I have blogged about this iPhone Mindmapping software that is really good and how you can use it to incorporate into your GTD system.

Their Version 2.2 is currently in the approval stage and what i like about them is that they don’t rest on their laurels but are coming up with more and more ways to make this mind mapping software as functional as the desktop applications.

Here is a video showing how you can map relationships between related nodes.

What i really hope to is that they can come up with Tagging and Tag filtering of nodes. That will be awesome

Also check out:

GTD Series Part 6:Project Review through iThoughts Mind Mapping Software

Mind Mapping Software for iPhone:iThoughts Review

The GTD Series is a series of articles where i share about how i carried out GTD to help me function in daily work.

Part 1 here talks about my plan and overview of my GTD system

Part 2 here talks about why i eventually chose iPod Touch 2G as my main to do list console

Part 3 here talks about why i choose Appigo ToDo for iPhone as my main task manager

Part 4 here talks about how to plan for big projects and smaller projects

Part 5 here talks about how to make use of Contexts, Tags to Execute your tasks

Part 6 here discuss about how you can review projects better using iThoughts mind mapping software

In this article, i will talk more about making use of mind mapping softwares such as iThoughts to plan projects and take notes.

Viewing things from an overall perspective

One of the flaws that i realise for using Appigo ToDo as my main GTD application is that if you want to get a holistic view about things, its difficult.

Why is this so?

Project Planning

In the first part of the series, i highlighted that should you have a new multi step action collected or an action that belongs in an existing project, you should flow back to your Appigo ToDo to perform your project planning assessing what is the actionable task that you should be doing.

Dependencies and Bottlenecks

To me, with my ipod touch on my side all the time, collection is great and dropping it into sub projects. However, certain difficult projects, you would want to see what u have done in chronological order, or an order that shows u dependency. This can’t be done well with most GTD software on the market.

Many folks that use Microsoft project would have realise the importance of dependencies in milestones and tasks and would like to have this flexibility.

For further example we go back to our buying a bicycle example i illustrated in planning for projects and big projects:

1. Ask Son what kind of bicycle he likes
2. Find out how much your family have to pay for the bike (budgeting)
3. Research on where to buy the cheapest bike on the internet
4. Give son a look at the bike see if he likes it
5. Find out what to look out for if it is the first time you are buying a bike
6. Go down and buy the bike
7. Wait for the bike to be delivered to you

In the example here, there are certain things that have no dependency and some that  you have to execute it in a chrono logical order. Example u need to research where to buy the cheapest bike if u are tight on your budget. If you haven’t done that, you can’t carried out the rest of the other actions.

The there are some such as get the son’s approval which, depending on what kind of parent you are you might not care about that and would most likely proceed to action 5 or do it concurrently.

Those actions that do not generate a bottleneck or have dependency are easier to settle. You use your Context management of where you are at such as @Home, @Errands to help u do it fast.

Difficulties in Weekly Review or Daily Review of Project

Those that do, its difficult to use Appigo Todo to view that.

A sub project plan

Here we have 3 tasks. If we go by my plan. I would most likely be scheduling my day to solving this client problem. Then i can see what is my next action in office and resolve them. Suppose the bottle neck or the dependency is under @Waiting For or @Contact, then i need to do that first in order to start my actions in @Office.

You can’t see that link in such a GTD application.

If that is the case, what we need to fall back on is to our Weekly Review, Daily Review or Project Review, where we identify what is really the next action.

However, the thing about all these to do list is that, unless you use the desktop ones, you get to see in an order which task you have done and what is left to do.

In Appigo ToDo if you done with the task, it automatically removes it and puts it at the bottom should you chose to show it.

Competed Tasks go below, breaking the order that is required for review

The solution to this is that you should be looking for a mobile task management software that is THAT flexible. But if that is the case, you are looking at something ah la Microsoft Project + Context filtering on iPhone. Do we have that? The answer is i have failed to locate such an application.

iThoughts as a solution

The discovery of mind mapping software such as MindJet and iThoughts have brought about a possible solution to this.

I am still experimenting with it but so far its been a complicated planning process. I don’t want to make it overly complicated so its purely to test out how good iThoughts is as a GTD planning tool.

As a primer to what iThoughts can do, please review this article that shows how powerful this would make your iphone and ipod touch.

Viewing the Vision,Goals and Areas of Responsibility

The thing about iThoughts is that you can bring your map from your favorite desktop mind mapping software Freemind or Mind Manager to this app and vice versa.

