Stay Clear and Focused on Your 2012 Resolutions with Visualization

The New Year is shiny and bright. Now is the time when we can look back on past accomplishments and mistakes of the previous year and start anew. Whether you are building on your previous Thoughts and projects or starting a new Brain, visualization software and mind maps enable you to formulate clear and doable plans for the New Year in a way that captures your best thinking.

Getting Outside Your Head

We all need a place for ourselves, a place to work, sleep, eat… but most importantly to think. You can make that place for thinking and translating your goals into action in your Brain. And it’s easier than you think. But first a little on the why…

David Allen, bestselling author and creator of Getting Things Done® talks about how you can develop a positive shift in your energy just by identifying what you need to do… i.e. when you are stressed out think about the relief you feel just by creating a list. In GTD Times he referred to this as “The value of getting things out of your psyche and into a more objective format”. Creating a place for your 2012 resolutions in your Brain not only gives you a digital space to start working on them, collecting information etc., but more importantly takes them out of your mind so you can work on them in a productive fashion. Therefore, the first step in your 2012 Brain is to identify and create Thoughts for all your key goals and resolutions for this year.

Creating Thoughts for your goals also helps solidify the commitment. In fact, I’m not sure if you can even have a resolution if at the very least, you don’t write it down. Though jotting a key goal down on a piece of paper may mentally provide commitment and relief, your digital brain provides a network for you to elaborate on your idea, remind you when to take action, and turn it into reality! Once you have created a Thought for your goal, the next step is to add other Thoughts that support and elaborate on your goal. This is where perseverance and planning come into play.

Perseverance and Planning in Your Brain

The news media reports that yesterday (January 9th), nine days after people make their resolution, is the day when most people give it up. So clearly without the right backup system for your goals things can slip away. In order to stay the course you need to focus and create Thoughts in your digital Brain for concrete action items and tasks that will lead to your ultimate resolution. In my blog entry entitled “7 Steps to Making Your Creative Vision a Reality”, I identify several key steps that can help turn your goal into reality. But the main takeaway of this post is that success begins by breaking down your dream into manageable chunks and making each piece an actionable step. And luckily segmentation of ideas is what information visualization and mind mapping is all about. When you mind map the possibilities, this imagined future becomes more real because you have captured and elaborated on a vision outside of your mind. Think of it as digital self-awareness.

To begin planning in your Brain ask yourself: what are the key components of your goal… then begin to segment your larger goal into smaller actionable steps. Each one of these steps should be a Child Thought under your resolution.

Experimenting with TheBrain’s outline view enables you to see all necessary steps for your goal.

For instance, “Living to be 100” is a very nice goal but unless you define key steps and milestones to get there, it’s just a pipe dream. Under this Thought you might include key research on longevity and health, as well as key action-oriented Thoughts that will help you achieve your goal such as nutrition, exercise and stress management.

References and Inspirations

Even though you think you are committed to your resolution, research suggests otherwise, and over time your motivation may waiver. Therefore, it is absolutely critical to setup reminders and inspirations in your Brain. I suggest creating a Thought called “Why” under your resolution and use PersonalBrain’s Notes tab to capture your key reasons and motivations behind this goal. You can also link to some friendly “Propaganda Thoughts” to reinforce your plan… For instance if you are losing weight, add some research in your Brain on how important weight loss is to health. In this way your digital Brain trains and convinces your wet brain on the benefits of achieving this goal.

References and inspirations are an absolutely critical step in actualizing your creative vision. Of course, unlike conventional mind mapping software, there is no limit to the number of Thoughts or files that you can add to your Brain. This means that you can create an ever-expanding unlimited knowledgebase for your vision. Collecting and organizing key ideas and important examples will enable you to harness abundant information sources and put them to work for you. Once key source material is in your Brain, you can simply type in a name and get to the information you need instantly.

Your reference Thoughts will not only help you define your vision for the project, but also serve as important guidelines and benchmarks to ensure that your requirements are met. For instance, if you are designing a Web site, link and create Thoughts for Web sites that represent your ideal aesthetics and business goals. If you are working on a kitchen renovation, link to photos of all the key design elements.

