It’s well-known that David Allen is a big fan of mind mapping for capturing ideas and brainstorming projects.  In the GTD book, you’ll find several references to this creative brainstorming technique (pages 70-72), coined by British Researcher Tony Buzan.

The wonderful thing about a process like mind mapping is that it gives our brain a way to capture ideas without having to figure out on the front-end what to do with it or how to organize it.  Have you ever tried to sit down and sequentially plan a project, but get frustrated trying to corral all of the random details in some kind of order?  Our brains don’t always logically “organize” information as we think of it.  Mindmapping removes the sequential limitations and gives the brain a way to freely download. It can also be a great problem-solving tool as well if you find your team getting stuck on a solution. Sit everyone down with a flip chart or whiteboard, get a neutral scribe who won’t control what’s added, and let everyone randomly call out ideas.

Mind mapping can be done in hard or soft copy–depending on your style.  There is no right or wrong way. If you are a pen + paper kind of person, try it that way.  There are also several good electronic mindmapping tools available.  David uses MindManager by MindJet. However, there are others available too, ranging in price and features.  Lifehacker recently did a nice review of their top 5.

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GTD’er Grant recently wrote to David Allen to share his “Drag Reduction Project” for improving his GTD workflow.

I realized my physical work area did not support my GTD systematic approach.

I cleared my desk and used my label maker to visually make areas of the desk to support how I work.  So far this has helped me primarily stop to Clarify during processing.  It helps me literally stop and determine Is it Actionable?  If so, applying the clarifying activities of What is the desired outcome? and THEN, What’s the Next Action?

I have been all over the GTD-Q in the last 6 months.  This really shoved me firmly back into Captain and Commander.

I certainly know everyone is different but setting my physical environment in a linear process flow to support the GTD systematic approach helped me get out of a stale tailspin.

Just wanted to share this little victory story with you.

Some photos from Grant:

If you have a GTD story you would like to share, please write to us!

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