Glad to hear you found mind mapping valuable when organizing information and clutter. I thought you might enjoy this story about how a professional organizer uses mapping to run her business:

http://www.mindjet.com/whymindjet/customers/vignettes/default.aspx?articleID=142

Thanks Gaelen!

OK, I've read the links and learned about mind-mapping and concept mapping and how the organizer in the link above uses it in her business, but I don't understand why it is useful.

What is the advantage of mindmapping over just keeping a running list of things to do?

Thanks for your comment, Holly - you raise a good point!

Something I learned from years of home schooling is that there are different learning styles. Where some are very linear thinkers and a list may work wonders, others are much more visual in their thinking and need pictures and visual images to help in these areas. Maybe you’re a more linear thinker - if lists are working well for you, then great!

For me lists work well for daily tasks and short projects. But for large or complex, multi-level type projects, it helps me to “see it” rather than read it. Just how my brain works, that’s all.

Thanks for the very quick and thoughtful reply.

It occurs to me that while I keep several different to-do lists on a single piece of paper (to-do work, to-do home, to-do church….), I actually "see" them as spatial entities in my imagination…so maybe I'm mind-mapping without the paper!

Thanks for the link, I'll play around with it.

You're welcome, Holly - thanks for the question!