Reminders and Monitoring Your Progress

Goal maintenance is key to success and your Brain can help you stay on top of things. Setup action oriented Thoughts that demand your attention periodically. For example, if your goal is losing weight, add additional Thoughts on number of steps walked or an exercise log that you update each week. You can use PersonalBrain’s Notes built-in time stamp to record your key metrics. You can also setup Thoughts and reminders in your Brain for periodic reviews so when you get busy with other stuff your goal is never forgotten. I suggest you setup weekly reminders with TheBrain’s built-in calendar. The reminder Thought ideally should lead to some action you need to take, even if it’s just a journal entry in PersonalBrain’s Notes. If your goal is more elusive, like taking your business global, your weekly action item can be more research oriented, like finding three new web articles on your goal. In this way your knowledgebase grows to serve your resolution and you in turn will use this newly acquired knowledge to meet your goals.

We Are What We Think

As you work on your 2012 resolutions your expanded view of your thinking will enable you to go full circle with your digital Brain. That is, you start off using your digital Brain to capture your goal but by directing your own ideas and thinking in TheBrain towards your goal you are actually training your mind to focus and absorb what is most important to you. Thus your digital Brain moves you to a deeper level of commitment and strategic thinking on that “2012 Thought” you created. It is this symbiosis of deliberate and selective brainstorming that takes you to a higher consciousness of an idea. This mindset makes the difference between a resolution and an accomplished result. So to all of you who seek more in life and work, may you forge a better, more intelligent future this year with new directed Thoughts and ideas in your digital Brain. After all, we are what we think we can be. So be the most you can be… in your Brain.

Happy New Year and Happy Digital Thinking!

Use PersonalBrain to make your summer shine, by capturing and growing your creative ideas and projects.

 
What Is Creativity?

The connections in our mind converge and new ideas are generated. But there is a certain mystery and awe in our creative facilities. This intangible process makes our creative process and output somewhat unpredictable and serendipitous.

How do you maximize such an ephemeral and yet essential process? I don’t claim to know all the answers, but there are some easy things anyone can do and PersonalBrain can help you with all of them.

Clearing the Deck for New Ideas for Creative Connections
I’ve noted that August can be a great month for creativity due to less intense deadlines. However, if you are in the construction industry or have kids at home from school you might actually have less time. But regardless of your workload or season, if you’re pre-occupied with mundane tasks and commitments, they will take up precious space in your mind. Creative opportunities will be missed. As Dee Hock said, “Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.”

This idea of clearing your head for more productivity is an essential theme in David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology. A key aspect of GTD is having a trusted place to put things away along with a system of organization and prioritization so ultimately you can focus on what really matters to you. Not only can PersonalBrain capture your creative vision but you can use your digital Brain to store information, tasks, allowing you to sift through the data clutter that might be holding your creativity back. 

For more information on how to use PersonalBrain to “Get Things Done” see my blog post.
For more information on dealing with information overload see my article on “Digital Sanity.”

Thinking Outside the Box with Lateral Connections
Creativity in many cases is simply putting together existing ideas in a new way. As Albert Einstein put it, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”

From Einstein to Edward de Bono to Tony Buzan, many an insight on creativity relates to how making connections between two seemingly disparate concepts can be the key to that “Eureka” moment. Your mind and imagination are the ultimate source for these nuggets of gold.

PersonalBrain enables you to capture your thoughts anytime, when they come to mind so you can leverage them when the time is right.

There’s really no better place to get your creative juices flowing on a project, hobby or interest than in your digital Brain. PersonalBrain makes linking together information fun. You can connect any idea to anything else so your creative ideas aren’t stuffed into folders. This lateral thinking enabled by non-linear connections is the hallmark of creativity and is easily achieved in PersonalBrain.

Fill your PersonalBrain with the concepts that are important to your business or life. Whether it’s key points in your supply chain, new ideas for your manufacturing process, or key principals that separate you from the competition, each of these Thoughts forms a foundation for a network of lateral connections that can lead to your next breakthrough.