So it means that if iThoughts close shop on you, you are not screwed.

So back to topic. You can actually create a vision map to enable u to plan and review your goals and what you hope to achieve.

There are numerous templates out there on the web, and the good thing about iThoughts is that you can always have a template map and duplicate that map so that you can reuse and reuse a map template again.

Goals and Areas of Responsibility

Here is an example of a map illustrating your goals for the year or 3 years and what are the area’s of responsibility to bring you to that. The great thing about this mind mapping tool is that it can take a large area so u can literally go on to plan your projects here as well. But for me i just find it very clustered if i go on further. I would rather plan sub projects in a seperate map.

iThoughts enable you to show progress as well.so that means you can do quarterly review of these maps to see how far you are from achieve these goals and whether for example you need to redefine your big projects( your big projects will be those Area of Responsibilities, which are equivalent to large lists in Appigo ToDo)

Planning projects in detail

By setting a Project Planning Mind Map Template, you can easily duplicate this template and start planning your projects.

Duplicate Templates

A note is that, it would be best to plan really extensive projects that are more complex here in iThoughts. For simple stuff like buying a bicycle, i would recommend software like Things or Appigo ToDo. It makes life easier. Different software have their strengths and weakness and GTD to-do list excel in quick collection and filtering based on contexts.

Mind Mapping software like iThoughts do not do filtering that well.

Complex Project Planning

The goal of project planning is that you have an idea about

1. Why you are doing this (Purpose)
2. Where you are at
3. Where do you want to be (Outcome)
4. What are my constraints? (time? resources? other complexity?)
5. What do i have to do (Milestones)

And in a template such as this, things become very clear at one glance. This is an example about buying an insurance policy. So the purpose and  outcome and constraints are spelt out clearly whenever you review and plan.

You will also be able to see your progress of each milestones clearly plus how much time you have left or whether a milestone is overdue (denoted by the red clock in “REquest advice from advisor”)

Drill down to tasks

Here we drill down from the milestones to tasks. The conflict that i have is that you can’t really filter your tasks by context. But really if you are someone who wants a once glance review and plan ahead, such a task management mind map will be great.

Here you see that a target icon marks my next action and what i should be focusing on. This would work, if you schedule a time to carry out such a sub project. If you don’t schedule it on your calendar then if you keep so many sub projects map you end up checking here check there to see what you should be doing.

This is where you really give and take and really appreciate Appigo ToDo. You can view all your sub projects and which is your next actions easily but not iThoughts.

I would suggest that for someone who is using a task management application like Things or Appigo ToDo, put your tasks necessary in your Appigo Todo, don’t double entry. it wastes time.

Use iThoughts purely as a review and planning from a higher perspective.

1. Review your iThoughts Milestones
2. Move to your Appigo ToDo check if its completed
3. If it is and all the tasks in the milestones are completed move the progress to the appropriate level.
4. Re-evaluate milestones and brainstorm if there are tasks that needs to be added into any of the milestones.
5. Review if you can still meet your deadline.

Conclusion

This is by no means a good solution. But iThoughts is such a flexible software that it can weave into this purpose of reviewing and keeping track of your 50000 – 20000 feet stuff.

That way you don’t lose track of what is the overall objective.

Introduction

In one of my previous post, i did a brief overview on Mindjet, a mind mapping software that is available for your ipod touch or iphone. Mindjet is also the company that brought you mind manager, a state of the art mind mapping software that is pretty expensive for most of us.

Digital vs Analog Mind Mapping

I used Mind Manager before and really its a great software to mind map on your laptop or desktop. But my good friend Melvin made a comment, that if he were to mind map, he would rather use a piece of paper.

I find that digital mind mapping have advantages, particularly, you can:

• re-arrange the nodes so that you can structure your thoughts
• you can easily archive and reference them next time for notes
• you can translate them into project plans or tasks list
• you can link them to your word,excel and web documents

Perhaps the problem with a desktop or laptop is that for Kinetic people they need to scribble down things instead of clicking and typing and looking at a screen.

For me though, I find it difficult to collect my thoughts or do planning facing a digital mind map. I am a kinetic person, which means i remember things better if i scribble it down. But really, the problem for me is that i tend to misplaced by maps all over the place. So i like something digital, but also enables me to mind map wherever i can, not bounded to any desktop or laptop. The best option is that if i were to be able to find something good on the Apple iPhone app store it will be good!

