In a business where manual productivity is required, it has been proven that proper diagrams can increase productivity while reducing training times. While mapping productivity progress for employees is also a great way to show employees just how much their extra-productive efforts have paid off. This circle of productivity can be mapped out in Freemind, which in turn will provide you a history to study when production dips in the future.

While learning to create a mind map may take a moment for those not familiar with navigating the average toolbar, the cost saved by doing so may be just what a business needs to get out of the red.

Fortunately, for those small or even large businesses who just can’t come up with yet more funds to purchase expensive programming, products like Freemind are available at no cost.

Spider Diagrams

The Spider diagram is one that Freemind can easily produce. Simply add as Freeminds default settings do and allow your diagram to take on the format of a spider with many legs, more than eight is fine.

Production Flowcharts

Begin the Freemind bubble map creation by moving the main node far to the left. Follow each node by one set to its left for the flowchart effect that can help show your employees how to get from point A to point Z.

Decision Tables

Let Freemind help you as you sit down and bang out important decisions in the boardroom. Utilize the stacking feature in Freemind to keep more than one set of decision tables going for those long brainstorming meetings.

Many other types of business diagrams can be created in Freemind, all you need is the free program and an idea or two to get started.

One of the biggest elements to ensure a properly formatted eBook, is to create a working outline. Freemind, an open source mind-mapping application is the perfect tool for the job. So how do you create your eBook’s blueprint with Freemind?

How to Create an eBook Outline with Freemind Mind-Mapping Software

Creating your eBook blueprint is as easy as following a few simple steps.

1. The best way to begin is to create a node for each chapter you plan for the eBook.
2. Shift the chapter nodes over to the left-hand side of the screen. If you are unsure of the chapter title you have chosen, feel free to drop a question mark icon in the chapter node as a reminder that this text may change.
3. To lay out a blueprint for the chapters themselves, click the first chapter name and insert a Child node.
4. In the new Child node, add the first element you want to address in the first chapter.
5. To add the next important chapter issue add a new sibling node for each aspect you want to cover in the first chapter. Be sure to use icons that may relate so that you can quickly identify elements of your eBook blueprint that may need additional attention at a later date.
6. Continue with this method until you have added each important item you want to cover under their respective chapters in your eBook. Remember that adding new chapters will require you to highlight the original Child node and select the option to insert a Sibling node to attach to it. This will add the chapters in order, going down the page vertically by default.

Once you have the overall picture. Begin the proofing process on your outline.

• Do the chapter titles and the included information flow smoothly?
• Would reordering a few of the Child nodes help?
• Do any of the nodes have repetitive information?

Although you should likely work on one single mind-map to create the perfect blueprint, very often when proof reading your own work you may come up with new ideas to add to it. With Freemind users always have the option to create more than one mind-map at once.

Using mind-mapping software to create the outline for your eBook will help to ensure that it is formatted to create the easiest and most smoothly flowing information and education for those who view it.

• Slide Composition
• Consistent Flowing Information
• Contrast and Color
• Images
• Professionalism
• Audience Interest

These things can be imperative in making your presentations memorable and effective. However, if you are using your presentations for training or educational purposes, brainstorming lessons or presentations with your employees or management may offer a new insight into what those under you may feel the business lacks.

Using a Freemind mind map may allow you to bring up issues that can help your employees to feel more involved with the success of the company. Including mind mapping in your presentations can benefit in a variety of ways.

Freemind Mind Mapping will show your employees your own train of thought. If you are not involved in the hands on aspects of your business, this may help to give you and those who work for you an entirely different perspective on the ins-and-outs of your business.

Once you have found yourselves on the same common ground you can begin to identify the key points that may be bones of contention among your staff. Addressing these issues may not only help to increase productivity but can also help to build a better working atmosphere for current and future staff.

Post Your Mind Map

If your business does not allow for face-to-face communication. It is a simple activity to create a single mind map that can be saved as a webpage file or just a word document. Sharing this mind map by posting it to a secure company page or even sharing with a group consisting of your employees can allow everyone to get in on the action.

Including a Freemind map on your presentations will serve to help connect right and left brain thinking to the benefit of your businesses success.

Creating a Working Mind-Map for Time-Management

Make your main time-management issue your center node in Freemind. Time-management issues that may need to be tackled in a small business or a large one can include:

Employee Reports

If you are having employee relations issues that are digging into your production time, it may be time to create a system of employee reporting that can lead to the ultimate conclusion of the problem.

