{"id":15823,"date":"2017-04-02T10:09:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T17:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/?p=15823"},"modified":"2025-05-10T07:26:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T14:26:40","slug":"episode-28-gtd-and-mind-mapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2017\/04\/episode-28-gtd-and-mind-mapping\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode #28: GTD and Mind Mapping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Allen and Coach Kelly Forrister talk about using the creative technique of mind mapping for\u00a0project brainstorming, meeting notes, checklists, gathering project data, and more.<\/p>\n<h2>Listen Now<\/h2>\n<div id=\"video-container\"><iframe style=\"border: none;\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/5220484\/height\/360\/width\/640\/theme\/standard\/direction\/no\/autoplay\/no\/autonext\/no\/thumbnail\/yes\/preload\/no\/no_addthis\/no\/\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>Subscribe or Download<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/getthing-things-done\/id999098861\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">iTunes<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/s?fid=66868&amp;refid=stpr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stitcher<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.libsyn.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Libsyn<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/music\/m\/If5n66lnvvompn4q7yqu4cqxax4?t=Getting_Things_Done\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google Play Music<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/21mSaFgOhfR7TT8MKxF41n\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spotify<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-697578497\/tracks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SoundCloud<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Podcast Transcript<\/h2>\n<p>GETTING THINGS DONE AND MIND MAPPING; EPISODE 28<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: When we looked at today, we actually wanted to come up with some both framing for mind-mapping, some of you might not be familiar with it, except to know that it\u2019s in the GTD book or you\u2019ve heard of other people doing this concept and this technique, so we\u2019re going to give you a framing of what it is if you\u2019re brand new, remind those of you what it is who\u2019ve been practicing it and stepping into it.<\/p>\n<p>David can you kick up off and talk about: What is mind-mapping?<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Sure, and I\u2019m sure there\u2019s probably a range of all of you listening in right now and watching in terms of what your familiarity is. I ran across mind-mapping many, many years ago when Tony Buzan, who\u2019s right and left brain researcher in England, is very involved with the education system and schools and kids and how they learn. I think we can attribute to Tony, I haven\u2019t coined the concept or coined the idea of mind-mapping, though I\u2019m not sure he was the only one that did it, but he was certainly doing a lot of the original writing and research and still doing &#8211; the Buzan Institute and Buzan Company is still doing a lot of that.<\/p>\n<p>But mind-mapping in this more generic way that we\u2019re gonna be talking about it is gonna range everything from \u2013 if you followed Tony\u2019s work in very, very detail, if any of you are familiar with that, it can pretty intricate and pretty detailed in terms of using colors, of what kind of lines you use and what kind of things you can do, but all the way to the more informal just side of bullet points on the back of the omelet. Any of you just turned a napkin over and said, \u201cLet me just get some ideas out of my head.\u201d In a way that is mind-mapping. Obviously, the term refers to the fact that you\u2019re trying to map what\u2019s going on in your mind and the mind doesn\u2019t necessarily many times move in any kind of linear or sequential way. It tends to hop around in various ways.<\/p>\n<p>So mind-mapping was merely a technique for being able to essentially lower the barrier of entry to your mind to actually do some thinking and start to capture thinking that might be relevant. I think that\u2019s a key factor here when we get into mind-mapping would be what actually might be relevant to a topic or that might be of interest at all? So just learning to grab that stuff right away.<\/p>\n<p>You know, if you\u2019re familiar with my book <em>Getting Things Done<\/em>, the Chapter Three where I discuss mind-mapping. Actually it\u2019s discussed in the context of <em>The Natural Planning Model<\/em>. <em>The Natural Planning Model <\/em>and that\u2019s the whole other major topic to get into itself. We won\u2019t get into too much of that detail, but mind-mapping oftentimes has a lot to do with project thinking or situation thinking and analysis, not as the totality of it, but a very critical component. You know, the natural way your mind plans going out to dinner or plans anything, is first of all has some sort of objective or purpose, you know: We want to go out to dinner. And then has a vision. Okay, here\u2019s what we want to have true. As soon as you imagine something that\u2019s true that\u2019s not true yet in reality, it creates this creative dissonance in your head. Your head goes, \u201cWait, we\u2019re not out to dinner yet. We\u2019re here and I\u2019m hungry and the picture says we\u2019re gonna be out there.