Requirements of my mind mapping software

In my exploration of apps on the Apple iPhone App Store, i found a few softwares that does mind mapping. Some of them are great like Mind Meister, which touts that their app for the iphone can sync real time with their online maps.However, as part of my needs to keep notes offline and away from the web, i need better solution. Specifically:

• Maps must be sophisticated compare to desktop mind mapping tool
• Maps must be able to view both on iPhone and desktop
• Maps must be portable
• Pricing must be affordable

So i stumble upon Mindjet and iThoughts.

iThoughts Overview

iThoughts was released first before Mindjet. And the similarities between the 2 applications are very very similar. I got a feeling the folks at Mindjet copied what the folks at iThoughts did to come up with theirs (don’t sue me! everyone will think the same way after looking at the comparison here!)

The problem of them being so similar is that for the same price which one should i go for?In the end i took my plunge with iThoughts instead of MindJet and i have not regretted since.

Pricing

Both iThoughts and Mindjet cost USD6.99. Its not cheap, but its not that expensive compare to GTD apps that i bought such as Appigo ToDo. The cost is nothing if it brings improve productivity to my life. Hey, some of my dinner cost like USD15, so i believe i am not paying an expensive price for an independent application.

Version

Version reviewing is version 2.1.

Why is it good?

Basically, most of the basic things you are able to do on your desktop mind map software such as Nova Mind and Mind Manager you can do it here

Able to handle large maps

iThoughts uses a canvas to paint the topics and they tout that you can go greater than 1000x the screen area which is more than enough for me.

You can zoom in zoom out of maps to get a better vantage view after you have rearrange or finish composing

Zoom Out

Zoom In view

Very good performance

What i really like about this application is that not only does it have a lot of good functionality, those that i expect to be in it, but on the iPod Touch 2G it does it with a very good performance.

• Double tapping immediately brings out the Topic input screen
• Not much lag on scrolling around canvas to review Map
• Organization of the above map neatly is fast

Very friendly Topic input mechanism

Topic Input

Entering a new topic or nodes is a breeze! All you need to do is touch on a parent topic once to select that topic. You can enter a new topic by touching the top buttons to either enter a child or sibling topic.

Additionally, the fast way is to double tap an area to insert a child topic.

(More screenshots and functionality explanation after the break)

Double Tap topic to view details or edit details

Detail Topic Information

Double tapping on topic will bring up the detail entry form for the topic.

Ability to enter Note and Large Topic Text (2000+ words)

iThoughts is touting that they are able to enter large amount of topic notes. I think this is very important for note taking. But a better way is to use the Note section to attach notes to topics

Edit and Enter new note details

Notes can be viewed when topic is selected and when note exist

Note can be viewed in main map canvas

Attach Icons to Topics

Icons give more meaning to your topic, whether it is something important, alert or that you should make a decision on it. And iThoughts provide it.

Attach 2 icons to a Topic

Select from an assortment of icons

Change color of topics

Pick a color

Update:Create Relationships between topic

Note the red linkage there showing the relationship

New updates to the software now allows you to specify relationship as well.

Assign Start Date and End Date for Task Topics and Monitor the Progress of the Task Topic

Many folks would like the topic to double up as a todo task and iThoughts allows you to visualise it that way.

Configure start/end date and progress

You would then be able to see a symbol represent that dates were set and that progress were set.

Progress and Start/End date

In Progress Task

Folding (collapsible) topics (to a specified depth of 1, 2 or all)

You can show and hide topics as and where you want. Clicking on the cross opens and hides the topics.

Expanded Topics

By touching on the + / – signs you can bring up the following manual where you can hide the topics

Hide or show 1,2 levels or show all

Details hidden

Duplicate Maps from Templates

You can easily edit, rename and duplicate existing maps which is very useful if you create a GTD Template for planning big projects. All you need to do is to duplicate these maps

Touch Duplicate map to make a copy of this map

Copy,Cut and Paste Topics and Sub Topics to another map

This feature is damn useful. Leveraging on iPhone’s cut and paste functionality, you can cut or copy topics and its child topics from one map into another map.

Copy or Cut a branch of topic from the source map

Go to your destination map and click where u want to paste the branch of child topics

Topic successfully moved to another map

Configurable topic shapes (rectangle, oval etc.)

