Finally! A method to manage your time effectively

We are delighted to be able to introduce one of the world’s best selling books on time management, “The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques“.

I have had the opportunity to get to know one of the authors of this book, Pamela Dodd. She’s a bit of a fan of Mind Mapping and loves what you can do with NovaMind, so I was able to twist her arm a bit and she has written a special e-book about applying her time management techniques using NovaMind.

We are giving this eBook away to NovaMind customers who buy The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques from the NovaMind online store. The special NovaMind eBook has 8 specially crafted Mind Maps (and descriptions) showing you how to:

• uncover and organize your values and vision
• map out your vision
• prioritize effectively
• organize events and to-do lists
• deal with large amounts of information
• plan and achieve goals
• make decisions
• and manage projects

So that’s about the bonus, but what about the e-book itself?

The book itself is only 95 pages long, but packs into that space clear and concise methods for managing your time so that you can achieve the things you want to.

There is detailed information about the book available at http://www.novamind.com/mind-mapping-books/time-management.php

And when you are ready to purchase your copy, you can get it from the NovaMind online store for only US$21.95. This includes the bonus e-book mentioned above.

Here are some of the things others are saying about the book:

“A priceless guide to smarter, better business and living.”

Alastair Rylatt, author of Winning the Knowledge Game

“Please accept my gratitude on behalf of all procrastinators and disorganized individuals who desperately need such a streamlined source of information on how to manage their time and lives.

I am grateful for all of the research you’ve conducted, all the books you read, and for extracting only those details truly necessary to get to the point. You have succeeded in providing the exact information and steps people need to take to stop wasting time and begin spending it wisely, so they can enjoy life rather than figure out ways to get through it.”

Paige McQuay, business owner

“This book provides a realistic perspective on why there is ‘never enough time.’ Anyone who feels overwhelmed at work will find practical tips on how to save time by negotiating priorities and learning to say no.

Dodd and Sundheim use their years of experience in the business world to show us how to better manage ourselves and be more productive. Investing a couple of hours to read this book will save you many hours of wasted time and energy.”

Diane Pick,
Management consultant, trainer, & author

I have read the book too, and follow the principles laid out in the book to manage both my businesses and my life. I highly recommend this book, so when you are ready to get your copy, it’s there waiting for you at the NovaMind online store for only US$21.95. This includes the bonus e-book mentioned above.

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NovaMind are pleased to introduce a new export to Microsoft Word DOCX format. The video below gives you the details.

This is a very full featured and powerful export feature of NovaMind. Of course you’ve always been able to select the Mind Map title and copy and paste the text into Word, but you didn’t get it the Word outline format and you didn’t get all the images or hyperlinks.

With the new export feature, all that has changed.

When you export a Mind Map to Word, the Mind Map title becomes the title of the document, and each branch is mapped to a Word heading according to its level. This allows you to generate tables of contents and work in outline mode if you want to.

All of the text is added to the document using the Word default fonts unless you have explicitly set a font or color in NovaMind. If you have only set the style of some of the text, the rest of the text will take the Word default formatting for the attributes of the text you haven’t changed, and for the rest of the text. This means that the Word templates and styles are easily applied and update the text in the same way as if you had made those changes in the text within Word.

The text comes across using the standard Word formatting except where we explicitly set it to something else.

And if we apply a specific style to the document in Word, then it applies that style to the text of the document.

You can also work with the NovaMind themes without affecting this - only the text styles that you have changed to be something different than the theme settings will have those specific settings applied in the Word document. This allows you to use the full power of the Word themes for your Word document.

Also, the hyperlinks on your NovaMind document are translated into the MS Word equivalent - either hyperlinks or bookmarks and links if the link is to another branch.

The images are exported, including any reflections you have put on the images. This also includes attached graphics and adornments.

Also the branch notes are exported, including any embedded graphics.

All of these features are designed to give you the absolute best experience when you export your NovaMind document to MS Word.

 

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We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of NovaMind Connect - the new social Mind Map sharing web site from NovaMind.