\u201d The why question and the what question \u2013 those come first. Well why are we doing this? I\u2019m hungry, I want to have a great evening and it\u2019s gonna be fabulous. We\u2019re gonna meet with friends.<\/p>\n<p>So now I\u2019ve got the big picture stuff, but at that point the mind goes, \u201cNow how are we gonna make that happen?\u201d But as I indicate, there\u2019s how part A and how part B. The how part A says, \u201cWait a minute! Are we dressed okay? Well what time will we be going? Where do we want to eat? And who\u2019s going? And do we have time to do this? And what might else we want to do?\u201d And all of those ideas will, well you can\u2019t help it, you will start having random ideas about what is \u2013 what\u2019s gonna fill the gap between here and what I\u2019m imagining? But it seems like, the way the mind naturally works is, it doesn\u2019t start in some sequential 1-A, subset B, here\u2019s what we do first. The mind just starts having all those ideas. And then very quickly will start to sort them. Well first, let\u2019s call them and see if they want to go to dinner.<\/p>\n<p>The how part, as we\u2019re thinking about things, oftentimes shows up and for the most part naturally does, in a bit of a random order. But then we oftentimes, we\u2019ll very quickly move into a more sequential ordered components and priorities, more of a typical kind of a logical or a sequential or linear way of thinking about things, oftentimes coming out of our random and associated thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>So mind-mapping is a key component there \u2013 you know I do a whole shtick about mind-mapping as being \u2013 as opposed to, if you grew up in the school systems that I did where you had to sit down and start to write an outline about something first and you know, you tend to short circuit all the fuses there because the mind says, \u201cWell Roman Numeral I \u2013 what the heck does that need to be?\u201d as opposed to, as I say, lowering the barrier to entry. Well let me just start grabbing ideas from anyplace and then find a way to hold them.<\/p>\n<p>So mind-mapping actually has a \u2013 I guess as a context or a technique, it is a way to really start to say, \u201cOkay, let me create some sort of a format, essentially for grabbing what might be relevant to me. So even to begin with, I\u2019d like to trigger you folks to add into that question box there, if you\u2019ve been using mind-mapping at all or anything like what I\u2019ve been talking about, what are some of the things you have used that for? I\u2019d be curious to get some \u2013 to have you folks to engage your brain a little bit right here. Those of you who\u2019ve used it, what kind of things have you used it for?<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: So, I\u2019ll read these aloud. Some people are saying: for homework, some projects, teaching fourth graders how to write, meeting notes, project planning, brain storming, building processing, staff meeting agendas \u2013 wow! Incredible ideas here! Summer plans, vacation planning, organizing personal files, staff evaluations \u2013 many on project planning, work charts, moving my office, logistics, natural planning, mind-sweep.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Well!<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Certainly plenty.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Well you could have just come together in our forum and facilitated this yourselves too. Fabulous! As you\u2019ll see, Kelly and I\u2019ve grabbed some of the most common ways to do this and you\u2019ve come up with \u2013 we have too, some intricate little spins on some of those things as ways to use this. Great stuff!<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Terrific.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Yeah, so the idea is, is basically once you focus on a topic, you focus on something you want to think about, whether that\u2019s a meeting agenda, building your dream house, how to build a lesson plan, any of those kinds of things. Once you have the topic, then the idea is to give yourself a place, so you can grab place-holders for any potential thing that could be relevant; not the most important, not the best \u2013 no, this, that or the other. There really are almost an infinite number of things that you could use this for, because there\u2019s an infinite number of things your mind would think about and this would just be a way to start to express or objectify that.<\/p>\n<p>So Kelly and I sort of grabbed together one of the most common ways that we have used these and I think all of you have mentioned all of these already. Project research; fabulous way to do that. If you start to \u2013 \u201cHey here\u2019s two new cameras that I might want to buy. I want to start to do some research about that, so we just start to grab a mind-map and start to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Obviously project brainstorming, once you have a project, using it in that format of being able to just get lots of tons of ideas, check lists. It\u2019s a great way to build check lists and by the way, I just found out recently that Atul Gawande, the guy who wrote <em>The Checklist Manifesto<\/em>, if any of you\u2019ve read that, he happens to be a big GTD fan, so he and I have exchanged e-mails before and it would be nice to hook up with him, but obviously there\u2019s a huge, huge value to being able to say, \u201cOkay what are all the things I need to be aware of?