For example, if you are a software engineer being able to link development ideas to applications can trigger new features for customers. An architect might link building specifications to new materials to come up with the best design. What PersonalBrain provides is a new perspective beyond mundane folders to organize information. This gives you more possibilities to see connections in a new light.

Inspirational Warehousing and Idea Incubation
Now that you’ve started to build a structure that encompasses your business goals or passions, you should capture and link up all the ideas you have, no matter how fanciful they may seem at first blush. Much our modern world is built on ideas that must have seemed crazy even to their creators. In the case of your Brain, these ideas don’t need to get in the way and if they never lead anywhere, there’s nothing lost. Your PersonalBrain can hold hundreds of thousands of “Thoughts”.  On the other hand, keeping them connected to the topics they are about allows them to incubate and keeps them accessible when a catalyst for making them into reality happens or something comes to mind later.

A snapshot of Jerry Mickalski’s 160,000+ Thought Brain on creativity as published on WebBrain.com

Harlan Hugh the inventor of TheBrain, puts all his ideas in his PersonalBrain, regardless of how trivial. These ideas incubate, grow and build connections over time. Some might be used in the future and others are just there to trigger more ideas. This expansive knowledgebase has resulted in multitude of technical innovations of TheBrain software. Sandy Ping, CEO of VentureForward, and one of the inventors of billion dollar commercial successes such as Cascade Action Paks and Swiffer WetJet uses his PersonalBrain to make connections between market research, products, patents and new ideas to foster his own innovative thinking.

Organizing ideas is central to evolving your creative process. With PersonalBrain you can organize by connection rather than separation which preserves and captures lateral thinking that is often necessary to innovate and create.

(To learn more about PersonalBrain’s Big Thinkers go to: http://www.thebrain.com/community/big-thinkers1/)

Expanding Your Mind and Talent
By consciously adapting your workflows with the intent to be creative, you will find that you are. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy when you have the means to execute it. The simple act of capturing you ideas will spawn others and PersonalBrain’s ability to remind you of those ideas when you are thinking about related concepts will enhance your own innate creativity.  You can not only capture your ideas but the overall business and creative processes. This is especially relevant for project managers. Becoming conscious of your processes and methodologies will enable you to gain a level of control on your thinking and projects.  We just did a webinar last week entitled “The Ultimate Performance Network” demonstrating how to explicitly mind map business processes.  Understanding your workflows and project cycles helps you evolve and build on current thinking so you can improve and streamline things.

And for people who have no defined processes whatsoever, PersonalBrain can be even more useful. I know creatives in Hollywood who dread Microsoft Project but can organize a project like nothing in their PersonalBrain!  With PersonalBrain anyone can take a basic idea or vague objective and start visualizing specifics: hammering out next steps, contingency plans, key documents all visualized together. For more information on how to realize the results of creativity see my blog post on “7 Steps To Make Your Creative Vision a Reality”

So clear out a corner of your mind by putting it all into your digital Brain. Two Brains are always better than one. With PersonalBrain you will never run out of space, so add your most outlandish ideas, inspirations and connections. Let the idea germination begin!

Last month we did a Webinar called “First Things First” that explored how PersonalBrain can be used for prioritization and focus of projects. Here are a few key principles that we discussed.

You Need to Capture and Clarify to Execute
The more stuff you can get out of your head and into a tangible visible form, the easier it is to organize these tasks and act on them. This also frees your mind from the mental clutter and stress of all your commitments. This is a key premise of David Allen’s GTD methodology and a key method of personal organization for busy executives.  PersonalBrain is ideal for capturing key goals and just stuff that is taking up mental space in your wet Brain.

Whether you are using David Allen’s “Horizons of Focus” or mind mapping key responsibilities in your life, crafting and visualizing the big picture will help you stay on track. So often we are busy but our heads are at the “runway level” – so focused on the daily grind we don’t see the broader implications of our plans. For instance, companies work very hard to promote and sell their products but they may fail to research and develop the right products for the future. Conversely, if we can’t even keep our heads above water because we are so mired in the task at hand it will be very difficult to make future plans.  Thus creating Thoughts for managing daily activities and long-term goals are both critical for your PersonalBrain.