This video gives you an overview of some of the capabilities of NovaMind Connect:

NovaMind Connect is an easy way for you to share NovaMind Mind Maps with other people. You can upload your Mind Maps to NovaMind Connect and view them online, navigating right down through all the branches of the Maps. You also have full text search capabilities for every branch of every Mind Map that has been uploaded to NovaMind Connect.

NovaMind Connect allows people to comment on your documents, Mind Maps and even on individual branches, and the comments are maintained in threads according to where they were made. This allows you to have conversations with others about the Mind Maps, and everyone can benefit from the additional insights they gain from the conversations and collaborations. You can even be notified by email when someone posts a comment on one of your Mind Maps, so you can come back and continue the discussion.

You can rate the documents to build up a list of both your favorites and everyone’s top rated mind maps.

You can tag the documents with relevant words and build up a communal tag cloud linking to the most popular topics and allowing you to view all the related Mind Maps in just a single click.

You can download the documents as NovaMind files, or individual Mind Maps as either PDF documents or JPG images.

You can build up a group of friends within NovaMind connect, receive messages when they have posted Mind Maps, and send them messages.
You can set up your profile to tell people about yourself, and look not only at other peoples’ profiles, but also at what Mind Maps they have posted, and all the comments they have made.

You can be kept up to date on new Mind Map additions by using the RSS feed which contains links to all the documents as they are added.

You can send links to specific branches and Mind Maps to your friends and associates, and use your favorite bookmarking tool to bookmark them for future reference.

As you can see, NovaMind Connect is a great way for you to connect with other NovaMind users, and the rest of the world, and share the benefits of Mind Mapping with everyone.

Come and try it out at http://www.novamind.com/connect

 

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PowerPoint Export

NovaMind for Mac received a significant update today with the ability to export Mind Maps directly from NovaMind to PowerPoint.

This capability opens up new sharing opportunities where there is a need to brainstorm ideas using Mind Mapping techniques, and yet to share the information using more “traditional” presentation software.

Although NovaMind for Mac used to have similar functionality, it did not work with the latest version of PowerPoint, and so we took the opportunity to completely rewrite the PowerPoint export in such a way that it no longer requires PowerPoint to be installed on your computer for the export to work.

The files produced are the new PPTX files used by PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and PowerPoint 2008 for Mac.

Here is a video of the export procedure and results:

Standard text styles are used wherever possible to make sure that when you apply a theme to your presentation in PowerPoint, the styles are applied consistently throughout the presentation.

Images on the branches are transferred to the presentation, and the branch notes become speaker notes.

This makes the transition from your NovaMind Mind Map to your PowerPoint presentation almost instantaneous.

PowerPoint export is available immediately as a free update to NovaMind 4 Platinum and NovaMind 4 Pro, and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to function.

MS Project Export and Import

For some time, the Mac edition of NovaMind Platinum has had the ability to add project related information like start and finish dates, percentage complete, priorities, and assign resources to the branches on the Mind Maps, and then import the project information into Merlin project manager for Mac.

While this is a really good solution, we realize that many of you are using other project management software. The Microsoft Project file format has become the de facto standard for project management applications, so no matter which project management software you use, it is almost certain that you will be able to use the MS Project format.

This means that you can carry out the project inception phases in NovaMind, brainstorming your ideas and working out the project’s scope and objectives, then export into Microsoft Project format for detailed project management.

During the project, if you need to bring someone new on to the project or brainstorm solutions to particular problems in the project, you can either import the whole project file into NovaMind, or export a portion of the project plan from your project management package and open it in NovaMind, and work with it in NovaMind. Using the Mind Map format makes it easy to see the interrelationships between objectives and requirements and tasks within the scope of the project, which makes it a powerful tool for both understanding where all the different pieces of the project fit together, and also for designing solutions to project related issues.

The Microsoft Project import and export functionality is available immediately as a free update for NovaMind 4 Platinum for Mac users, and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to function.

NovaMind for Windows received a significant update today with the ability to export Mind Maps directly from NovaMind to PowerPoint.