Ironically, if you track problems in a degree of nodes in a circular pattern and continue to map issues that lead back to each respective problematic employee, ultimately your troublemakers should create a system that actually shows them in the ‘center of things’ or at the center of your bubble mapping.

Projects and Services Management

If when actually providing your customers with the products and services they pay for, you find your team consistently failing on providing quality results, it may be time to find a better way to manage the time of your staff. Although it is understandable that in times of economic restraint, restraint may also be required in your employee allowances, you cannot let your products and services suffer when there are easy and free mind-mapping and brainstorming applications like Freemind available.

Perhaps a Freemind chart to represent the time allotment each employee has for each job may be an important mind-mapping project. Maybe even just a simple bubble-map employee organization chart may be all that is required to get everyone to their stations and working productively.

Organize Your Organization with Freemind

Even seemingly minor issues such as basic disorganization can take a huge toll on your business. For this reason Freemind can most assuredly help you to clear up any confusing issues with your staff. Prepare at least one bubble-map to provide them with quick and easy reference points, technical how-to’s and any other information they may need to refer back to often during the process of one day’s work.

Thankfully, he found an amazingly simple and easy to use Open Source utility called FreeMind. The program is billed as ‘mind mapping’ software, but Bob thought it would be just as easy to use FreeMind to create his much needed organizational charts. The program was quick to download and very easy to use. Within a few minutes of setting up the quick download, Bob was already cranking away on his assignment. FreeMind was also able to copy and insert new child nodes or subordinates with one simple “[ins]” keystroke. The main program window also had all of the formatting options in clear view. Bob was able to also add some unique graphical icons that were not available in the commercial package. He was very impressed with all the features of FreeMind and the swiftness in which he was able to create the various organization charts. Within a few hours, Bob was out of the woods and closer to completing his project. One feature he really loved about FreeMind was the ability to highlight, copy and then paste entire sections from one project file to another. This saved Bob hours of endless repetitive work; since most of the branch offices had identical structures. He was able to copy entire branch structures and just update the employee names. Thanks to FreeMind, Bob was the hero and the boss was thrilled to have the completed charts. The next time Bob has an organizational chart or mind-map to create, he will most certainly use FreeMind, even if the commercial software is available to him. The options and features of FreeMind were even better than his old program and he was even more thrilled that it was completely free.

Since FreeMind was a free utility, the office manager didn’t need to seek out approval before putting it onto her system. There was no IT policy against installing any software and she learned from her research that FreeMind was developed by a very reputable Open Source community that doesn’t install spyware, grayware or any other type of malicious hidden utilities in their installation packages. FreeMind installed rather quickly and the office manager was instantly able to get started on her process mapping task. She struggled at first to understand the differences in the FreeMind interface, but quickly found her way given the very diverse and in-depth help files and website support.

After two short hours of working on the mailing process map, the office manager was ready to present her FreeMind map to the CMO. Unfortunately, the CMO was not very receptive to the office manager spending her time validating and explaining why there are so many delays processing the marketing letters. This was not the first time that the CMO had been difficult to deal with. The office manager decided to use the power of FreeMind and create a self-running presentation of the mailing processes. So, in just a few short hours, the office manager was able to convert the static process map into a very engaging presentation. She emailed it to the CMO and the next day, she was getting some praise from both the CMO and the CEO of the firm. She didn’t back down when faced with a challenging personality and she didn’t shy away from trying to make a process more efficient. For in the process map, the office manager identified several steps that could be eliminated if there was just better communication. The CMO and the CEO agreed to spend more time on process mapping other procedures and tasks in the firm. He mandated that everyone involved in the project use FreeMind because of the ease of use, the Open Source community that supports it and the overall quality of the final results. The team is excited to expand the use of FreeMind and they can’t wait to learn about other processes that could be improved, once mapped out!

FreeMind is a powerful and easy to use graphical mind and process mapping application for Windows. Users can drag processes and information boxes to the layout template and design a flowchart of processes. The FreeMind software is very easy to use, even for the non-technical person that just creates documentation. The FreeMind main toolbar is intuitive and very self-descriptive. The first time users that happen upon the program can easily create dynamic maps and process trees within minutes.