David Allen talks about 6 levels of work which may also be thought of in terms of altitude.

PersonalBrain can visualize all horizons of focus.  The GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology asserts that if your mind is pre-occupied with a number of open loops and daily tasks, you cannot effectively focus on higher level life goals. That being said, because of the visual nature of PersonalBrain, you may decide to create a Brain or a specific area in your Brain exclusively for one or more of these horizons of focus.

From current to-dos, up to long-term goals this continuum of insight on projects must all be captured in your Brain.

Be Aware of Your Commitments
One way to really identify what is important and stay on track is to represent all your key commitments as Thoughts in your PersonalBrain. It’s quite telling to see how many you have and the connections they lead to. I suggest creating a Thought called commitments. (If you are using the GTD approach these would fall under the 20,000 foot altitude.) This section in your Brain will visualize all the key areas of your life. These might include family, community involvement, this quarter’s sales numbers, new design projects, trips with friends, etcetera.

Once you have all your commitments captured you will need to take a step back and prioritize or even delete a few!  You can use Thought types and tags in PersonalBrain to visually prioritize your responsibilities. Use bright colors to represent and visualize the more important projects or commitments.

Seeing all this in your digital Brain enables you to be more conscious of what you need to focus on. From here you can either set some new goals for the year or use PersonalBrain to execute on your existing commitments through goal directed visualization.

Use Goal Directed Visualization
As the New Year is upon us, I suggest you start by creating Thoughts for all your key New Year’s resolutions or goals for 2011. These can be under your “Horizons of Focus” or in a new 2011 area in your PersonalBrain.

Now you can focus your projects and intentions with an end in sight. The idea is to direct your attention and energy from a set of obstacles to a set of choices: the more specific and definable the choices, the better the chance for success.

For example, under each goal or resolution you need to break it down and segment your desired achievement into manageable tasks. For instance, “Living to be 100” is a very concrete goal but unless you define key steps and milestones to get there, it’s just a pipe dream. Under this Thought you might include key research on longevity and health as well as key action-oriented Thoughts that will help you achieve your goal such as nutrition, exercise and stress management.

For more information on goal directed mapping see 7 Steps to Make Your Creative Vision a Reality

Add supporting child Thoughts that break down how to achieve your goal. Aggregate and integrate the necessary supporting information. These might include web sites, project plans, and budgets so all relevant material is instantly accessible under your goal. Use PersonalBran’s drag and drop to consolidate all relevant resources. You can also set reminder Thoughts with PersonalBrain’s calendar so you can come back and check on things.

Create Visual Workflows
Each phase of reaching your goal will involve a number of tasks. All your tasks and to-dos can be tracked and organized in PersonalBrain. Don’t hesitate to add functional Thoughts to your Brain, Thoughts such as:  To Do Today and Weekly Review.  Under these Thoughts you can create Thoughts for all your to-dos. When an item is completed it can be linked to another area for future reference or deleted. Some users like to create lists in the PersonalBrain notes area. PersonalBrain 6 now includes checkboxes which makes trackable lists, easy.

I also have a Thought in my Brain called “Waiting for.” This is particularly useful to track things that you are waiting for an action on, such as: your CEO’s approval, client input, graphic assets etcetera. You can even drag and drop email messages under this Thought from Outlook, Apple Mail or your web mail. 

For more detailed overview of using PersonalBrain and GTD read “Getting Things Done with PersonalBrain”.

Focus by Putting Stuff Away
During our day we are often pleasantly surprised but nonetheless interrupted by new articles, new purchase ideas and other happenings.  PersonalBrain gives you focus by providing that place where you can put things away with the confidence of being able to get to them at a moment’s notice when the time is right. This helps you control your time and priorities.

Try to categorize all these distractions and create Thoughts for them in PersonalBrain. This way when you stumble across a new book you want to buy online, you can put it under that Thought and come back and reference it when you’re buying books. By controlling the flow of information through PersonalBrain you allow your mind to focus on the task at hand and keep your priorities at the forefront without getting distracted.

