Want to organize your #brain, Try the Brain mind mapping software

What if you were able to put your entire brain into one computer program? Every thought, work-related or personal, with links to Web pages or files on your computer, and any additional notes you’d care to make. And what if you could then link those thoughts together, weaving them into free and complex associative patterns, much like an actual train of thought going through your head? That’s what TheBrain ($249, 30-day free trial) tries to let you do.

At its core, TheBrain 8.0 is a powerful and flexible mind-mapping program. If you’re looking to create a simple mind map for just one project, you could always go with a minimalistic free app like Blumind, or even with mind-mapper favorite Freemind. But if you’d like to create a vast mind map which covers a lot of ground, TheBrain might just be what you need (and its free version retains lots of functionality).

The first thing you see when creating a new brain is just a single “thought” against a background called “the Plex.” In TheBrain, a thought is just a name for a node in your mind map–much like an “idea” in online mind-mapper MindMeister. Each thought can have multiple siblings, multiple children (sub-thoughts), and even multiple parents. That last one is not an obvious feature, and allows for creating very complex layouts. For example, in a film-related mind map, you could have actor Keanu Reeves both under “male heroes” and under “Matrix cast.”

The Plex itself hasn’t changed much since I first used TheBrain (when it was still called PersonalBrain), about five years ago. It is still visually impressive and fun to use. As you click a thought you’d like to focus on, it smoothly floats over to the center of the Plex, and the other thoughts get rearranged (or shown or hide), all with slick, futuristic animations.

One major visual change for TheBrain 8 is that links between thoughts are now curved, rather than simple straight lines. That sounds minor, but when you’re working on a huge mind map, it does make a visual impact.

Speaking of links, TheBrain’s links pack quite a bit of functionality in themselves. Links can have directionality (e.g, “Films” leads to “Matrix”), and they can even have text. This is very useful for making links into specific verbs, so the link from Keanu Reeves to The Matrix could say “acted in,” whereas the link from Mr. Reeves to Henry’s Crime could say “acted and produced.” You can also style links with colors and line thicknesses, and create “link types” so you don’t have to define the same link properties over and over again.

TheBrain is Java-based, which, to me, is a bit of a drawback. Like other large Java applications (JDownloader and jEdit come to mind) it feels a bit heavy sometimes. For example, the center of the Plex rotates, but this particular animation stuttered throughout my use of the application, even when TheBrain was idle (other animations were smooth). TheBrain took up around 220MB of RAM on my system, or about one third of what Chrome takes with eleven open tabs on the same system. Not a tiny footprint, but reasonable for such a large application.

TheBrain also offers an online synchronization service called WebBrain, which lets you seamlessly sync a local Brain with its online version, and thus, synchronize Brains you’re using on more than one system (such as your desktop and a laptop).

It is definitely an application that takes some getting used to, but for visual thinkers, TheBrain can make a big difference in productivity and organization.

Talking mind mapping tools

Mind mapping is the perfect concept for knowledge management because you can display large amounts of explicit information in a simple to follow diagram. This allows employees to conceptualize the policies, procedures and business units within an organization.

A mind map is basically a diagram that connects information around a central subject. I like to think of it like a tree, although it has more of a radial structure. In any case, at the center is your main idea, say, poetry, and the branches are subtopics or related ideas, such as types of poetry, famous poets, and poetry publications. Greater levels of detail branch out from there and branches can be linked together.

Mind maps can be used for pretty much any thinking or learning task, from studying a subject (such as a new language) to planning your career or even building better habits. As part of my daily routine, I use mind maps to help me visualize ideas and bring them to life. Here i have worked with many tools/software to come up with mind maps and also visualize ideas. In a series of articles i will be sharing with you some of my most used mind tools that i use in my daily routine.

DON’T MISS, Also share your thoughts, comments etc

7 Google Keep Tips for Your Phone

Google Keep is a FREE app that will help you organize your life.

In this article we will show you 7 tips that you can do on your phone to get more out of Google Keep. Google Keep connects across all your devices. Check out the list of tips that will be covered.

• Collaborate and Share with Google Keep
• Set reminders by time or place with Google Keep
• Dictate Notes in Google Keep
• Extract text from an image in Google Keep
• Doodle in Google Keep
• Use Google Keep as a bookmark tool
• Export to Docs in Google Keep

Collaborate and share with Google Keep

Google Keep’s latest update now allows users to share their notes and collaborate on those. You can now, for example, share groceries lists with your family and meeting notes with your colleagues. And as with other Google Drive apps, you can collaborate within Google Keep in real-time, making sharing notes with others a much better experience.Collaborating within notes has also never been easier. Everyone with access to any given note can edit it, and others will see the changes in real-time.

Set reminders by time or place

Google Keep can now enable you create reminders based on time and location. It can even remind you of an important event (or something you need to do) when you arrive at a particular location. The only caveat to Keep’s reminders is that their creation isn’t exactly obvious. If you open Keep, you won’t find a reminder button to tap, nor can you speak that magical phrase “Okay Google Now.” However, Google Keep’s reminders can be easily created .Say, for example, the next time you’re shopping at that massive warehouse store, you need to pick up supplies for your home and your office. You could create a shopping list (for both even), and then attach a location-based reminder so you don’t forget to pick up the items.

Dictate Notes in Google Keep

Google Keep has a voice memo feature, which you can access in two ways:

• The microphone icon in the notes list.
• The microphone icon in the widget.

Once activated, you can just speak and Google will convert what you say into text. It’ll create a new note with the text content and an audio recording of what you said. Feel free to keep either or both.

Google Keep also integrates nicely with Google Now, allowing you to add items to list notes just by activating it using an OK Google command:

Extract text from an image in Google Keep

Wanna transcribe your short notice but your lazy to type, Well Google keep now has a feature that can scan handwritten text and convert it into digital text.

• Use your device’s camera to capture an image of text.
• Add the image to a note, then tap on the image.
• Open the overflow menu and select Grab image text.
• Give it a minute or so and the text will show up in the note.

The OCR engine needs an internet connection to do its magic, but it works quite well.

Doodle in Google Keep

You can now do quick doodles in the mobile version of Google Keep. These doodles can then be imported into Google Docs or edited (but only on the mobile version).

Use Google Keep as a bookmark tool

Even though you are using a mobile device rather than a website, you can still bookmark web pages or portions of a web page as long as you have the Google Keep app installed. From any Chrome mobile browser window on the mobile device tap on the Menu (three vertical dots in the top right of the screen).

Export to Docs in Google Keep

With the Google Keep Copy feature, you can move any note to Google Docs and start working on it there, instead of using the tiny note interface. All you have to do is open any note in Google Keep, either from the Web or the app. Then, click or the overflow menu (three dots) and choose Copy to Google Doc