Goal Planning - Organize Your Thoughts Through Mind Mapping

It’s interesting to come up with that great new idea to change your life, start a new career or just to break the habit of a life time. The problem I have is that there are just too many things to think about and as my brain hits midlife I can’t quite remember them all the way I use too. So I use a technique called mind mapping to do this. The great thing about mapping your ideas is that you don’t forget anything or at least you hope that you don’t. Depending on your budget you can do this on paper. There are also software programs that will do this for you such as Mindjet-Mind manager, which you will have to pay for but is really great. There is some free software out there also if you look around for it.
Here is a basic Mind map, this could also have been done in Microsoft Word using their balloons to give a more graphic view you of your ideas, which is also an inexpensive way to make a mind map. If you are like me when I head off on holiday, I make it down the road and then start wondering whether I locked the front door or not. This way you can tick the tasks off as you complete them and nothing is over looked.

Things to do before going on holiday for example. I was not able to put a flow chart into this article, however if you were going on holiday this would be your main topic and then it would be broken down like this:

Main topic:---------------------------- HOLIDAY

Sub-topics:----------House Lock Up-------------------Travel Documents

Smaller topics:------Turn off water--------------------Tickets
-----------------------Turn off lights---------------------Passports
-----------------------Water plants----------------------Health Insurance

With this you can sift through the dark corner of your mind to find the hidden gems that you know are in there, but don’t come as easily as they use to and also add some new ones. Once I start a mind map other things come to mind and I can add them in the appropriate place. I may want to add to the list of items that I want my neighbour to do when I’m gone. I can do this by attaching a text box or a table of contents even pictures and links in the software version. You will have to spend a little time working with Microsoft word but it should not take long to get the hang of it.
This is a great place to get started, if you are not clear on what it is you want to create in your life or your project needs a structure. If you want you can start with the end goal in mind and then start working backwards to attain that goal. For instance, say you like the idea of financial freedom, you would start with this end goal and then come up with possibilities for achieving this goal. Then break it down further till you know how you are going to put your plan into action each step of the way.
You can check out more at my site “Midlife Quest .CA”, where I talk about this in more depth and also cover other subjects for getting the most out of your life experience.

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