Most of today’s mind mapping software programs enable you to add notes to posts, in either sentence or paragraph form. This is an ideal place to store your thoughts and ideas that are longer than a few words – and a critical way to control visual clutter in your mind maps. In addition, according to Roger C. Parker, map notes are a great place to start writing your next article, report or book:
“You can immediately describe your goals for the chapter, or write about an idea or point while it’s fresh in your mind . Without leaving the map, you can begin writing at any time, while ideas occur to you. As a result, you may be pleased to find that you’ve already made significant progress on your project when (it) opens in your word processing program.”
In a program like MindManager, the export to Microsoft Word function styles your map’s topics as heading styles; any attached notes appear as body text immediately following the appropriate heading. In addition, many mind mapping programs enable you to format your notes text and to created numbered and bulleted lists.
Why not give this technique a try on your next writing project?
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