So yes, creating Thoughts for all your distractions will help you stay focused. Some Thoughts that I have for this purpose include:  I Need to Read, I Need to Buy, Cool Trends, and This Weekend …. It’s about creating a place for you to capture and return to action items. This area can also be great for self-analysis. You can even have a Thought called “Today’s Distractions” and start to collect and understand what types of issues, ideas or circumstances force you to change gears and lose focus.

Achieve Multifaceted Focus
By capturing key aspects of your life you can optimize your time and take your projects to new heights. PersonalBrain can help you gain a clear vision of what you can do or even what needs to be put aside. Referencing and achieving our past projects, integrating and visualizing present plans and then mapping out and creating Thoughts for key goals for the future will provide you with a complete view for making better choices.  You will able to step back from everything and focus on your life’s purpose, or dive deep into daily details operating easily at any altitude or perspective in your Brain.

These days very few of us leave our projects at the office. Taking work home or working remotely, while giving you the convenience of writing a proposal in your pajamas, is not without its challenges.

When we work remotely our attention can become very fleeting: the call of domestic chores, the cat swiping at the cursor… We only need to gaze out at the yard and our mind wanders from completing the monthly sales report to weekend yard work.

Creating an effective information environment that extends your projects and thinking beyond your physical office is absolutely paramount for home office productivity. Use PersonalBrain to bridge the gaps so you can focus on your tasks wherever you are, and gain a visual network of resources that keeps you at the top of your game.

Create a Focused Context for Action
In the age of distractions context is king for deep, focused, productive work. When you are surrounded by a lot of distractions, whether at home or the office, just activating an area in your Brain will help you concentrate and stay on task. Your Brain gives you an immediate visual briefing regardless of where you are working from.

Get into the RIGHT mental zone… by activating your “Project Thought” from PersonalBrain with all relevant information.

With PersonalBrain you can map out your business and mental landscape so when you need to access a document or work on a project the structure of your information conveys a context for your actions.  You can start organizing these areas of your Brain by mapping out all your company departments, projects and teams. This gives you a more intelligent place to put things and think about them.  Drag and drop all relevant information sources, key people, related ideas and future implications. Online resources, supporting files and key documents can all be launched from your Brain.

In addition to key projects, intangible to-dos and vaguely defined responsibilities can impede productivity and add an invisible level of stress to your day.  Create Thoughts for key areas of your responsibilities. Be sure to link your responsibilities to the relevant departments and company initiatives they fall under.

Task Management Tools Keep Your Head in the Game
For most knowledge workers self-management is critical.  Our projects have gotten bigger, and we don’t have a boss hovering over our shoulders. Self-discipline is key, especially when we work remotely.  Your digital Brain will help prevent you from falling behind and provide an increased level of awareness on your tasks.

Create Thought Types and tag Thoughts to further organize your projects.  I like to use different colored Thought Types to convey priority level and project work tiers.

Thought Types for “Green Lighted Projects” and your “Action Items” convey a visual priority when juggling multiple projects.

Use PersonalBrain to avoid falling behind and forgetting. Set reminder Thoughts for key projects and ideas so you can come back to them well in advance before they are due.

 
PersonalBrain has a built-in calendar so you can manage your schedule. Microsoft Outlook integration lets you drag and drop calendar items, emails, and more. On Mac OS X, Apple iCal integration lets you link to events in iCal.

PersonalBrain 6 now has Google Calendar synchronization so any meeting set up on Google will automatically appear in your Brain and vice-versa. You can even use the Google Calendar to sync your Brain’s calendar with Outlook and iCal.

Jump Right in Where You Left Off, No Matter Where You Are
The key advantage of having this information context is the ability to be productive anywhere. With PersonalBrain 6 your projects and tasks don’t have to be stuck on your office computer, you can work locally from any machine or online. Synchronize between home and office computers, even if you are using a PC at work and a Mac at home. PersonalBrain gives you secure synchronization across multiple platforms.

To synchronize your PersonalBrain across multiple machines setup a WebBrain account at http://webbrain.com  then click synchronize from the File menu to synchronize your Brain across the Web.

For more information on how to synchronize your Brain you can watch our WebBrain tutorial.

