31 Days, 31 Products: MindNode

Day 01: MindNode

This post is part of a larger series where for 31 days I’m posting a story about a particular product or service I’ve come to enjoy.

MindNode is a tool for mind mapping. Mind mapping is a process where you take a word, phrase or topic and place it in the middle of a piece of paper. From there you create branches off that first object to help explore or document an idea. Similar to brainstorming through a text-based outline, mind maps tend to be favored by people who think visually and like to accompany their maps with color assignments, drawings and more.

I’ve been using MindNode for a few months now, both on Mac OS X as well as iOS and it works great. The document format works on both sides so you can start a mind map on the iPad and bring it back the Mac with no issues. The UI of MindNode is simple but familiar. If you have experience with Keynote or Pages, you should feel well at home.

As for what I mind map, well, related to my recent announcements it’s mostly been things like naming (companies, products) and then pro/con list for different app ideas. I also recently did a map for how I organize my Dropbox files (a future blog post maybe).

MindNode is available from the Mac App Store ($29) as well as the iOS App Store ($9). A free trial for Mac can be downloaded from their website.