I’ve recently discovered a great tool to easily manage my growing number of blogs by downloading programs based on a simple concept called Mind Mapping. Mind Mapping is basically a term for “listing down your ideas”. The term was quite daunting at first because Mind Mapping seems like one of those complicated techniques that an obsessive compulsive person might use. I later realized that it’s awesome and has actually simplified the way I run my blogs and has made my work a lot faster.

Photo by Auzigog

I used to make lists about topics I needed to post about for my blogs in pen and paper so that I won’t forget to post about them or certain things about a topic. It was a lot of work and time consuming. If I wanted to see the list, I have to remember where I put the notes and find it through the clutters of my room. Whilst browsing the web, I found out that there are many software that can help make mind maps. I tried some that are listed here, and found that Mindjet MindManager is the best. It is easy to use and powerful. The only drawback is that it’s not free. There are, however, a few free mind mapping programs that can do the trick.

Mind Mapping is great for people who run Information Blogs like me because it keeps my mind organized and clutter free. Usually, I would continually research many topics about a city like Iloilo for Explore Iloilo, for example, and I would forget posting some topics because of many other new things that I have known about that needs to be posted immediately. Instead of having all that information floating in my head, I now use MindManager to make a list of everything I know/want to post about Iloilo. Everytime I need to post something in Explore Iloilo, I just open the file in MindManager and then I can see what subtopics I need to post about that hasn’t been featured in my site yet.

Recently, It has also been a great tool for planning my travel itineraries. I frequently go out of the houses and visit many places because of my blogs, I don’t usually have the luxury of time (because staying at a particular place longer also means taking out money, which I also don’t have a lot of) so I need to make the most of my stay/money by planning the trip ahead of time: Places I need to visit, how to go there, what I am going to ride, at what time I will arrive, how much I should spend etc…

It has so far been great! I’m now convinced that I should find even more ways to make my work easier.