PersonalBrain synchronization makes ending your day at the office even easier. When you need to leave, you can take your Brain with you and resume your tasks productivity anytime.

This unique ability of PersonalBrain makes it ideal for visualizing and organizing large information networks as well as moving beyond standard mind mapping applications

Many users take advantage of PersonalBrain’s scalability and create an all compassing Brain for everything. While others opt for smaller, separate Brains. In this article I will explore each approach to creating a Brain and provide some guidelines for what might be best for you. 

 
One Brain for Everything
The idea here is to digitize your mind. It starts with a single Thought and grows more powerful as you use it. The best way to get started on this type of Brain is to start with your  name as the first Thought, then create a business and personal section, and continue creating Thoughts for all aspects of your life.

Now there really is no limit. This is your mental space.

In fact Jerry Michalski. a well known technology analyst has a Brain of over 123,000 Thoughts

Browse through Jerry’s Brain on WebBrain.com

To best represent the one brain approach I asked Jerry Michalski the following  questions for our users: 1.       What approach or goals did you have when you started your Brain? “I was an analyst in the tech business when the Internet showed up, so I started with wanting to note the many players and their relationships. I discovered quickly that I could have a startup, their investors and PR agents, their industry category and competitors, all neatly tucked into one screenful and very easily navigated. That had been impossible for me with prior tools like Ecco, HyperCard, FileMaker and several others. I was happy.”   2.       Do you recommend starting with one Brain or many? “I’ve poured all my Thoughts into a single Brain, which is all I recommend doing. The pleasure of adding something to an existing rich context is immense. It compares very favorably with starting from scratch every time.” 3.       How did your Brain evolve over time? “Every now and then, consistently, I get an Aha! experience that leads me to add a new Thought, or divide some Thoughts into sub-categories and move them around. I call it gardening, and it’s constant. That plus natural growth of new areas is how it grows.” 4.       How often are you adding new Thoughts and how do you maintain your Brain? “I’m at 123,000 Thoughts added consistently over 12.5 years, so a little under 30 Thoughts a day, every day. Slowly ”

I also have one large Brain where I store all my information and then a few topic oriented Brains for presentations I do and things I want to publish on WebBrain.com.

For me having one Brain with everything allows me to move very quickly to different topics throughout the day and shift focus quickly. My day changes a lot. I might be in the marketing area of my Brain and my contractor calls me about some work. I can activate that Thought in a second and have a more productive conversation by referencing the area for the renovations I’m planning. It’s also very interesting to go back to an area that you haven’t been to in a while. PersonalBrain becomes your digital memory. You will discover ideas about your life that would otherwise be forgotten. And yes there is a degree of ego in this. I love having a big Brain. It’s one of the best gifts you can give yourself.

Even if you don’t have one Brain for absolutely everything, I do recommend having a single Brain for all the Thoughts you will use within a single setting or workflow. For example, if you are a marketing executive you probably want to have a single Brain that has everything on marketing including sales and customer service since you will probably be juggling multiple projects in all three departments throughout your day.

 
Create One Brain for Everything When:

• You have an intermingling of personal, business and everything under the sun projects happening throughout your day
• You want to activate different subjects/Thoughts concurrently. Make sure those topics are all in the same Brain to take advantage of PersonalBrain powerful Instant Activate feature
• You want to create an expansive knowledgebase or digitize your thought processes on your entire life

This approach of “One Brain for Everything” will be quite different for those of you coming from a mind mapping perspective. Mind mappers are forced to create topic specific maps because mind maps are file based rather than database driven.  Practically speaking a mind map cannot hold more than a few hundred topics. If you’re used to conventional mind maps, PersonalBrain will open up a new modus of thinking and working for you. With PersonalBrain you can even import your mind maps into your PersonalBrain to get that master view of everything and leverage all the work you have done in other programs.

That being said, you can, of course, continue to create separate Brains if you prefer, which I will discuss next.

 
Topic Specific Brains
If the thought of having one large Brain on everything in your world seems daunting, you are also in good company. There are many PersonalBrain users who create separate Brains for their projects, areas of study and life. In fact, there are many situations where a topic oriented, separate Brain might work better. 

