When I joined Every Nation Ministries’ Nashville office in March 2009, my job description was basically take notes in meetings and assist with communications. I jumped at the chance to return to what I love doing with an organization that I love. (I worked at the Manila office as web content coordinator for the international website from 2005 to 2007.) It was a bonus. I would’ve jumped at anything to get out of working at a hotel where I was a square peg in a round hole.
I was promoted to coordinator in 2010. My number one strength is the Learner Theme so I’m very good at… learning. I put my theme to use consuming everything I could to create communications that were consistent and effective.
I celebrated my third anniversary with us this March with a new team member, videographer Jay Kim, from our church in New York, MSNY. He’s brilliant. I love his work!
This June we became “Media & Communications,” and we added one more team member. Rachel Baily is our latest brilliant addition. I’m humbled to be in such great company with these two talented and bright individuals.
Because my responsibilities have grown past taking notes in meetings, I’m so busy these days. I have a dozen productivity and calendar apps on my iPad, but it was a mind map called SimpleMind+ that has totally revolutionized how I think and manage all the many moving pieces of my responsibilities.
My responsibilities at work. Isn’t it pretty?
It syncs with a desktop version which I decided not to get. I want to keep it exclusively on the iPad for now. It does cool things like linking to websites and other mind maps I’ve created within the app, and it has several color themes.The mind map above has spring colors. I took another app, iMindMap HD, for a test run but didn’t like the idea of paying for cloud storage. Its map does have more functionality though, which I found a little bit too much for my needs.
People look at this mind map and wonder how I’m able to make heads or tails of all the branches. I look at it and wonder why it took me so long to give mind mapping a serious look!
Mind Mapping helps me decide on and write down concepts and/or themes. Those are the big ideas/subjects which I build ideas upon.
Mind Mapping helps me during my 9time when I plan out my week. I put the week’s date in the center with branches to responsibilities like eBlasts, North America News & Updates, the Staff Blog, Promotions, etc. so I can see at a glance what my goals are.
Mind Mapping helps me take notes during meetings. I used to scribble and put diagrams and boxes around important points in my notes. Now I’m able to build upon a main topic by creating branches to sub-ideas which then branch to sub-sub-ideas and more ideas.
Mind Mapping helps me focus on topics in a way that my mind can handle. Long lists overwhelm me; multiple lists paralyze me. With mind mapping, I can see everything in one glance, spread out like a… map.
Have you tried mind mapping? What tools do you use to manage work?