\u201d especially if you have a mind-mapping program or something that you can build templates for checklists where you can pull those up and use those to then fill in; meeting agendas, for instance, or briefing with clients, which is one of mine. Obviously treasure maps \u2013 treasure map meaning, \u201cWow \u2013 let me just do some ideal sceneing about what would the coolest vacation be, or include \u2013 or my dream house or my life \u2013 or my lifestyle?\u201d Ideal scenes \u2013 the same thing, another version of whoa \u2013 what would my life be like two years from now, or let\u2019s think about what a fabulous annual conference. What are all the things and outside the box ideas and creative ideas we could bring to bear early on in our thinking so that we don\u2019t miss some great opportunities to be highly creative about how we manage our annual conference for our staff, meeting notes, etcetera.<\/p>\n<p>So we have some examples of those kinds of things as well. I\u2019ll be speaking kind of ranging around, there\u2019s obviously a number of you that are quite familiar with mind-mapping. Uh, if you\u2019re not really, the typical format, and it\u2019s not the only one, but a typical format for brain-storming would be to start with the thought or the focus in the middle of page, and ideally give yourself plenty of room. This can certainly be a white board, it could be a big piece of paper. I like using graft paper when I\u2019m doing this with pen and pencil \u2013 just to be able to sit down and put the thought in the middle of the page. It kind of gets you away \u2013 that automatically gets you more into the right brain, which is the part of our brain that sees associations. The left brain, and it\u2019s a fairly simplified way to explain this model that is pretty sophisticated, but in the simplified version the left brain likes to see things in order, sequence: a then b plus c and then d and well then e, f and g will follow. And by the way, that\u2019s absolutely fine even when you\u2019re brain-storming to be doing linear thinking. But the idea here is to put a thought in the middle and then as things occur to you. Let\u2019s suppose you\u2019re brain-storming with another person or two: hey, we\u2019ve got to move our office, what do we need to deal with?<\/p>\n<p>And somebody may say, \u201cWell let\u2019s get boxes\u201d or \u201cWe got to pack\u201d and so you put that idea up there first. And then somebody else might come up with the idea of, \u201cOh yeah \u2013 furniture and what about the new location and what about closing up the old location and how much is it gonna cost?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And again, this would be the typical kinds of things that would tend to surface and it\u2019s obviously nice \u2013 it\u2019s a great tool to be able to then use for a conversation so that you\u2019re not sort of talking at each other about this, but you can both go up to a white board or to a big piece of paper and start generating ideas and those ideas will often generate other ideas. So there\u2019s really no right or wrong way to do that.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: David, lots of people ask, \u201cWhat should I use, paper or electronic?\u201d do you have a preference, \u2018cause I know you use both, but is there any official word from you on that, or recommendation?<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: No. Ha, ha, ha. It\u2019s kind of like what\u2019s around \u2013 what\u2019s available for me.<\/p>\n<p>To me, the importance is, is this is not some final result. Some of my mind maps, you know, I like to keep around in digital form so I can share them with other people and send copies of them to people and especially the templates that I can then pull up and start to add, create a new mind map off an old one. You know that\u2019s \u2013 I think some of those are the real advantages of digital. Also, if you happen to be keyboard friendly and you sort of like this kind of gear aspect of this, and especially if you\u2019re sharing things through webinars or through visual medium and through Skype or any of those other kinds of things. These become great tools, if you have a good tool for doing it digitally.<\/p>\n<p>And at the same time, you know, drawing on the back of an envelope, fabulous book in terms of getting access. There is a lot of advantage, I think, to the subtlety of having pen and paper and just the kinesthetic touch and feel of paper, where you can play with it, you know it\u2019s informal \u2013 there\u2019s just something about it. There\u2019s something about that and I would put that in the same category as a white board. It\u2019s like the informality of it itself actually adds to some of the creativity and inclusiveness of it and lowering the barrier to entry doesn\u2019t have to be so right to be able to do that.