This capability opens up new sharing opportunities where there is a need to brainstorm ideas using Mind Mapping techniques, and yet to share the information using more “traditional” presentation software.

The files produced are the new PPTX files used by PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and PowerPoint 2008 for Mac.

Here is a video of the export procedure and results:

Standard text styles are used wherever possible to make sure that when you apply a theme to your presentation in PowerPoint, the styles are applied consistently throughout the presentation.

Images on the branches are transferred to the presentation, and the branch notes become speaker notes.

This makes the transition from your NovaMind Mind Map to your PowerPoint presentation almost instantaneous.

The NovaMind Presenter allows you to give great presentations directly from within NovaMind, and also to edit the Mind Map while you are presenting. This gives you a very powerful but flexible presentation system. This video shows you the ins and outs of using the presenter to give your presentations.

There is no setup work to go from your Mind Map to the presentation system - just click a single button. And during the presentation if you want to go in to a specific branch, or expand other branches, it’s all just a click away.

NovaMind directly supports a very clear presentation style where you can give an overview of the main topics or objectives of the presentation from the first level branches of the Mind Map, then go into more detail as you visit each of the sub-branches. Then you can go around the top level branches again to give the summary of the presentation.

There is lots more information on how to give great presentations in the presentations section of the NovaMind web site.

 

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A lot of project managers are turning to Mind Mapping for their project planning needs.

There is detailed information on project planning using mind maps available on the NovaMind web site. The project planning page has just been updated with new mind maps to help explain the planning process.

Although standard project management packages such as MS Project and Merlin give you good tools to manage your projects, but they really have a strong tendency to get people focusing on the minute task levels of projects far too early in the inception phases of a project.

Others find it difficult to follow things like Gantt charts and the spreadsheet-like rows and columns of task data.

Often this leads to losing sight of the main objectives of the project, or getting so stuck in the details that you forget some important tasks or objectives. Or the attention of key people can wander off topic.

Using brainstorming techniques, you can put together a Mind Map of the project that shows everyone where they fit in, why each part of the project is important, and how it relates to the overall goals and objectives.

This makes it easy to make sure that there is nothing forgotten in the early planning and scoping exercises, as well as being a great tool for presenting to stakeholders in the project. If you are trying to get funding for a project, it makes it much easier when the project plan is drawn out as a Mind Map. Everyone can see what the objectives are for the project, how they are going to be achieved, the tasks that are required to achieve the tasks, as well as the resources that are required.

There are a number of articles on the NovaMind web site about project planning as well as other forms of planning using mind mapping techniques.

These techniques have saved millions of dollars in project costs, as well as helped win contracts, and ease the workload of project managers around the world.

The NovaMind Presenter is a powerful presentation tool, and although it it very straightforward to use, there are some things in this video which you would not know by just playing with it. Generally it’s more fun watching a video than reading documentation - especially if you are a visual learner, so watch this NovaMind tutorial video to get up to speed quickly with the ins and outs of the Mind Map presenter.

With the NovaMind presenter, you can create great presentations directly from your Mind Maps with virtually no extra work above just creating the Mind Map.

NovaMind directly supports a very smooth presentation style where you can give an overview of the main topics or objectives of the presentation from the first level branches of the Mind Map, then go into more detail as each of the sub-branches is visited in turn. Then you can go around the top level branches in turn again to give the summary of the presentation.

There is lots more information on how to give great presentations in the presentations section of the NovaMind web site.

 

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The New Face of Screenwriting: NovaMind Introduces ScriptMapping - A Powerful Combination of Screenwriting and Mind Mapping

NovaMind Software has just released a new version of NovaMind Platinum with enhanced screenwriting functionality which can be used for all aspects of screenplay writing as well as experimental screenwriting, visual storyboarding, movie and production planning. See http://www.novamind.com/screenwriting/ for full details.

Brisbane, Australia — Writing screenplays used to be a difficult process where it was difficult to find the portion of the screenplay to edit, keeping track of the storyline could be difficult, writer’s block was common, and you really couldn’t “play with” the script to get it right.

