
Tools for Thinking and Tools for Systems - jodooshi
https://css-tricks.com/tools-thinking-tools-systems/
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spodek
A game-changing tool for thinking for me is mindmapping software. I recommend
Freeplane
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeplane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeplane),
released under a free license available on most operating systems.

It simplifies and clarifies without burden, enabling you to think about your
work.

~~~
pugio
Does it support (or are there any others you've encountered that support) non-
hierarchical links? A severe limitation of most mind-mapping software is that
every node needs to be in its own little slot in the hierarchy; I don't think
like this. I think in graphs, and interrelations – I suspect most people do.
If I can't connect widely spaced nodes with some kind of edge, it's not a map
of the mind at all.

~~~
loopbit
Exactly my issue with all mind mapping apps I've tried - they are trees, not
graphs, and I don't think that way.

I find them useful for to-do lists, but little else. Even if you can connect
two separate nodes, the tool doesn't use that new information to change the
organization of the nodes (something like a force-directed graph could be
interesting).

~~~
tonyarkles
[https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview)

Scapple just lets you draw nodes and edges. I fell in love with it a while ago
and use it to collect my thoughts, and to put together project plans (treating
it like a dependency tree, even though it doesn't impose that constraint on
you)

------
knight17
I think Outliners are great for thinking and note taking.

For me tools to help me think usually means those that help in writing.
Writing is thinking on paper, giving it a tangible form. You write after
spending considerable time distilling your ideas and assumptions to a coherent
form. However, the problem with writing is that it is time consuming. Anyone
who has written more than a paragraph will attest that the important part of
writing is to whittle away all the flab by editing to make your ideas clear to
your audience. To make things clear often the writing needs to be reorganised
because the vision of the writer can't always be conveyed successfully to the
reader without considerable skill from the writer.

Outliners helps in this organising aspect. In a wordprocessor or text-editor
you work with logical units of sentences and paragraphs that carries multiple
ideas. It is not easy to mix and match stuff there as you need to rewrite them
often which can become tiring. With Outliners, you can, in a way, do that.
Incessant focus on features to reorganise ideas aid in creating logica
arguments. Clarity comes with having an understandable structure. Outliners
let you tinker with the structure without much cost. In a wordprocessor,
cutting and pasting becomes tedious after a while. Outliners are built for
moving things around. It is comparitively easy to move text around. Keyboard
shortcuts are tailored to allow you to do it easily. It becomes second nature
after a while and you feel constrained using any other tool.

Outliners use each line/bullet as the smallest constituent of the 'document'.
It can be heirarchichal or it can be flat. Bullet points allow ideas to be
concise. You can divide ideas to make small sub-chunks while your
brainstorming sessions progresses. These programs allow them to be moved
around and edited to make them fit with the idea you want to communicate.
SInce each lilne only contains only one idea, it is easy to move them around
without much editing. Good outliners (single pane outliners) allows features
such as 'hoisting' (hides everything except the current idea under
consideration) and sorting features to make thought creation and organisation
a breeze.

Many 'outliner people' [0] will have a brainstorming session to get everything
they have in their minds out in the open. Later they rearrange them in to
heirarchies (paragraphs/headings) to make sense of them. You can sort, resort
and arrange your ideas in whatever way you like.

Many people use this together with similar other tools like Mindmapping
software, which accepts OPML file format as input, allowing work to be
transferred seamelessly to tools that are best for the job.

It is sad that outliners are not seen wide adoption among people but they were
big in the 90s and many were hit products (Thinktank, More, Maxthink). I can't
even find good outliners now for Windows. Some exist for Mac (Omniouliner).
Although I am a user of Org-mode in Emacs, it is not useful as a thinking and
brainstorming tool as it doesn't have the ability (out of the box; anything is
possible in Emacs) to move around stuff easily as in a dedicated outtliner.

[0] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/520246/as-we-may-
type/](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/520246/as-we-may-type/)

~~~
akavel
On Windows I liked Noteliner very much; unfortunately it appears to have gone
abandonware around 2016:

[http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/6225](http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/6225)

