I'm hoping to deliver two projects by the end of the week. It makes for a good focus for the week and a nice central theme for my weekly capture mind map.

It's only a short week this week due to the UK holiday yesterday. It couldn't have worked out better for this weeks capture mind map. Hope you all like it!

A nice reminder that my sister and niece are flying over from Dublin at then end of the week. It's good to have a positive focus to the end of the week.

Pretty appropriate central topic for this week's capture mind map. A nice reminder though that mind maps provide a better picture when viewed from above.

I ride a fixed gear bike to and from work, so todays central theme for my weekly capture mind map is that my focus for the week is also fixed.

Is your focus or goal for the week fixed?

Another week and another weekly capture mind map for work.

At the end of January I published a mind map that listed all the shortcut keys for Gmail. A few weeks ago I was able to remove this mind map from the wall as I had remembered most of the shortcut keys required for the day to day management of my email.

My next step is gain more time back handling the RSS feeds that I am subscribed to. In this case I am using Google Reader.

I quickly put together a small mind map covering the basic shortcut keys that I need to remember for the day to day management of my RSS feeds.

Remember shortcut keys are great way to working more productively. Once you have mastered the shortcut keys for your favourites applications, you'll be able to accomplish tasks faster.

The eagle eyed among will have noticed this is a software mind map as well. I'll be writing about my software choice in the next couple of weeks!

It's not often we feature mind maps from others here on MindMapSwitch. In this case though, I was already very familiar with Andy Hunt's other works. Co-founder of Pragmatic Programmers, LLC and a highly respected expert in programming circles, Andy is very well known.

Andy recently done a five minute talk at a TEDx event on capturing the next big idea. Andy's mind map shows how it not only adds as a visual aid when doing talks, but also it's use as a capture tool for ideas.

After the positive feedback from my previous mind mapping exercise, I wanted to try another mind mapping exercise with my son.

Now that he is 3 years old, he has already decided which toys, stories and games are his favourite. To let him see them all as one, I sat down with him to mind map his favourites. For this exercise I decided on the following topics:

• Colour
• Food
• Animal
• Weather
• Story
• Toy

These topics are everyday things that he knows about.

Starting at the top right, I worked round each branch asking what his favourite was and why. Before I started this exercise, I had a rough idea what each of his favourites would be, but once we completed the mind map, I realised I only got 2 of his favourites right!

   

Click here to download:

Favourites_A_Mind_Mapping_Exer.zip (260 KB)

This is a great exercise to explore what your child likes and their reasons for that favourite, but don't feel you need to stop with your children! Reverse the roles and let your child ask you about your favourites.

Once your done, compare your own mind map with your childs. Let them view the mind maps side by side and ask them if they can spot any favourites that are the same or similar.

If you're not confident in creating your own favourites mind map, you can download the first mind map from this post to use in your own exercise.

Happy mind mapping!

My apologies for the poor quality in the scanned mind maps. I thought I had my scanning process finalised, but it appears something has went wrong when I resized the images. I hope to rectify this soon.

While tweeting about my weekly mind map, Niall Daly asked me on Twitter how I mind map my weekly review. Today I am going to show you!

Mind mapping your weekly review is a great way to reflect on the previous week and prepare yourself for the week ahead. The best part is it only takes a few minutes of your time.

I tend to split my weekly review mind map in half down the middle of the page:

1. The left half is where I reflect on the past week.
2. The right half is where I prepare for the week ahead.

I always start with reflecting on the previous week. It's give me an idea of areas or projects that I need to place more focus on. Before I start mind mapping my reflections, I create two branches on the left of my mind map called 'Hits' and 'Misses'.

Under the hits branch I add branches for roles in my life or projects that I am working on. Under each of these I add branches where I have performed well in. Using a single keyword to denote the area in each roles or project I have done well in, it gives me a good overview of where I have made progress.

Under the misses branch I add branches for roles and projects similar to my hits branch. Under this branch I mind map out aspects of each role or project that I have neglected.

I spend a couple of minutes reviewing my past week and start thinking about roles and projects that I want to focus on for the week ahead. Taking a couple of minutes to just reflect on your past week let's you identify roles or projects that you have neglected. Now we can start preparing for the week ahead!

On the right hand side of your mind map add a separate branch for each of the roles or projects that you are going to focus on for the week ahead. Under each role or project, mind map the next actions you need to complete in order to move that project forward. In no time, you'll have a list of next actions for the next week.

When you're mind mapping your weekly review, remember these tips:

1. Messy is good, the mind map gets thrown away in a few minutes anyway.
2. Stick to single keywords for branches. Using associations we want to generate ideas and actions for our projects and roles.

This is just my preferred way of mind mapping my weekly review. I also use a similar mind map to review activities at work. I like to keep my work and personal projects separate, but there's no reason why you can't use a single mind map for both.

I hope this helps you in your weekly reviews.

Happy mind mapping!