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: I was trying to think \u2013 yeah, I was trying to think when I collaborate with other people on them, they would tend to be a certain format but not really. I know John and I, my husband, have done, once, every time we move, we\u2019ve done an ideal scene. What do we want this next place to be like, at least 51% believable. It\u2019s been helpful to do it on paper. And we\u2019ll just \u2013 we get colored markers and it becomes a really creative process on this big white paper on the floor. But then I was in a meeting recently where we were strategizing a whole division renovation or re-ord and it was helpful to do it on the screen, five of us in the room and did it that way.<\/p>\n<p>So I guess it really doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s just like whatever works. I don\u2019t have a rule about it either.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Yeah. You know, this is the stress of opportunity here. I mean there\u2019s so many possibilities about what you could do. So all that\u2019s a way to kind of say, \u201cYeah \u2013 kind of beats me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Just try it.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Yeah, whatever feels good in the moment.<\/p>\n<p>The main thing you want to do is just make sure that some part of you gives yourself a tool that you don\u2019t stop your creative process that triggers it.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: So just sort of pay attention. Look if the tool is working for you and keeps your ideas going, even if you do it by hand, just go to your scanner and scan it in, then you can share it with other people and you know have a lot of the advantage of the digital as well.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: For those of you who are brand new, grab a piece of paper and a pen or a pencil, whatever you can write with and we\u2019re gonna go ahead and have you do that. So really, whatever\u2019s quick and easy to grab, even if you\u2019re electronic and paper\u2019s right there, so do that.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019re gonna dive in here.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: And first, we\u2019ll go through some of the guidelines for this. Again, if you\u2019re new or just as a reminder, even if you\u2019re not, to this, what you want to do is when you start emptying your head, you want to go for quantity and not quality. That doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t want to have a quality thought, it just means you don\u2019t want to try to evaluate \u2013 well I only want to have quality thoughts for here.<\/p>\n<p>You know, as Linus Pauling said, \u201cThe best way to get a good idea is get a lot of ideas.\u201d So if you really want to make sure you get a really good idea, just start dumping out all the bad ideas, all the whatever, and you don\u2019t want to analyze or organize this to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>Again, you don\u2019t want to have that be a constriction. The whole point here it to get rid of your restrictions. So if, for instance, you were mind mapping, well let\u2019s say moving an office. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re mind mapping moving the office and say, \u201cWell who are the personnel that we could use?\u201d and then right there, as under that leg you could say, \u201cWell we want Bill and Jose and Maria\u201d, that\u2019s a linear thinking. So you\u2019re actually doing linear thinking and you\u2019re kind of organizing. They actually blend together. You just don\u2019t want to stop that and unfortunately if you were raised \u2013 if you\u2019re as old as I am and raised in the school system I was and the culture I was, oftentimes we\u2019ll tend to constrict ourselves and think that it has to be organized or be good before we\u2019ll put it down. So you just want to bust through that and again lower the barrier to entry here just to get it going.<\/p>\n<p>There is \u2013 you know, one way to think about it is there is a great idea waiting eight ideas later. So have the first seven as fast as you can. And then that may show up.<\/p>\n<p>Again, same idea, no judgment, challenge, evaluation or criticism. You really want to just go for this, called anything \u2013 everything is fair game.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s what we\u2019re gonna do. Whatever kind of a mind mapping tool you have right there, just put this in the middle, put frogs and what we\u2019re gonna do is just give you a couple minutes to come up with whatever pops into your head about frogs \u2013 anything. So again, no judgment, no evaluation, no criticism \u2013 go for quantity and as they show up, we\u2019ll start capturing some of the things that you guys see and \u2026<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: But do it in a mind map first and then we\u2019ll have them type into the questions box, I think \u2013 yeah. So do it in your own mind map first, just free form, quantity not quality. Go.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: And if you had any other crazy ideas what would they be? Just keep going. If you go blank, just keep going \u2013 anything.