How to Use a Mind Map to Organize Thoughts

Updated on: by Amy Kennedy

mind mapping to organize thoughts

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If you’re a freelance writer or blogger, one problem you may have is trying to figure out how to organize your thoughts for the blog posts or articles you write.  One technique that I’ve found to be effective, especially when I’m in the pre-writing or brainstorming phase, is creating a mind map.  This post will explain how to create a mind map to organize your thoughts before you write.

Mind Mapping: How to Begin

Start by drawing a circle (or any other shape) in the center of a piece of paper and write your topic inside it  – For example, when I was brainstorming how I wanted to structure my e-book, I started with my main idea “Work from home kindle single” inside a circle:

work at home kindle single

Write your main details on branches radiating out from your circle, or whatever shape you chose – One idea I was toying with was talking about the different types of jobs I’d worked – so I had the words “inbound phone work,” “outbound phone work,” “Transcription,” “Freelance writing,” and “other,” written on branches radiating out from the circle.

Picture 2

Add additional details to the branches radiating out from your circle – Using my example, I put the names of the different companies I worked for doing each different type of work on branches radiating out from the main branches I started with:

Mind Mapping

Add additional details to those branches – any additional details you want to add, such as how the work differed from other companies of the same type, or whether you’re still with the company or not, can be added to these branches – for example, on a few of my branches I added whether I was still with the company and if not, why I ended up leaving:

Mind Mapping Branches

As you can see, creating a mind map is a relatively simple process.  Once you’ve created your mind map, you can start writing your blog post or article and tweaking it as you need to before you publish it.

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Ivana

June 3, 2013 at 7:29 am

Great post, tnx for sharing.
I organize my work day on a mind mapping base. I use DropMind and it’s a great mind mapping tool who increase my productivity and creativity.

Felicia

June 4, 2013 at 7:03 am

Thanks for posting this! It’s a great way to organize your thoughts and ideas. I did this once a while back and it really helped me. I’ll have to try it out again because I often have a lot of ideas just floating around in my head, it’s better to get them down on paper!

Britney @ The Princess & Her Cowboys

June 4, 2013 at 8:57 am

Thanks for sharing this! I can always use little things like this to make writing a little easier 🙂

MomChalant

June 4, 2013 at 5:10 pm

Thanks for sharing yet another great activity to help with blogger’s block!

Charlotte

June 8, 2013 at 12:52 pm

Uhm, this is awesome. I was quite literally staring at a blank screen before I came over here, so thank you. I found you via SITS and am so glad that I did because I think mind mapping will be incredibly helpful as a way to organize my thoughts before I sit down to write.

Happy weekend!

nadiabobadia

June 28, 2013 at 7:40 pm

I haven’t encountered blogger’s block yet (knock on wood!) but I do have pages and pages of future post ideas. They are loosely organized by category and keyword so I know how they fit in my planned site structure but they aren’t fleshed out. I love the visual mapping technique you showed and I will try it for organizing a few of my July posts. (By the way, Cary, NC is my hometown!) Thanks for the great tip!

Erin

July 28, 2013 at 12:25 pm

Thank you for showing everyone this. It has helped me in so many ways. I have used mind mapping when I am trying to layout a webpages, articles content, keyword research and other critical decision making. Thank you for the reminder.

Erica Martin

July 29, 2013 at 12:40 pm

Glad you liked the post, Erin – mind mapping has come in handy for me too – I’ve not only used it when brainstorming information I want to include in posts or articles, I’ve also used it in trying to figure out the structure of the book I’m currently working on.