with. Functionally, a [mind map] is a freeform outline that has shed the hierarchical characteristics of an old-school outline.