Instructify

BY BILL FERRIS

I love mind maps for organizing ideas. You can find a lot of slick online mind-mapping applications. My only complaint with most of them, though, is that you have to spend a little time messing around with establishing a structure and selecting the word balloons and arrows and such. Fortunately, Text 2 Mind Map lets you skip all that rigmarole and get right to the idea stage.

Text 2 Mind Map allows you to simply type in your ideas. To help T2MM differentiate between big ideas and their sub-ideas, simply use a hierarchical structure, similar to a bulleted list without the bullets. Take this example from their website:

Months of the year
	Winter
		December
		January
		February
	Spring
		March
		April
		May
	Summer
		June
		July
		August
	Autumn
		September
		October
		November

T2MM then converts this structure into a mind map, pictured here. Indenting a line tells T2MM that it’s a branch of the idea above it. When you’re done, simply save it as a JPEG file to your hard drive. Text 2 Mind Map is an easy, no fuss way to record your ideas without letting icons, buttons and clip art gum up your creative process.

Text 2 Mind Map

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