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: All right. Now we\u2019re gonna have you type in what you came up with about frogs. What kind of frog experts are you? Type that into the questions box please. I\u2019ll read these aloud: Food, hopping, flies, Kermit, croak, water, slimy, toads, frog-legs, ugly, warts, Muppets, reeds, lily pad, tadpole, calvarias, egg masses, prints, springing, jumping, big mouth, kissing, fairy tale.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Okay well \u2026<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: All right. We got the idea.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Yeah. So, you can see \u2013 I\u2019d be curious, how many of you had noticed that things showed up here that didn\u2019t show up to you, that you hadn\u2019t thought of yet? The interesting thing about it is that did all these ideas exist in the universe before you started thinking about them? Sure.<\/p>\n<p>So as I say, the music\u2019s not in the radio, you just start to tune to the channel and all kinds of things may show up once you create that context.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, if you were trying to do something a little more rigorous, you know the next time you might start to tie some of these together. I mean obviously we have calvarias jumping frog, so we might tie that together or you know, racing, big mouth, Muppets and Kermit, you know that obviously fits together. So you can start to rearrange these. They may even give you more ideas when you do that.<\/p>\n<p>Ha, ha, ha. I was doing a seminar on Wall Street and I had a guy come up with \u201crisk management\u201d when he was doing this.<\/p>\n<p>And I said, \u201cRisk management, you know \u2013 talk to me about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cWell if you kiss a frog, what are the chances that you\u2019ll get a wart or what are the chances you will get a prince?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The guy was a risk management guy on Wall Street. I thought, there\u2019s an out of the box thought I had never thought of risk management when you think about frogs. Well \u2013 so what? I mean, obviously that\u2019s not the most productive exercise you\u2019ve ever been in before, but I wanted to give you something really simple and stupid like frogs, so that you didn\u2019t feel like, okay this has to be right \u2013 let\u2019s have some fun with this in that way.<\/p>\n<p>Oftentimes when I\u2019m doing a seminar, I will then have people grab a real project, you know \u2013 next, in terms of what you would then think about and with the same kind of freedom and the same kind of fun and the same kind of out of the box thinking, you know what would you add to that?<\/p>\n<p>So as we go along, and we\u2019ll want to end today at walking away from here hopefully that this will have galvanized some of your own thinking and inspiration about where \u2013 what you might want to apply this to now while this energy or enthusiasm, if you have any, or inspiration about this, or reminding about this, where would you like to point this? I have to say. I look around and I say, even though I had probably \u2013 I don\u2019t know Kelly, how many mind maps did you see of mine?<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Oh my goodness.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: And you didn\u2019t see the archived bunch.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: I probably got 200 active mind maps right now on my computer that are just place holders. Look I want to start grabbing a few ideas, so I just put it in there. You know, the idea may disappear and dry up and blow away. Every once in a while I need to go back in and purge all my old mind maps because they were just important place holders.<\/p>\n<p>You know, you guys know me, I\u2019m the laziest guy on the planet, so I hate having a thought more than once \u2013 that\u2019s why as soon as I have any kind of a creative thought about anything, I don\u2019t want to have that thought again and I want to be able to park it somewhere that I can then refer to it again, when I might need and want to do that.<\/p>\n<p>I keep thinking, gee how many other things could I \u2013 even as many as I have, how many other things could I be sitting and mind mapping and tapping and accessing creative ideas about.<\/p>\n<p>I think a lot of where we\u2019re going with our research in GTD and at the David Allen Company and as we\u2019re looking forward into the future, I think that\u2019s a big, big arena still for all of us, even though mind mapping\u2019s been around and a lot of creative thinking tools have been around and creative thinking models, I think being able to put ourselves in an environment where we can say, \u201cOkay, once your head\u2019s clear \u2013 once you sort of GTD\u2019d yourself and you\u2019ve got a working good cockpit system, now how many things could you then point that at and how many more creative ideas are there to have out there in the universe? How many more places and things could we think about. Tune your radio station to <em>Creative Things to Do With My Kids<\/em>; you know, <em>Fascinating Ways to Acknowledge Staff<\/em>, you know, <em>What Are Some Just Incredibly Fun Ways To Think About How To Spend The Summer<\/em> \u2013 or any and all of that, but pretty much everything on the radar.<\/p>\n<p>Oftentimes I think if you looked around your 20,000 foot areas of focus and responsibility you could probably see a lot of areas there that you could use mind mapping to just develop those out.