These problems are a thing of the past with ScriptMapping - powerful screenwriting software built in to NovaMind mind mapping software. It allows the user to capture ideas easily during brainstorming sessions, and attach portions of the screenplay to different branches of the mind maps. The screenplay can be reorganized just by dragging the branches into different locations. Experimental screenwriting is now possible through the ability to disable the printing or export of the script on specific branches of the Mind Map. Visual storyboarding is accomplished by attaching images to the branches, or creating links to movies and other resources where required.

Many professionals in the live theatre, movie and TV industries already use Mind Mapping and brainstorming techniques to generate and develop story ideas and characters, and plan, organize and manage many aspects of production. These uses are also fully supported in NovaMind with the ability to add notes to the branches, hyperlink to other documents, set start and finish dates, percentage complete, durations and allocate resources.

John Brownlow, writer of the movie “Sylvia” starring Gwyneth Paltrow, said:

“I just wanted to congratulate you on starting to address the need for a truly structured screenwriting program.

As a long-standing and very disillusioned user of other screenwriting applications, I am delighted to see the way NovaMind is going. I already structure all of my scripts in NovaMind and am enormously looking forward to using the app to do much more of the work on my next script”

The screenwriting functionality in the Mac version of NovaMind Platinum has been completely rewritten over the last 6 months, and now includes the following capabilities:

• Screenplay formatting to industry standards for font, margin settings, line spacing, mores, continueds, section standards and page numbering
• Fully configurable cycling through section types on return and tab keypresses
• Automatic sentence casing of dialogues and actions
• Text completions for character names, scene headings, scene location and time, character parentheticals, and transitions
• Orphan protection of dialogs so they are not split from their character names
• Work with the whole screenplay in a single view or just one branch at a time
• Both import and export to and from Movie Magic and Final Draft
• Configurable initial section type for branches
• Configurable mores and continueds for characters and scenes, including automatic character continueds and scene number continueds
• Configurable scene numbering in the margins on both sides
• Configurable indents and capitalization for sections, as well as overall page layout settings
• Global replace of character names and scene locations
• Skip directly to the next or previous branch with script attached, or just to the next or previous branch, from within the screenwriter window
• Enable or disable script on a branch either from within the screenwriter window or on the Mind Map, or from within the print or export dialogs
• Jump directly to scenes or page numbers within the screenplay either using the mouse or by command key
• Capitalize or lower case selected text
• Scale the screenplay text for easier readability
• Ability to set the scene numbering and continuations for printing independently of the editor
• Print just a single branch, a range of scenes, or a range of pages of the script
• Ability to include mind map related text (branch titles, branch notes, attached text) in the printed or exported screenplay

The combination of screenwriting and mind mapping is totally unique to NovaMind, and provides everything you need to write and publish your screenplay directly from within NovaMind.

NovaMind has been used by some top screenwriting professionals for several years, and even with the old capabilities of the screenwriter, they have done amazing things. For example, Hector Cabello Reyes used the screenwriting capabilities of NovaMind to write the screenplay with which he won the top professional screenwriting award in Europe.

The combination of Mind Mapping and Screenwriting is a revolution in screenplay programs. It benefits the entire movie production business, allowing all the people involved to communicate better, be more flexible and creative, and produce better movies more quickly and with lower risk.

About NovaMind:

NovaMind has been the top Mind Mapping program available on Mac computers for the last 6 years, and is rapidly gaining recognition in the Windows market. NovaMind makes Mind Mapping intuitive and fun, and revolutionizes screenplay writing, idea generation, story development, and the entire writing and production workflow.

For more information about NovaMind, please visit http://www.novamind.com/ or e-mail Gideon King at gideon(at)novamind.com.

I have just put together a video based on a story from my dim distant past…about 25 years ago when I first started using Mind Maps. It shows how I made good use of mind mapping techniques to give a great presentation under … trying … circumstances.

There’s lots of information on the NovaMind web site about using Mind Maps for presentations and a good starting point is the following:

http://www.novamind.com/presentations/

where you will find this video and also lots of other information related to Mind Mapping for presentation research, preparation and delivery.

