Throughout the workday, most people have a list of things they need to accomplish in order to stay on track with their workload and head towards achievable goals. While you might have written down a to-do list and keep it up-to-date, you probably experience lingering thoughts about specific project, or focus on ideas that haven’t come to fruition or that aren’t even on your task list yet.
Successful entrepreneurs, who are constantly thinking about a variety of ideas, are certainly not immune to these challenges. They can hinder productivity in the midst of multitasking and the constant pressure to demonstrate progress.
So, how can you keep the entrepreneurial juices flowing without putting other priorities on the back burner?
Mind Mapping = Productivity
Mind mapping can be a great way to either combat or foster fledgling ideas that haven’t yet come to pass. Instead of just focusing on a long list of to-dos, they can help entrepreneurs streamline their thoughts and organize information to boost productivity and efficiency.
Mind mapping can also help identify which ideas are worth pursuing through the process of elimination, based on the logical progression of the original thought.
Accounting for Complexity
How does mind mapping account for the complexity and importance of the different tasks a typical entrepreneur faces everyday?
Mind mapping takes simple to-do lists and adds many dimensions to them. As a structured visualization of the logical path of each task or idea, the outcome of each task and, therefore, the identified priorities, it allows you to see the forest and each individual tree. While multitasking may be inevitable, mind maps allow people to focus their energy on the specific tasks at hand, with a clearly laid out road map on what this task will achieve, as well as how and when other relevant tasks have to be executed.
The Benefits of Using Mind Maps for Multitasking Roles
Consider the case of a tech entrepreneur, who has to wear several hats at once. The compelling pressure to advance dozens of leads through the marketing lifecycle, meet the deadlines of half a dozen critical ongoing projects, attend conferences on the latest industry trends, conduct trainings with employees, and consistently produce a healthy revenue stream can overwhelm even the most focused and energetic of leaders.
Mind maps allow the entrepreneur to separate the various projects, which are all competing for his or her attention, into specific tasks or chunks of tasks — and allocate time to each. They can also provide insight to the following:
- Understanding of the relative worth or importance of a specific task, leading to prioritization within individual projects
- Understanding of the relationships between various projects, leading to prioritization of all projects involved
- Ability to make trade-offs between tasks that offer high returns or gains, versus tasks with time limits, leading to deadlines which are met
- Identification of duplications or closely related tasks, leading to reduction of replication or redundancy
Creating a mind map is much easier than many people think. The basic requirement is really just to empty the mind and capture everything in a map. At the basic level, the mind map lists the outcome of each project, linking to logical tasks that are required to achieve the desired outcome. From an operations standpoint, timelines make mind maps highly functional.
A good mind mapping software automates most of this process, making the entire approach fast and effortless. These tools help users collate and organize the hundreds of pieces of information related to these specific tasks — including reports, documents, and links — in a single place. For instance, the tech entrepreneur can add documentation to the list that is to be submitted two weeks later, allocate time to edit (which is in sync with the progress of the actual project) and finally, retrieve the documentation to make updates or edits.
If you’re an entrepreneur looking to boost your productivity and manage multitasking more effectively, request a demo of our Mindjet MindManager mind mapping software today.