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Yeah, so here\u2019s one John and I did on \u2013 we were going on a beach vacation, so we literally just sat down and we did this one together, looked at all the different places we could do, where we could go. \u201cOh yeah, we\u2019re gonna want to find a house sitter. What\u2019s the budget? What special things are we gonna wanna take that aren\u2019t otherwise on my packing list, my travel check list? So here\u2019s an idea \u2026\u201d You know, that kind of thing can work.<\/p>\n<p>And some of these obviously have pretty clear main topics: place, packing lists, activities, stuff we want to do, etcetera. That might not be evident when I first create the mind map. That\u2019s the nice thing about electronic, it\u2019s easy to move this stuff around. So I might just do raw capture and collect on the mind map and then move it around.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s one where this is a current project for me, so you\u2019d find this on my projects personal list and my ma has asked for a new portable computer, although I was laughing with David, she\u2019s now on Facebook, and she has eleven friends. And I said, \u201cMom I haven\u2019t seen you on Facebook lately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And she said, \u201cOh, I\u2019m just exhausted Kelly.\u201d You exhausted eleven people. I laughed \u2013 that\u2019s very cute. So \u2026<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: By the way, I think to this point, I think this would be a good point to bring in. I know we\u2019ve gotten a lot of questions, Kelly you said folks that are curious, how does mind mapping fit into GTD \u2026<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Uh huh.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: \u2026 and in what context? And obviously when you\u2019re talking about projects, the project would be, you know, is your project what \u2013 research a portable computer or get one? Do you know \u2026<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: It\u2019s actually scope and research because she may put the kibosh on it because of price. She may end up deciding she doesn\u2019t really need it, so it\u2019s still actually research \u2013 scope laptops for mom.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: So I\u2019m gonna bet that\u2019s on your project list, if it was to do that. So this becomes project support material.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Exactly.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Your familiar with all of our, you know the maps that we have about what stuff is \u2013 this is all the collateral and support material relative to a project.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, to that point, you may have heard me over the years use this term \u201cdistributed cognition\u201d and you know as much as I teach this and as much as we\u2019re familiar with this, it\u2019s one of the reasons that whenever two or more are gathered and somebody starts to talk about anything, just to break that habit and go up and start drawing on a white board, or just start drawing something as people are talking, if it\u2019s something that they can look at and invariably it is a more rich conversation, easier to stay focused, everybody can \u2013 it just seems to take it to a different level when people are able to look not at each other but at the thing that\u2019s the developing conversation. And I\u2019m not sure all the reasons for it, but I know the psychologists they call that \u201cdistributing cognition\u201d getting the stuff out of your head and capturing it.<\/p>\n<p>If you don\u2019t do that, there\u2019s a part of our minds that keeps trying to keep hold of potentially relevant things and trying to make the connections, whereas if you start to do this, even if \u2013 and I\u2019d say nine times out of ten, I just throw it away after the meeting or after the conversation because we don\u2019t need it anymore. But it did make sure that we matured the conversation and it also made sure if anybody wanted to capture something they could loop back around to it, and now of course, as many of you I\u2019m sure do, you take pictures with your cell phones, you know, your I-Phones of mind maps that you probably drew on the wall, which is great, another way to capture that stuff.<\/p>\n<p>So again much deeper of this allows just such depth \u2013 when I say such depth, I don\u2019t want to say \u2013 there\u2019s part of me that says, \u201cDon\u2019t make people think this is a really heavy-weight, really deep thing to do.\u201d This is light weight. It\u2019s fun. I think what I\u2019ve discovered is we need to sort of just break the code that says, \u201cBefore you write it down it has to be good\u201d and I can still feel that inside of me. You know, I\u2019ve taught this stuff for 30 years now and I still go, gee if I go up and draw something it has to be the best thing to draw. It\u2019s like \u2013 wrong.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: I was struck David when we were going through your 200-something maps, how many seem half-baked. You really abandoned a whole bunch of them.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Oh yeah.