And without further ado, here is the video:

I hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

Gideon

.

Microsoft Project Import and Export

For some time, the Windows edition of NovaMind Platinum has had the ability to add project related information like start and finish dates, percentage complete, priorities, and assign resources to the branches on the Mind Maps.

Unlike the Mac version of NovaMind which can be imported directly into Merlin, the Windows edition did not have any way of getting the information over into a project management package.

Now that has all changed with the introduction of both import and export of Microsoft Project XML files. This means that you can carry out the project inception phases in NovaMind, brainstorming your ideas and working out the project’s scope and objectives, then export into Microsoft Project format for detailed project management.

The Microsoft Project file format has become the de facto standard for project management applications, so no matter which project management software you use, it is almost certain that you will be able to use the MS Project format.

During the project, if you need to bring someone new on to the project or brainstorm solutions to particular problems in the project, you can either import the whole project file into NovaMind, or export a portion of the project plan from your project management package and open it in NovaMind, and work with it in NovaMind. Using the Mind Map format makes it easy to see the interrelationships between objectives and requirements and tasks within the scope of the project, which makes it a powerful tool for both understanding where all the different pieces of the project fit together, and also for designing solutions to project related issues.

The Microsoft Project import and export functionality is available immediately as a free update for NovaMind Platinum for Windows users, and will be integrated into the NovaMind Platinum Mac product shortly.

Mind Manager Import

The Pro and Platinum editions of NovaMind for Windows also now have the capability of importing Mind Manager files. We have a lot of users who have a number of old Mind Maps that they want to convert to NovaMind format and work with in NovaMind, and people who receive Mind Manager files from colleagues, so we have built this capability into the Windows version of NovaMind Pro and Platinum.

Mind Manager import and export has been in the Mac version of NovaMind for several years, but the techniques we are using in the Windows product gives a better result, so we are going to be porting the new Windows import capability over to the Mac, and it will be available shortly.

To get the latest version, just do a check for updates in NovaMind and download the latest version.

Video introduction to ScriptMapping™ - write your screenplay using the integrated screenwriting capabilities of NovaMind mind mapping software.

This video takes you through the overall functionality and benefits of using Mind Mapping software with a built in screenwriting system to build up your screenplay using visual storyboarding and experimental screenwriting.

There are also some comments from prominent people in the movie industry about their experiences using NovaMind for their screenwriting needs.

Sometimes screenplays start as doodles, or conversations with friends, and are developed through brainstorming sessions.

But those brainstorming and planning sessions where all the ideas are being thrown out there left right and center are often not captured, and afterwards only a flavor of the conversation is left. Many ideas that could have been developed into something brilliant have been lost in this way.

Many professionals in the live theatre, movie and TV industries already use Mind Mapping and brainstorming techniques to generate and develop story ideas, characters, organize aspects of production and more. This has helped immensely with capturing that information, organizing it, and explaining it to everyone else involved in the production.

But there used to be something missing - sure, if you have a good Mind Mapping application, you can use it like a visual storyboard, but very often snippets of the actual screenplay are thought up during these brainstorming sessions.

There used to be nowhere to store these portions of your screenplay in your mind maps.

That is, until NovaMind.

Now with NovaMind, you can both use powerful visual storyboarding, task planning, resource management and scriptwriting all in one place.

The new NovaMind screenwriter is totally unique, and provides everything you need to write and publish your screenplay directly from within NovaMind.

You can attach as much script as you like to each of the branches, and it is automatically assembled in the right order for your screenplay, according to the position of the branches. If you want to reorganize your script, all you need to do is move the branches around.

But there’s something even more powerful - you can do experimental script writing. Say you have a screenplay and you have ideas for three different endings, you could write all three of the endings and attach them to different branches. Then you would disable the printing on two of the branches and produce your screenplay, send it off to the director or producer. Let’s say they come back and say “I love the screenplay but the ending could really do with a rewrite”. So now you’re all ready - you go back to your computer, uncheck one ending and check another one and produce the revised screenplay instantly - you’re the hero of the day!