You can fully configure the shapes. Although this is its weak point. Currently version 2.1 there are only 3 shapes but perhaps future versions will have more shapes.

Choose your shape!

Auto align and arrange branches and entire maps – in a single operation.

Chances are you start entering data by touching one topic and double touching an empty space. in time, your topics will be all over the place.

Organize your topics by iThoughts

Fear not. Touching the +/- button will invoke the menu asking you to show how many levels. you will then be asked if you want iThoughts to auto arrange the topics for you.

It is very very useful for maps that gets really big.

Auto Manage the Arranging of Maps

Update: With the current iteration of iThoughts, once the Keep Organized is checked, the application will auto format for you! saves alot of trouble.

Support Numerous Format

• Freemind (0.8 and 0.9 – Windows and Mac)
• OPML (supported by OminOutliner)
• MindManager (6, 7 and 8 – Windows and Mac)
• Novamind (v4 – Windows and Mac)
• Update:Now support iMindMap!

I personally use Mind Manager so i do know you can open mmap format of maps backedup from iphone to desktop.

Easy Transfer and Download via WIFI

Like GoodReader, importing and exporting your maps are easy. By using WebDAV server, you are able to upload and download maps in various formats via WIFI.

You can choose to download or upload maps via WIFI

webDAV server started. for desktop to connect via the ip address

Here i key in the address http://192.168.1.1:44444 into my firefox browser to access my ipod touch. Then i can upload or download versions of the document.

Download or upload files from desktop

Email Outline and Multiple formats to designated Email Address

You can send your outline to a colleague or a friend and they will be able to share the fruit of your hard work. Great for meeting notes when you use your iPod Touch with iThoughts to take notes.

Compose Outline and Different Map formats to your colleague

Overall Assessment

I would like to say this is a very polish product. I really enjoy planning with this and Appigo ToDo. You would expect these functionalities to belong to a desktop application but the folks at iThoughts really did such a good job that i enjoy forming ideas and planning on the go with iThoughts that i seldom use the desktop application now.

I urge business managers or professional workers to give this product a try, especially those big on Getting Things Done (GTD)

Here is a video on iThoughts!

Upcoming version 2.2 looks to add auto arrange! which is damn good

And its pretty steep at USD7.99. Cheaper than Appigo Todo but nevertheless it should be worth the money.

MindJet have been creating a smashing Mind Mapping desktop client that integrates well with Microsoft Suite of products.

So how good was this? I didn’t manage to test it out but take a look at the video right below this post. It should give you a comprehensive look at what it is capable of.

What can this MindJet do?

• Attach notes to Topics – with hyperlinks to phone numbers, website, email addresses and other MindJet maps
• Wireless upload download
• Auto align and arrange topics relative to each other
• Zoom and Scroll
• Landscape and Portrait Mode
• Cut,copy and paste, move and merge topics
• Insert color and icones
• Change color
• Expand and collapse Topics

How do you Upload and Download Maps?

The way to upload is the same as GoodReader which i mentioned here. It should make use of WebDAV protocol and should be a breeze. Just click on Transfer in the MindJet iPhone software and a url to your iPhone Device will pop out.

Click on that link and you are able to upload and download Mind Maps

What format is supported?

Do note that it supports only uploading and downloading in .xmmap format, which is not the normal MindManager format. Its not so much of a problem as you can open up the map in your  Windows client and Save As xmmap format.

Other than that you can upload it in

• Mindjet Native (.itm) format, which is the native format for MindJet for iPhone
• Freemind format
• OPML format (RSS feeds?)

So does that mean my map on the iPhone can be edited on Windows,Mac clients?

Yes. According to the FAQ.

Can I save my map as an Image?

No you cannot. According to the FAQ

Does it have To Do list function?

Yes it does.

What can i Embed In the Notes?

• www. will auto generate web link
• http(s) will auto generate web lnk
• A stream of numbers will generate a phone no you can call
• SMS:nnnnnnn will generate and link to the SMS application
• [map name] will generate a link to another map (that includes the brackets as well)

How much it cost?

$7.99 for now.

Mindjet for iPhone from Mindjet on Vimeo.

Overall its a smashing new application on the App Store. This is really good offering to your normal GTD To Do list like OmniFocus, Things and Appigo ToDo in that you can really plan your Goals and see how they link up.

I should be buying this soon.

[Buy MindJet at the App Store >>]