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Which is great. So start one \u2013 you go, \u201cAll right, I got as far I needed to. I just needed to download those four points and move onto something else.\u201d It doesn\u2019t have to be something you maintain from now on, it just worked for that moment, whatever it was.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Exactly.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, somebody was asking about the different colors and shapes and so forth and how does that affect your thinking?<\/p>\n<p>Actually if you go back, if any of you go \u2013 want to dig into Tony Buzan\u2019s work, uh Tony is a big, big proponent of using color. He thinks color makes a big, big difference in terms of how your mind things. I think shapes would probably do that as well. I have never dug deep down into the research and usually I\u2019m moving too fast to try to make all that work in terms of color, so I\u2019ve never done the diligence that actually go down and figure all that out. You know \u2026<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: I\u2019ve heard theories, like green will bring up money ideas, blue will bring big sky \u2013 bigger ideas \u2013 somebody\u2019s theory at least will map to specific things, some are bring family and love and \u2026<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: I actually had a guy in one of my seminars who was a student of Tony Buzan. He actually came over. I think he was a taxi driver in London. I love the taxi drivers in London. They\u2019re so great. You know, they were fabulous readers, they do all kinds of things. Anyway, he was sort of a personal growth junkie and he came over to do a seminar of mine and the whole seminar he had a big pad with colored pens and he mind mapped the whole seminar I was doing while I was doing it. You know, and I just looked at that and went, \u201cOh my God! I am so impressed!\u201d And I\u2019m so much too lazy to have done all that rigor about any of that, but I think you know, if it rings your bell, I think there probably is a lot of value to that in terms of the creativity. So try it out.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: And somebody\u2019s asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference between say doing just a mind sweep versus let\u2019s say this mind map?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: I think the difference would be a mind sweep about a topic. A mind sweep about life is sure \u2013 that\u2019s what that is. That\u2019s how you start GTD, is just dump everything out of your head. I think that that mind sweep you will ultimately would want to throw away because the mind sweep of the things that you get out of your head if you\u2019re in a GTD context, you\u2019d want to then process those. You know, what does it mean, what\u2019s the action, what\u2019s the outcome \u2013 and you\u2019d want to then capture that and then sort of get your in-box empty. If you\u2019re talking about a mind sweep about a theme topic, that\u2019s absolutely what a brain-storming would be. I think the difference would be that once you have a tool, a digital software tool that once you start to get it down as you\u2019ll see \u2013 once I had those ideas, I\u2019d see where two or three related to each other and then I can drag and drop them together so that you see more of a relationship and then at some point you would want to go linear with it, especially if you\u2019re doing a more rigorous project. You\u2019d want to organize it and to make key components, because the organizing piece is still a very critical component to project planning. Even if you don\u2019t do an outline or a project plan off your mind map, you\u2019ll still organize it in your head that way. So mind mapping \u2013 that might be a distinction. It might be just how you\u2019re using terms there, but as opposed to just a random bunch of things that then you wouldn\u2019t do anything with, mind mapping itself oftentimes then start to morph this into a much more sophisticated way to then have a better and more complete organizational structure.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, great ideas some of you are coming up with. I mean, using teams to mind map stuff together. I can\u2019t tell you how many things I\u2019ve actually created. Actually when I was spending a lot of time up in San Francisco \u2013 remember old actioneer days Kelly? How many things got created on the hip table clothes in San Francisco restaurants where you know there \u2013 actually with crayons and paper, you know and how many things did we draw truly on the tablecloth and just tear them off and take them back to the office? You know \u2013 that\u2019s fun. Lots of \u2013 I can see a lot of your sharing, very creative ideas that you\u2019re already doing with this. Looks like a teacher who\u2019s working with students says, \u201cSome of them relate to colors better than others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Uh huh.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Probably lots \u2013 boy an infinite number of spin one could put on this and probably research to do at least informally.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: So as we wrap up here, how else could you use mind mapping? For what? How would you expand, stretch into any new ideas you got out of today?