Why I don't use mind-maps

[@lmao01]

I personally use and like Canvas, although I enforce a few rules otherwise it becomes counterproductive. Using it mostly for storywriting and game development. I organize it into several 'spaces' on the mind map. Each space has some kind of purpose. Examples: Timeline Goes only one direction. I never break this rule. It shows what happens in the story by only outlining. It never gets cluttered since the 'time' in the story always allows me to find a correct writing spot. It allows me also to attach other data related to that time in the story. If some prepared hook happened in the story I always have an arrow pointing forward the timeline, which removes any clutter. It's way more readable than the 1D view of a note. It gets even more useful when the game has branching dialogue choices. Locations Imagine a map where you have several locations, you go into buildings and you have different-looking interiors. Names are not enough descriptive for that. Using mind maps for this I can quickly orient myself into the corresponding buildings where even a 2d direction on the mind map will correspond to the correct building interior where the player direction he has to walk. I also see already implemented locations at a glance. When I think of ideas about what can happen in a story it serves also as a sticky note for brainstorming with tiny timeline directions and branching choices. If there is more than a sentence in a node, it most likely shouldn't be on the canvas. Like you said. It's better to create a note and attach it to the canvas so you can search for it. ![[note]]. It gives a preview if someone wants it, although text previews mostly destroy the organization. Once I get confused around canvas/mind maps the information that I put on canvas is not organized into space( any border/group/context), particular note, or that space on the canvas doesn't have any organizing rule (like a timeline). There shouldn't be any arrow connection where you have to move the view. Just like timeline direction other spaces having some directions is useful. I'm quite sure some of those enforced rules would help think like 'your thinking is more linear' or 'you have a border on your current dynamic thinking data'. I'd like to also point out that even a normal note has in itself a significance of order/priority. Graph view was always more of an empty flex in my POV. I never saw anyone actually explaining how they benefited through it other than "Look my brain so big, daz how it lookz. It connect to other words. amazin". I also never found any viable use out of it compared to the above examples. So definitely agree with that. The ability to change page outline reassigning in lattices 'mindmap outline' is nice but not worth switching over for this single QoL. Other things don't seem usual to me at all. Keep up the good work.

[@DannyHatcherTech]

I love this comment. Thank you for taking the time!

[@ecoconatus8089]

Thank you, got curious about Justin Sung but sense a lot more depth in your point of views. Thank you for sharing them

[@trevx3680]

2:30 Some of your issues relating to mind maps can be easily overcome in Obsidian. You can label your connectors, and you can add a legend of colors as well.

[@DannyHatcherTech]

Both ideas I have tried but I still find them more constraining than a long document.

[@xitement7504]

the amount of nails you hit on the head here is insane. this video came at me at the best time for some reason. I'm getting absolutely insane and stressed from my obsidian app. Exactly for the reasons that you are saying. Mindmaps get big and crazy Canvas get big and crazy Dataviews get big and crazy And none of them allow some way to zoom out or in or bring back calmness. I get almost physically ill now when i open up my obsidian, because it just turned into a cleaning job in a sense instead of a way to organize my thoughts and data.

[@tobiasgugger-haslerrail5914]

Purpose of mind-map is similar then outline to organise information. It useful to think about a topic or before you creat a bigger detailed document, how you would like the structure. Also mind maps should never be to big, better to creat new Center if you can separate topic. A little bit different view can also give the App Mindly.

[@StevenMichels]

Thanks for articulating something that I've been feeling. There's also the matter of the creation and maintenance of the map, which is a never-ending task, for which the payoff is slight or negligible.

[@productivity8696]

lattics is on my list of apps to try out, i just downloaded it today. I also dont use mind maps mostly because i havent seen an app where mind maps were utilized well, and as you say obsidians canvas and graph view are NOT it. Your examples prove that, and not that mind maps are inferior. For example 2:17 you say you have problems grouping things and you forget the meaning of the connections. Well, same goes for linear notes: how do you know what comes after a line of text? how do you know whether a line of texts belongs to which heading/paragraph/etc etc? if a line of text is below another line of text how do you know which connection it has, or whether they are connected at all? linear text and paragraphs and headings are just concepts taught in school and used in society with arbitrary rules that could be easily made up for mind maps as well. Theres nothing inherently better about them except that you can put "more words" into the same space. So if you want to create a dictionary I would recommend to not use a mind map for example but a list of lines of text. For any other example i dont think the answer is that easy.

[@DannyHatcherTech]

Agreed.

[@pizzafreak97]

have you looked at excalibrain? that might give you more of those semantic connections you're looking for between your notes. (haven't used it myself but i've found nvdh's videos on them very good!) and i actually just started using mindmaps more in my learning and have found them very helpful 😂 i'd say that personally, that's what i find them more useful for: helping me reorganize and connect ideas and figuring out what relationships/parts i'm still not understanding/missing. that said, i think mind maps are more useful on smaller scales, where you're only handling a few key words/ideas and so you dont need to add on tons of additional text -- imo that's when you break into another mind map 😂 i can see why the "snapshot"ness makes them feel not very dynamic, but for me it's been so beneficial to keep iterating over new versions of a mind map for a topic i'm trying to understand -- it's helpful to see how my thinking about it has changed over time. i dont really use mindmaps to synthesize/map out things i already know -- for that i actually use something more like your approach in using longer notes! rather, mindmaps have been more helpful for me in the learning phase to explore and wrangle with new ideas 🙂

[@StevenMichels]

Everyone has their styles and preferences about thinking and writing, but Danny is right.

