How I keep track of blog post ideas
September 7th, 2008
I’m not much of a fan anymore of the blogging about blogging about blogging crowds that currently peddle their methods of writing better blogs about making money blogging and precious little else. Â They have a niche I guess and they certainly have lots of readers, and on and off I’ll read various articles that are of worth which there are some.
So I’m not trying to make you a better blogger by writing this, you just keeping writing what you want to write about and that will make you the best blogger you can be anyway!
Freemind is a program that I encountered ages ago and if you’ve ever had anything to do with mindmaps then I’m certain you have encountered it yourselves. Â What the software does is allows you to easily write up a mindmap on the computer.
Now hang on a second, a mindmap?
A mindmap is where you have a topic in the middle of the page and off of that topic you write ideas and words associated with that topic and then ideas branching out from those ideas etc. Â Eventually you have all of this ideas mapped off the original. Â Trust me the description does no justice to the concept and I think it is one of those things that you should just download the software, have a play around and see if it fits your way of thinking.
It fits my way of thinking and I’m beginning to use the mindmaps in my everyday planning for anything. Â Recently I’ve been using it to help me keep a sensible list of ideas that I want to write about. Â Say for example I like the topic of science fiction (no great surprise there) then underneath that topic I might write Star Trek and continue on till I have a list like:
 From here I’ve already got one or two posts that I could write about Star Trek (and I’m probably going to add them to my master list now too). Â
Now I talk about using it to keep track of post ideas but really it is just a powerful little brainstorming tool for any given situation. Â I use it to work out what to draw next, answers to selection criteria and I’ve got some ideas to expand on such as recipes and shopping lists :).
It is brilliant for problem solving too, just put your problem in the middle and naturally let ideas develop around it. Â I’m sure you all already know about the program, it’s been around for a while and written about on more than one occasion but if you’ve never used it before download it (it’s free) and let me know what you think!
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Don’t get me started on blogging about blogging. There are more blogs about blogging than there are blogs about stuff.
Oh, freemind. I came across it at uni a while ago. Never really worked for me for assignments/essays etc. But I can see it usefulness for blogging. I might have to give it another try.
Probably should have a go at organising my thoughts a bit. lol.
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By Lee on September 7th, 2008 | Reply
Yeah, some days I miss blogs just about stuff LOL
I think Freemind can be used in a couple of different ways and for me my mind works differently around lists so it is ideal for me.
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By Marita on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
I blog about stuff.
Well stuff with thing.
But mostly just stuff
Maritas last blog post..My Three Year Old Wants to Watch Hell Boy
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So…it’s a ‘tool’ which let’s you schematically write down your brainstorm?
I’ll have to download it, because otherwise it probably won’t make much sense..as in..why not just write it down in your standard Word program.
Arjans last blog post..My ‘backyard’: thanks neighbours..
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By Lee on September 7th, 2008 | Reply
It’s the formatting, I mean it’s just as easy to do it on paper as well, it speeds up the process so you can get the ideas down quicker, as you say though download it and have a play with it.
Let us know how you get on.
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Thank you for this guidance ,I think Freemind will use in different ways.
I
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I remember one of the oldest mindmap sofware. It was called The X-Brain. And it was amazing for its time. Now I can see it was discontinued. But all things put aside mindmap software titles are amazing.
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I used Freemind one semester to study for exams. It works well, but I didn’t love the interface (been too spoilt with pretty Mac programs).
I think I use Graphviz these days when I do make a mindmap, but it’s not too often.
kristarellas last blog post..Gender Fail
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By Lee on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
Is Graphviz a Mac program? I’ll have to look that one up too. There are a couple of interface quirks still in the program but they’ve still improved it quite a bit.
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By kristarella on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
It’s available for all OS. It actually uses a text input file. It’s highly versatile and produces very nice results, but I’m not sure if it’s useful for laying out and playing with ideas in the way that you’re talking about.
It’s worth a look though.
kristarellas last blog post..Gender Fail
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I used bubble.us for mind-mapping before. It’s an interesting way to approach things. I never ended up finding a way to use it for my own purposes, beyond a more graphical outline of Web 2.0 training tools for a presentation.
Still an intriguing way to approach things, though.
Jeffs last blog post..Quick overview for new visitors
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By Lee on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
I haven’t seen that, I’ll have to give it a look. It’s not necessarily a better way to approach idea gathering, it’s just another way to do it and something that works quite well for myself.
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Interesting little tool.
You might want to add this to the list of things too blog about: Top 50 Hottest Sci-Fi Girls
http://www.ugo.com/movies/top-50-hottest-sci-fi-girls/
Maritas last blog post..Some Good News
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By Lee on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
Wow they have the girl from Tron in there, good call. Though Princess Leia..? Really?
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By Marita on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
Hubby and I have been having fun going through who we thought should be on the list.
Aeryn Sun - Farscape
Inara - Firefly
Sarah Conner - the Terminator Movies
Maritas last blog post..Some Good News
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By Lee on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
I was going to suggest the girl from Logan’s Run
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By sean bennett on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
That list is a joke in my eyes. Jadzia Dax (from Deep Space Nine) at no. 4 while Seven of Nine comes in at a lowly 48!!!!!
Ok, I have a soft spot for hot borg/human hybrids. (is that weird?)
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By Lee on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
I don’t really agree with the entire top five! Give me movie Sarah Connor over TV Connor any day!!
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Trust you to do a mind map about science fiction and it end up looking a bit like the Enterprise - go on, you know you can see it
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By Lee on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
LOL - I didn’t even notice that!
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By Marita on September 9th, 2008 | Reply
That is awesome!
Thank you Kerry for pointing it out.
Maritas last blog post..Some Good News
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