 

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NovaMind is pleased to announce the immediate availability of $50 discount coupons for people trading in their other Mind Mapping software for NovaMind.

These coupons are available for people who used to use Mind Manager or iMindMap or any other Mind Mapping software that they purchased for over $100. The coupons are valid for NovaMind Pro and NovaMind Platinum, as well as bundles of NovaMind Pro or Platinum plus Merlin project manager.

NovaMind owner Gideon King said “we have had quite a number of people requesting crossgrade discounts recently, as they have found that NovaMind fits their needs better. We have decided to make their migration to NovaMind easier by offering this discount.”

The coupons are now available at https://www.novamind.com/store/crossgrade.php.

Make your Mind Maps look even better using the new image reflections, branch image layout modes, glossy button look branches, new corner styling and new themes. This allows you to more effectively present the Mind Maps to other people and to recall information more easily.

Brisbane, Australia, June 2, 2008. NovaMind has long been recognized as the Mind Mapping program that produces the best looking Mind Maps. These new features take that even further, allowing you to create stunning looking Mind Maps that really grab your attention and make the Mind Maps even easier to remember.

These new capabilities are available immediately in both the Windows and Mac OS X versions of NovaMind.

The image reflections for attached images allow you to create stylish “Web 2.0” look images to enhance the look of your Mind Maps. You can now also apply both the chamfered and rounded corners to attached images, to further enhance the look of the images.

Using the new branch image layout modes, you can fit, fill, or stretch the images to suit your needs within the branches. This allows you to maintain the shape of the image where necessary, or to fill the branch with the image as required.

The glassy look branches give you a “Web 2.0” look for your branches. Whether they are rectangular, chamfered, rounded or oval, the glassy look can be applied to instantly add that extra visual pizzazz.

The existing themes have been updated, and new themes added to take advantage of the new visual styling that is available. This gives you professionally designed themes for your Mind Maps to make them look great by simply applying a theme.

About Mind Mapping

Mind Maps are diagrams that work the way you think – they organize the information in the same way your brain organizes information. They make it easy to understand, remember, and communicate complex information.

Our brains like thinking in pictures. The smooth curves and colorful pictures used in Mind Mapping create powerful images for your brain to remember.

Mind Maps cater to both logical left brain thinking and pictorial right brain thinking at the same time, which makes them a very good way of storing and recalling information, presenting things to other people, and brainstorming new ideas.

About NovaMind

NovaMind has been the top Mind Mapping program available on Mac computers for the last 6 years, and is rapidly gaining recognition in the Windows market. NovaMind makes Mind Mapping intuitive and fun.

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If you’d like more information about NovaMind, please visit www.novamind.com or e-mail Gideon King at gideon@novamind.com. 

We are pleased to announce that there will be a number of new ways that you can enhance the look of your Mind Maps, in our next release of NovaMind.

This will be a free update for existing version 4 license holders.

The new features include:

• The ability to fit branch images automatically into the branch (scaling them to fit)
• The ability to fill the branch with the image (cropping as necessary)
• The ability to stretch the image to fit the branch by scaling the width and height independently to fit.
• Reflections on the images
• Glassy button styles for branches and connection lines

The new features will be available in both the Windows and Mac version of NovaMind.

All this is currently in beta testing and will be released shortly…hope you like it!

Gideon

 

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Mind Maps are diagrams that work the way you think. They make it easy to understand, remember, and communicate complex information.

These days we are bombarded with so much information that it can be difficult to make sense of it all, and we suffer from information overload and overwhelm, which reduces our effectiveness.

Some of the problems we face are:

* inability to solve problems effectively,
* lack of creative thought,
* lack of focus,
* difficulty giving great presentations,
* problems organizing your thoughts,
* poor communication,
* missing out tasks when planning projects,
* forgetting important information, and
* lack of clarity and direction.