The software developer had read several reviews and informational descriptions of FreeMind and found that it was exactly what he was looking for to solve his documentation problem. FreeMind was easy to install and required no configuration. As soon as the installation was complete, the developer started dragging processes to the map and laying out the programmatic information flow. He found the FreeMind software fit his exact needs and helped him to create very professional looking documentation for his complex application. His boss was thrilled with the results and hoped to begin using the software program himself for the next documentation project that came up. The boss thanked the developer for finding FreeMind since it was a free alternative to the expensive graphical mapping software that they had used in the past.

FreeMind was installed and embraced quickly by the team members. They also loved the fact that it was highly recommended by various online blogs and it was also free; since it was an Open Source program. They commented on how the interface was clean and well organized. FreeMind had all of the components that they needed to complete their work.

They first took apart the character flow and mapped out each character’s biography using FreeMind’s easy process mapping tool. They created a box and even imported a photo sketch of each so they could track the details and history for the personality they were creating. They used the same FreeMind map to also transition from character development to live-actor casting. This is typically a very difficult process involving many whiteboards, pads of paper and sometimes writers fill up entire walls with their notes and photos. They next turned to the story development using FreeMind. They found the options and process mapping tools to be extremely helpful and easy to blend into the story process. Overall, the development of the television story plot and pilot went extremely smoothly because of the integration and use of the amazing Open Source program called FreeMind.

Physical Styles in FreeMind are preset formats that are written in an XML file. They can be quickly applied to a node using the “Format | Physical Styles” dialog in FreeMind. You can also apply these physical styles by pressing one of the function keys, either alone or in combination with the “Shift” or “Control” keys.

FreeMind comes with eighteen pre-defined physical styles that the FreeMind team thought to be useful. These include things like “Hot,” “Object of Code,” and “Open Question.” The formats they chose may not mesh with your idea of what you would choose for these items.

To modify these physical styles, you need to edit an XML file that resides in your FreeMind program directory. On Windows, you can find this at “%ProgramFiles%FreeMindpatterns.xml” You can edit this file with a programmer’s text editor like Notepad++ or VIM.

The first eighteen physical styles in this file are assigned to shortcut keys. Your second physical style will be assigned to the “Control + Shift + N” combination. This is a good style to set as your “Normal” style to reset that node back to the default format.

Here is an example of a physical style declaration:

<pattern name=”Program with icon”>
<node color=”#996600″ text=”Program” icon=”stop”>
<font size=”16″ italic=”true”/>
</node>
<edge color=”#009999″ width=”4″/>
<child pattern=”Object of code”/>
</pattern>

The Pattern element encloses all of the other elements that will define this style. It has one attribute: The name that will be displayed in FreeMind.

The Node element describes how the text will be formatted, its attributes include items like the color, icon, flags for italics, and even default text that will be placed in its node.

The Font element is a child of the Node element, and describes the font name, size, and can also be used to set bold and italic flags.

The Edge element sets the property of the line: Its color and width.

The Child element has one attribute: The pattern. Setting this physical style will format all of that node’s children with the physical style that matches the name specified here. To go deeper than one level, you need to specify a Child for the child pattern you apply here.

With defined physical styles, FreeMind can quickly format any mind maps you create to match a specific visual style. This allows you to use the same visual elements to format different mind maps with common themes, and keep your formatting consistent.

As you experience new things in your career, you may accumulate thousands of tips and tricks along the way that help you get things done quickly and successfully. Organizing these can be a challenge. Many people stick these into email folders, word processing documents, or even spreadsheets. However, when the time comes to find that piece of data again, you have to rely on inefficient search tools, like your operating system’s search functionality.

FreeMind, with its structured method of storing data, is a better solution as a personal knowledge base for some people. You can use FreeMind’s own documentation (“Help | Documentation”) as an example to get you started. Main topics form major branches off the root nodes, with subtopics in children of those nodes.

When your mind map is collapsed to show just the root node and its children, you can quickly scan the titles to find your area of interest. As you move in and expand that node’s children, you have a limited set of choices to move deeper into your data. Like the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” you can access sixty-four million different pieces of data with six clicks.

That data can be more than just some text. It can hold a hyperlink, an image, or even a large block of HTML-formatted text. By using FreeMind to organize your collected knowledge, you can retrieve information quickly.