
FreeMind -- free mind mapping software - Alex3917
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
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phil
Alex, have you been using this? I'm always looking for better tools for laying
my thoughts out, but I have yet to find one that feels natural enough to beat
a big sheet of paper and a pencil.

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Alex3917
Yes, I'm currently working on two separate books in this application and a
bunch of other things. I've found that it actually lets you have more complex
ideas than you would be able to have by starting with an outline (or god
forbid just freewriting). The idea is that writing should be about ideas, and
words are only there to express your ideas. Because of this it doesn't make
sense to start putting pen to paper until you figure out what you believe. And
it's a lot easier to figure out what you believe what you can drag and drop
pure ideas around instead of mucking around with text.

Concept maps are another tool that lets you do this, but since writing is
fundamentally either flat or hierarchical in terms of how you express ideas, I
think mindmaps work better. (Concept maps are essentially like thinking in 3D,
which becomes a problem when you need to translate your 3D ideas into 2D
writing. Also, a lot of concept maps end up with really murky causality, which
kind of defeats the whole point which is to clean up your thinking.)

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Alex3917
This software is useful for solving big problems, like writing a book or
creating a business.

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joshwa
I've been using this to map out ideas for my startup, too...

