This post came off the back of me writing about never running out of content. Mind mapping is something I find really useful when coming up with ideas.

source – Google Career Coach

The concept it simple and I’m sure you’ve done it before. If not, let’s dive into the process. I’ll share one of my mind maps (in list form) at the end of this article.

Start in the middle

The above example has 2022 in the middle, but you can put whatever you like in the center. The thing to remember here is each branch and leaf out from the centre, becomes it’s own centre – with it’s own branches.

The process can be infinite, and keep on expanding to come up with ideas branching from each stem from the middle.

Write the first level out

Next you branch out and write the main components linked to the centre piece. You can think of it a little bit like an unordered list, with indentation (in fact, if you don’t want to draw, you can do it with lists).

Once you have the next level out, think of each leaf as another center and you can then draw branches out from that one in the same way. Mind maps can be quite detailed or very simple.

Examples

Here’s some more examples – the idea of mind mapping is that you can use images and the process be fun, you can add some colour and it can make a (sometimes) boring process more fun.

My own mindmap

Here’s one for this site, in indented list form and I’ve filled in some of the sections but leaving some to your imagination. Hopefully you can follow the idea of mind mapping for your own product, or process.

Try drawing out a mind map.

The process of actually sitting in front of a blank piece of paper and drawing them out really helps come up with more ideas compared to if you just used the bullet list approach – so do try drawing one out for yourself and I’d LOVE it if you shared it in the comments.

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