Jamie MacDonaldIn businesses, offices and workplaces all around the world one of the main challenges facing us is trying to balance and cope with ever increasing workloads and constantly changing demands on both our time and output requirements.
Most of the time, it seems that work is a constant pressure situation where we are continually juggling tasks, priorities, deadlines, project requirements, not to mention immediate demands and last-minute urgent requests for our input and contributions.
All of this against a backdrop of the absolute need to absorb, assimilate and effectively process data, knowledge and information to aid understanding, determine priorities, reach decisions and take clear, focused and effective actions.
There are a plethora of tools, techniques, models and methodologies claiming to be the best to “boost productivity”, “increase efficiency”, “help you work smarter not harder” and similar well-intentioned performance-enhancing claims.
Coming from a strong background in business process and business performance improvement, in particular in the MindGenius business mind mapping area, I was delighted to read independent research into mind mapping as a method for improving productivity. I was particularly interested to learn that studies show that mind mapping increases personal productivity by as much as 20%.
Just think, if you and I and the teams we work with or manage could improve overall productivity by 20%!
That made me reconsider again the real value that mind mapping brings, in particular it made me think of the “why” it adds value and the “how” it enhances productivity directly.
I brainstormed the topic of “Mind Mapping for Productivity” (see map below) and quickly came up with a few quick highlights, benefits and value…
Beyond the concepts of traditional mind mapping, and with the productivity-enhancing functionality of modern and intuitive software, sits a “must-have” solution for capturing, sorting, prioritising knowledge, ideas and information…and more!
Its use is only limited by the user – productivity is enhanced right from the start, from the point of engagement on – everything is as quick, or in some cases quicker and easier than traditional approaches. All your ideas, knowledge and experience are quickly and effortlessly captured and, more importantly, utilized in a way that’s more engaging, visual and action-centred than any alternative manual process.
Ideas for action plans, outputs from meetings, project plans (WBS), project schedules, presentation and document outlines and content, study notes, research maps, problem solving methods, the tasks and activities we do day-in, day-out, all brought to life, all more thoroughly thought through and more clarity and with increased focus injected into the whole process.
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