<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Yeah, so you know, take the next five minutes and get some \u2013 hey was today useful for you, was it inspiring, what\u2019d you get, what might you do and how have you seen to use it that you might want to \u2013 hey I could use that for these kinds of things and also how many of you have real attention on something right now that you want to apply this to? You don\u2019t have to tell us exactly what that is, but I\u2019d be curious to see, if this created any stick value for you.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: I\u2019m gonna read some of these aloud: Plan retirement; use for transcribing a meeting; working out; ideal life planning; write a book.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Improve discussions with your husband on these areas, you know, which you have different ideas and be able to integrate that. Fabulous! Boy that\u2019s a great way to use this.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: I think for planning, especially the more weird and ambiguous and daunting a project feels \u2026<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Yeah, like weddings.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: No kidding.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Five projects within that project.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Teaching skills, development. Great!<\/p>\n<p>Job description. Oh, no kidding, that\u2019s a fabulous thing to do \u2013 those kinds of things.<\/p>\n<p>Political planning for grass roots groups. No kidding.<\/p>\n<p>Starting a business \u2013 oh boy that\u2019s a great one.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, in terms of if you\u2019ve got your own business or small businesses, it\u2019s a great way to start to create your own, what are all the things that I had my attention on? So relative to GTD, a great template is to sit down and say, \u201cWhat are all the things that I need to be aware of right now?\u201d I use that for myself. I use a mind map to see an overview of all the things in my job I need to be watching and keeping track of. What are the big things coming toward me that have my attention that are not standard and cruise control stuff? And what are the main things I have attention on strategically? So that\u2019s an overview mind map that I use by the way, in addition to my standard GTD lists of projects and actions.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Yeah, lots of you seem to be saying the horizons of focus that will help you with those. I find it really did. It took \u2013 it\u2019s just one thing I didn\u2019t want to do very linearly. It doesn\u2019t mean I wouldn\u2019t then put it into my linear system but in terms of what unleashed the gates of creativity, it wasn\u2019t in my list manager \u2013 frogs.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Frogs \u2013 yeah. Absolutely. Well I grew up in Louisiana, we love frog legs.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: You know what, I\u2019ve done that example. I don\u2019t know how many times have I done the two day seminar, just so many times and every single time without fail somebody says something I\u2019ve never heard before about frogs. I mean it\u2019s fascinating. I know more about frogs now in my life from people pointing things out.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: You could write a book on it.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Yeah, I could write a book about frogs.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Great stuff folks.<\/p>\n<p>KELLY FORRISTER: Yeah, thank you all. Terrific participation on this, so I encourage you to keep the conversations going, the great ideas that you\u2019ve had, how\u2019ve you used it.<\/p>\n<p>All right. Well thank you David.<\/p>\n<p>DAVID ALLEN: Been fun Kelly. Again, this is one of the \u2013 I think this you know, this is a lot of the sleeper of GTD is I think <em>The Natural Planning Model <\/em>and the whole idea of how do we use creative ways to help format how we think and how we access our creativity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Allen and Coach Kelly Forrister talk about using the creative technique of mind mapping for\u00a0project brainstorming, meeting notes, checklists, gathering project data, and more. Listen Now Subscribe or Download iTunes Stitcher Libsyn Google Play Music Spotify SoundCloud Podcast Transcript GETTING THINGS DONE AND MIND MAPPING; EPISODE 28 KELLY FORRISTER: When we looked at today, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2017\/04\/episode-28-gtd-and-mind-mapping\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Episode #28: GTD and Mind Mapping&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[715],"tags":[44,94,194,287,533,639,686,784,785],"class_list":["post-15823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast-2","tag-gtd-connect","tag-project-planning","tag-gtd-implementation","tag-creativity","tag-mind-mapping-software","tag-project-management","tag-mind-map","tag-implementing","tag-mind-maps","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.8 (Yoast SEO v26.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Episode #28: GTD and Mind 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