I already use Curio for project management, and it’s an excellent choice for any information gathering and organization, but I find it to be overkill when I just want to mind map. For Mac, these include NovaMind, iMindMap, Freemind, MindNode, XMind and Curio, among others. I’m quite certain I’ve tried everything available on both Mac and iOS at this point. There’s a fairly wide field of options to consider.

Smart/auto layout (moves existing nodes out of the way of new nodes without interaction).

The ability to import other mind map formats, and preferably OPML.

at the least, OPML, PDF and a format interoperable with other mapping applications (Freemind is pretty standard).

The ability to visually connect non-contiguous nodes.

Here’s my checklist of features that I knew I needed in any app I was going to consider: The decision to find something else was based mostly on disappointment with the development and what I consider to be unduly expensive prices, even for existing customers. The new features in the last $99 upgrade were pretty much useless to me in my workflow they were just feature bloat. The Windows versions are taking leaps and bounds, and the Mac version has little parity with its feature set. In recent years, though, it’s been apparent that the Mac platform has become an afterthought for the developers. In my opinion, MindManager is still the most powerful mix of ease-of-use, OS integration and aesthetic options on the market. I’m currently down to a collection of solutions across three platforms (Mac, iOS and web) which meet all of my requirements and offer interoperability with each other and other tools in my workflow. It has, primarily, to do with three things: frustration with MindManager, the advent of the iPad, and a wealth of new alternatives. As with all things in the Mac app world, I played with every mind mapping application that came out, but only recently have I found myself actually looking for a new workflow. I used Mindjet MindManager (Mac) together with the web app MindMeister for years. It’s a summary of the process by which I settled on my current set of tools. This post isn’t about how to mind map (but this one is). For me, if it involves brainstorming, it involves mind maps. Lists and outlines are rarely as effective as the non-linear format of a mind map. Whether it’s a packing list, a blog post or a TextMate bundle, I find it easiest to organize my (often scattered) thoughts using what Tony Buzan calls radiant thinking. Most of my projects start out as mind maps (which I may have mentioned before).

Mindnode ithoughts