[@DannyHatcherTech]

@@StevenMichels well. I am right for some 😜

[@thecookiemomma]

See, I'm finding that with Canvas Candy and working with the Excalidraw as "Back of the Note," stuff, I'm using models / maps more often. Especially to lay out what I am thinking of a concept at the moment. I know that it's a momentary thing, but it works for me. With the "Back of the card" stuff, it also jogs my memory because the excalidraw thing is at the top of the page to remind me, but I can write in the note whatever I need to do. Different workflows for different people.

[@DebSchiano]

I think your hinderance to mind maps relates to your hinderance to atomic notes, not because they are similar, but because they work well together. Personally, I need the visual connect to easily see hierarchies and possibilities which I’ve created. I agree that canvas has many flaws, especially, as you point out, note changes and connections made in canvas are not reflected in the original notes and if you create original notes in canvas, you need to go back and add the connections…links. Scrintal is another worthy candidate, however, I hate to give up Obsidian’s community contributions! Excalidraw, and other infinite canvas software outside of Obsidian, allow for markdown export. I would imagine still needing to add links though.

[@artifica0]

I think the graph view can be useful potentially in how you organise the hierarchy seprating each note with to many links into separate ones but it takes to much manual work, I wish obsidian had link types that would make the graph view actually useful

[@jaHorsman92]

Generally agree, mindmaps lack of structure and depth. Its more for concept linking and general thought organisation but can have limitations to the direction of thinking in itself. I have found using a loose mindmap (more a rich picture from SSM) + a thinking framework helpful. For example by using Kipling questions, Joseph Kasser's Holistic Thinking Perspectives etc... to cover the depth of a topic + diagramming / rich pictures to map out how concepts interact with each other. Using both often clarifies my thoughts and understanding making it a lot faster to think and learn.

[@smishize]

Sometimes I listen to people who I disagree with completely. I listened to all 12 minutes though. If you create a note from each mind map element, you get the best of both worlds. Keep this critique online because people should be able to easily find ways around your objections.

[@DannyHatcherTech]

I am the same 😁 Best of both worlds... I am curious what your thinking looks like in Obsidian or whatever writing app you use. For me, multiple short files, linked to an implicit mind-map is less effective than long linear text files.

[@travis-sheaffer]

leave it to a Psychologist to overthink a topic. Some people think visually so the mindmap is much more useful than just written text. What might work for you might not work for me and vice versa.

[@averagetechnologyenojyer]

Have you tried making CaGas and CaWas? They're like mind maps but very easy to use , quite limited but I too find mind maps a bit hard to use, also obsidian canvas is such a lifesaver it helps me organise in an awesome way

[@DannyHatcherTech]

I will have a look

[@jasonqq]

I don't think Justin Sung ever intended for you to use mind maps to capture stuff you need to remember years later. Because mind maps don't make relationships explicit, they force you to remember and know all the relationships, which makes them a good studying exercise. This property also makes them horrendous for long-term information storage.

[@PeterIntrovert]

I find your work and way of doing things very left hemisphere heavy. Justin's method is right hemisphere exercise. Two different spaces. :) I think it would be good to point out that Justin's mind-mapping is very diffent thing from convential mind maps. He also made a critique of conventional mind maps. The purpose and execution of both vary a lot.

[@DannyHatcherTech]

I am not sure what you mean by right/left hemisphere - are referring to the right/left brain myth?

[@PeterIntrovert]

@@DannyHatcherTech ah, YT deleted my comment because I gave a link to a video. I wrote that differences aren't myth. They were mischaracterized by popular culture and that mischaracterization we can call a myth. Iain McGilchrist is the strongest voice for this right now. There is documentary on YT about it "The Divided Brain" from 2019 about this. For me that explains patterns I see in what people prefer, the way they operating. The details are very interesting although YT comments aren't good place to talk about them. And this is very complex subject. Differences are reflected in morphology, brainwaves (oscillations), psychological observations and experimentations. Of course if someone want to use that knowledge in everyday observations then that will depend not on explicit measures but on understanding and interpretations. Idea of atomic notes or mini-esseys are based on RH tendency to operate on wholes and compensate the difficulty for selection (in isolating information into particulars), your method looks like something opposite. You are good at manipulating informations but you compansate for holding them together in implicit way in form of meaning, you need to have information in front of you in explicit way. It's hard to describe but difference at least for me are quite clear. We are using both hemispheres there is just different tilt towards one or another as I see it in given samples.

[@DannyHatcherTech]

@@PeterIntrovert Yeah, KZbin doesnt like links in comments. I will take a look to see if I can find the doc. Always happy to talk more in a web call 😁

[@ryanbartlett672]

Excalibrain plugin. Constant pages of text can be tiresome. A visual break is fresh. What you showed at the end is like freeplane - I do wish it and Obsidian would have a baby. FP got slow on big searches (main reason left)

[@Metruzanca]

Mindmaps like I was taught, seem entirely useless. Words that connect to words, especially when taken as "notes" during a class. Nowadays, as a non-student, I'd much rather start writing and create notes for concepts. From an eagle eye view, the titles of my files, might link together to form these mind maps, but I rarely if ever actually view the mindmap itself. Its kind of like how our brains make connections, but we don't view how our neurons link together... I agree, the graph view is completely useless. Its cool AF, but useless. Mainly because theres no way to navigate it and make it useful.

[@DHTechnology]

Hi….. You are making amazing videos! You must make good. But there are some problems in your videos that I found out analyzing your KZbin Channel .Do you want to talk about it for a while?

[@DannyHatcherTech]

I am happy with what I am doing thanks.

[@iraqinationalist7778]

First