Mindmeister

Here's where I turn into a Luddite again. But it's not primarily because I'm a Luddite that I don't think I'll be making much use of Mindmeister. More importantly, I am a text-not-image person and I don't think visually. I never make spider diagrams; I make lists, and only rarely even colour-code them. Mindmapping just doesn't suit my learning style, and I doubt this is going to change just because I can now draw the diagrams online.

In any case, I am not yet convinced of the advantages of drawing mindmaps electronically. If you want to share them with friends and colleagues, that's another matter: the benefits of sharing things online are obvious. But if you're working by yourself -- either because it's an independent project, or because you're doing some preliminary work prior to the shareable part of the task -- is Mindmeister really so much better than pen and paper?

A Google Tool

I followed up a suggestion on another blog (EKF) and tried using Google calendar. I see its attractions, but I don't think I'll be using it regularly. The main reason for this is that I commute quite a distance into work, and often use this time for planning: in the morning, to preview my timetable for the day, prioritise tasks etc.; in the evening to review how things have gone and decide what I need to pack for the next day.

These simple tasks can easily be done using an old-fashioned paper diary and notebook; and it would actually be quite hard to do them electronically, since I don't have reliable access to the Net while I'm travelling. Keeping more than one diary leads inevitably to ambiguity and confusion (as I've found in the past when I tried to use a hard-copy diary alongside the calendar on my PDA). So Google calendar, I suspect, is not for me.

Conclusion: electronic tools can be marvellous and really improve your life, but you need to be sure they truly fit your needs. In some cases, the old-style technology can still be more efficient.