Let’s face it. It’s not easy being manager. It is a
challenge to stay on top of both your tasks and also keep your team organized
and productive. If you are like me and have several projects going, your brain
is cluttered with reminders and TO DO lists. It is easy to get overwhelmed. There
have been days when I look at my desk and it is overwhelmed with post-it notes
to remind myself of project goals and action items. Take it from me: this is
not the most effective strategy!
As a manager, I recognize the importance to keep track of
the big picture. Personally, I am a visual thinker so I really like to see how
my different tasks are connected to the big picture and various projects. I am
a big fan of making to do lists and using them to ensure I am on track. But,
when you are managing a team, writing a list or even drawing out your own personal
diagram isn’t enough. I may be biased, but I love mind maps. It
is so easy to organize my thoughts, easily change them around as my thinking
evolves, and then share them with upper management or my team.
Truly, making a mind map for your next project will help you
stay on task and help you stay focused. For new projects, I usually start with
a mind map that is something like this:
But, really, when working with mind maps, especially when
you are making them with specialized software, you don’t have to worry about
the structure of the mind map from the beginning. Just do a brain dump of all
your ideas, and then you can easily restructure and categorize your ideas. In
fact, that is exactly what I did for this blog post series. I started with a
mind map of all the possible topics I could write for a post, narrowed it down
to “Be a Better Manager,” wrote all the possible points to include in a post,
and then realized I could easily break up the content into a series of posts.
After this process, I could then organize my ideas accordingly.
This is incredibly similar to how I organize my projects. I
define all the tasks, and then sort them into related tasks and categories. I
find mind maps to be a far more productive project management because they
really encourage you to think about the structure of the project before jumping
in, it is so much easier to show the outline of the project with team members,
and it is far easier to navigate a large mind map than a long word document
without an easy to identify structure.
There will be three more parts to this series:
Being a Visual Manager: Implementing a Project Plan
Being a Visual Manager: Tracking Your Workflows
Being a Visual Manager: Visual Communication Leads to Visual
Collaboration
In the meantime, try organizing your next project or task
responsibilities using a mind map and let me know how it goes! Here SmartDraw
offers a free trial in order
to get you started in seeing the benefits of mind maps and visual thinking.
Once you have SmartDraw on your computer, you can start with the template I use
by opening the SmartDraw file below. You can even bring the mind map to your
next project kick-off meeting to help organize your team. Let me know how it
works for you!
[Example] Mind
Map – Starting a Project Plan.sdr