If you have suffered from any of these problems, Mind Mapping is for you. Mind Mapping gives you clarity and allows you to:

* organize your thoughts,
* remember information,
* communicate better,
* solve problems quickly and effortlessly,
* brainstorm new ideas,
* increase productivity by 20% or more,
* see the important issues,
* make better decisions, and
* give compelling presentations.

Why does Mind Mapping work?

Mind Maps organize the information in the same way your brain organizes information. This makes it very natural and easy to understand.

Our brains like thinking in pictures. The smooth curves and colorful pictures that are created when Mind Mapping create powerful images for your brain to remember.

We have two halves to our brains which think in different ways. The left half thinks linearly following direct linkages to related ideas. Our right brain likes to see the whole picture with colors and flow.

Mind Maps cater to both sides of the brain at the same time, which makes them a very good way of storing and recalling information, presenting things to other people, and brainstorming new ideas.

You can use Mind Mapping to make your opportunities and priorities clear. It makes growing your business easy and systematic.

Many businesses struggle because the owners and managers don’t have the right strategies to grow their businesses in the marketplace, or even if they do know the strategies, they are either not sure how to implement them, or are overwhelmed by the number of different things to think about all at once.

In this article you will learn how you can grow your business using Mind Mapping.

Included in this article is:

• a Mind Mapping case study,
• Mind Mapping tips,
• some ideas to help you with your project planning,
• the results of a Mind Mapping survey,
• techniques to help with getting things done,
• and videos on the 5 business growth factors.

So hop on over to find out how you can grow your business using Mind Mapping.

Gideon

There are a number of key factors in learning how to mind map, like:

• Using just just key words rather than long sentences.
• Using images wherever possible to make your mind maps colorful.
• Start in the center with a clear title and where possible a strong visual image that shows the general theme of the map.
• Use color and boundaries to group branches, and colors to depict themes and make things stand out.
• Make ideas stand out using color, humor, images, fonts etc - it will then stand out in your mind.
• Use link lines (with arrows where required) to show secondary links between different elements.
• If you run out of ideas in one place, just move on to another area of the mind map.
• Record ideas as you think of them, wherever they fit. Don’t judge or hold back.
• Get emotionally involved. Have fun. You remember more when you are having fun.

These are just a few of the important factors to consider when making your mind maps.

I have written a full article about How to Mind Map which gives you everything you need to know to be successful with your mind mapping.

Gideon

This is the final part of a 3 part video series which goes into detail on the 5 key factors of business growth and teaches you how to Mind Map each of the different drivers of growth.

You will learn quick and easy techniques for implementing these strategies in your business.

The presentation is given by Gideon King, Mind Mapping expert, author of two books on Mind Mapping, and founder of NovaMind Software, using the NovaMind presenter…

In this second video, Gideon presents detailed information on the final two key factors in growing your business using Mind Mapping:

• Number of transactions
• Profit Margin

Using Mind Mapping, you can create similar Mind Maps to represent the opportunities for your business.

As you create your Mind Map, you can brainstorm ideas and add them to any part of the Mind Map, building a picture of the possibilities and how they relate to each other.

Gideon also gives some useful tips for making this work in your business without feeling overwhelmed by all the different opportunities. So without further ado, here is the video:

 

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 How to grow your business using Mind Mapping - part 3 of 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Mind Mapping can be used for a very wide variety of purposes within your business. I have just created a squidoo lens showing how you can use Mind Maps to make planning business continuity and disaster recovery processes easier, and more easily understood.

Very often business continuity planning and disaster recovery planning is forgotten in the hectic world of running a business, but unless these plans are in place, your business could be out of action for an extended period of time. Many people balk at the thought of the amount of time they believe it is going to take to get the planning done, as well as the complexity of the plans that have to be created and then explained to everyone involved.

Luckily with Mind Mapping, the process is much simplified, because you start with what really makes the business tick, so you can see what is important to protect and maintain. You then break this down into a straightforward steps for risk / threat identification, risk mitigation, and response planning. Everyone can easily see what needs to be done, why, and where they fit in to the process.

Just hop over to http://www.squidoo.com/business-continuity to get the full story.