5/10/2004
FreeMind and Infogreater - The future of organizing ones' thoughts?
I saw these today on the Daily Python link. I haven't tried out Infogreater yet (its written in python, but it looks like it is still early in its development), but I tried FreeMind and it has made and impression on me.
I think it is very cool how it lays out ideas, yet allows you to collapse them in order to focus on one topic. I've been keeping a todo list/notes in it since lunch time and I am amazed at how organized it looks. Much, much, much nicer than my usual collection of post-it notes and scrap pieces of paper. :)
This approach to taking notes is very interesting to me, I tend to jump topics while I'm working (or writing notes in class). The layout these program present allows me to quickly jump from one thing to another while not getting bogged down by worrying about the layout. FreeMind is drag and drop friendly so if you ever need to reorganize what you've written its pretty easy.
Now having said all of that, I've only been using it for about 3 hours. There could be problems with this layout if things get too big (i.e. too many nodes, showing you are keeping track of too many small details at a high level) or too "small" (only a few nodes, but each node can be drilled down into 50 levels). But perhaps a tool like this would show you graphically where you stand. Perhaps that would allow you to step back and say "Hey, I need to reorganize things to be more efficient."
Go and check these out. FreeMind is a java app and it needs 1.4 to run. Here's the links:
FreeMind
Infograter
I think it is very cool how it lays out ideas, yet allows you to collapse them in order to focus on one topic. I've been keeping a todo list/notes in it since lunch time and I am amazed at how organized it looks. Much, much, much nicer than my usual collection of post-it notes and scrap pieces of paper. :)
This approach to taking notes is very interesting to me, I tend to jump topics while I'm working (or writing notes in class). The layout these program present allows me to quickly jump from one thing to another while not getting bogged down by worrying about the layout. FreeMind is drag and drop friendly so if you ever need to reorganize what you've written its pretty easy.
Now having said all of that, I've only been using it for about 3 hours. There could be problems with this layout if things get too big (i.e. too many nodes, showing you are keeping track of too many small details at a high level) or too "small" (only a few nodes, but each node can be drilled down into 50 levels). But perhaps a tool like this would show you graphically where you stand. Perhaps that would allow you to step back and say "Hey, I need to reorganize things to be more efficient."
Go and check these out. FreeMind is a java app and it needs 1.4 to run. Here's the links:
FreeMind
Infograter
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