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Pretty graphs, but I wonder how it stands up to the tests of the real world. I've personally tried to use mind maps (a bit more general than solving technical

by safog 5y ago

Pretty graphs, but I wonder how it stands up to the tests of the real world. I've personally tried to use mind maps (a bit more general than solving technical problems) but gave up pretty quickly. I think part of the problem was the technology itself, mind map apps are mostly desktop only and the mobile experience navigating a 2D diagram is kind of clunky. The other part was just laziness, after building a mind map for an entire weekend I didn't even scratch the surface of what I wanted to achieve with it. Also I take objection to the fact that we go straight to Google for solutions, I check the existing codebase I'm working on, code search in my company's internal repo, code search github, then go to Stackoverflow / docs. So there's some amount of intermediate caching.

mmcdermott 5y ago
After a few goes at it, I've mostly settled into using mind maps as a brainstorming / thought organizing construct and I transcribe the useful results to plain text for longer term search and storage.
tconfrey 5y ago
Mobile is a challenge for all these PKM systems, esp capture but also retrieval. Luckily most knowledge work is still done with a big screen.
alex_anglin 5y ago
Writing as someone who uses mind maps as part of my kit, I empathize with your comment. For my purposes, I've found that it helps to focus the map around a specific objective, project, etc. If I'm preparing a paper or presentation, it's helpful to see how the content can be structured, what can be pruned and what relationships between concepts there are. For project work or other objectives, I find them to be helpful in tracking and guiding learning. FWIW, I use iThoughts across a couple of different devices. It's been around for a while now and has a good mix of usability and functionality.
pjmorris 5y ago
I moved from mind maps (I used and liked FreeMind) to indented outlines in plain text files when I realized I wasn't really losing anything to map the nodes to headings and the edges to sub-headings. I can capture the same relationships, keep it synced to everywhere via cloud storage, and I don't need special software beyond a text editor to look at or edit it. Now I just need to learn how to go back through them.
- raesene9 5y ago
  One thing I do , which combines the two is create the lists in Obsidian, then use the mind map plugin to visualize them.
  - darkteflon 5y ago
    This is an interesting idea, but I couldn’t find Mind Map in the list of core plugins. Is this a community plug-in you’re talking about?
    - primozk 5y ago
      Yes, it's a community plugin: https://github.com/lynchjames/obsidian-mind-map https://github.com/lynchjames/obsidian-mind-map
  - agustif 5y ago
    Mindnonde lets you build a mindmap and export as markdown so a reversal I guess
mcbishop 5y ago
The potential with mind maps seems so awesome. But, yeah, clunky implementations abound.

by safog 5y ago

mmcdermott 5y ago

After a few goes at it, I've mostly settled into using mind maps as a brainstorming / thought organizing construct and I transcribe the useful results to plain text for longer term search and storage.

tconfrey 5y ago

Mobile is a challenge for all these PKM systems, esp capture but also retrieval. Luckily most knowledge work is still done with a big screen.

alex_anglin 5y ago

Writing as someone who uses mind maps as part of my kit, I empathize with your comment. For my purposes, I've found that it helps to focus the map around a specific objective, project, etc. If I'm preparing a paper or presentation, it's helpful to see how the content can be structured, what can be pruned and what relationships between concepts there are. For project work or other objectives, I find them to be helpful in tracking and guiding learning. FWIW, I use iThoughts across a couple of different devices. It's been around for a while now and has a good mix of usability and functionality.

pjmorris 5y ago

I moved from mind maps (I used and liked FreeMind) to indented outlines in plain text files when I realized I wasn't really losing anything to map the nodes to headings and the edges to sub-headings. I can capture the same relationships, keep it synced to everywhere via cloud storage, and I don't need special software beyond a text editor to look at or edit it. Now I just need to learn how to go back through them.

raesene9 5y ago
One thing I do , which combines the two is create the lists in Obsidian, then use the mind map plugin to visualize them.
- darkteflon 5y ago
  This is an interesting idea, but I couldn’t find Mind Map in the list of core plugins. Is this a community plug-in you’re talking about?
  - primozk 5y ago
    Yes, it's a community plugin: https://github.com/lynchjames/obsidian-mind-map https://github.com/lynchjames/obsidian-mind-map
- agustif 5y ago
  Mindnonde lets you build a mindmap and export as markdown so a reversal I guess

mcbishop 5y ago

The potential with mind maps seems so awesome. But, yeah, clunky implementations abound.