Matt Caton, our director of customer solutions, prefers to work with separate and distinctive Brains. Matt has a Brain for support, hobbies, special projects, travel and dozens more. Each of these Brains is separate with different wallpaper and topic focus. Matt also uses Brain buttons to move quickly between each Brain.

Matt’s Topic Oriented Brains help him dive into the separate projects and responsibilities of his life

When you have a topic focused Brain your instant active list is more targeted and you can share this file based on its topic easily.

 
Creating a New Brain is Recommended When

• You are publishing or sharing a specific topic with other users
• You would like some firm lines between business and personal projects
• You need a fresh start on a new topic or want to take a new direction from your existing Brain

Like most users, though Matt has multiple brains, he still has one major Brain he has opened. It is his “CyberHome” Brain.  Matt also imports several of his smaller brains into other brains from time to time.  (To learn more about Matt’s Brains join Matt every Friday for PersonalBrain 101)

 
Going from Small to Big Brains or the Reverse…
Not sure which approach to take? Don’t worry about it. We make it pretty easy to change your mind. If you already have multiple Brains and want to bring them all together you can import one brain into another. Just go up to File and select Merge to get the Brain you want to add and merge it. Conversely if you have a larger Brain and decide you want to make a set of Thoughts into a separate new Brain, you simply select all the Thoughts in that area and copy them into a new Brain.  The first tutorial below covers both these scenarios:

 
Related Tutorials and Tips

1. Copying Thoughts and Merging Brains. Simply right click to copy and then paste Thoughts. You can do this between Brains or within one Brain.

   

2. Brain Buttons. Setup Brain buttons to switch between your favorite Brains easily.

Regardless of the approach you take, your PersonalBrain will help you see and organize information in ways that just aren’t possible with lists and folders.

This Wednesday, December 16^th
11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern Time
Now Featuring Seeds of Knowledge Contest Winner 

Omer Aziz
Manager, Nortel Networks
& GTD Enthusiast

Omer is joining Matt Caton and I
So You Get Three Unique Perspectives
on GTD and Task Management  in One Ultra Productive Webinar

Get it out of your head and into your PersonalBrain. Get complete task management and mental clarity by creating Thoughts for all key tasks and projects in your life. Your action-oriented PersonalBrain will put you in the driver’s seat and enhance your productivity.

 Topics Covered Include:

• Using “Getting Things Done” (GTD) and PersonalBrain
• Creating a complete meeting management and task tracking network
• Visualizing your responsibilities and projects
• Integrating all information resources for your daily big picture

To learn more about PersonalBrain and GTD read this blog post or go to our special David Allen page

You can Also Watch David Allen’s Own PersonalBrain in Action

To see more of David Allen’s webinar with TheBrain You can:

Watch Full Recording Now

              Part 1 David Allen’s Presentation and Overview on Getting Things Done

              Part 2 PersonalBrain Demonstration by me J

              Part 3 Touring David Allen’s Brain

              Part 4 Q&A with David Allen

Hope to see you at our Webinar this Wednesday!!

Shelley

One of the most powerful features that TheBrain offers is Instant Activate. Just type in the first couple letters and up pops the Thoughts you need. Then simply click on that Thought and you’re exactly where you need to be in seconds.  The power of this feature should not be underestimated. It gives you the ability to get to any Thought and its related content in seconds. This is especially critical for users juggling multiple projects or tasks. Anyone who needs to shift contexts, respond and bring up information quickly will love this feature.

Instant Activate

Just type in the first couple letters of what you need and a list of your Thoughts appear.
Click on the Thought and get your information instantly.

Why I Love this Feature and How It Saves Me Time
In my typical day I will activate 20 to 30 different Thoughts. Everything from a vendor I need to call, a proposal I need to reference, to a flight itinerary for a trip. With Instant Activate your TheBrain is like a remote control for your mind, able to pull up what you need in seconds. Your Brain moves to the right Thought, you get the information you need and see related connections. So in addition to fast information access you get this “ah ha” feeling because in addition to getting the detail you need by visualizing and seeing how this information fits into everything else you gain a sense of control, an immediate visual briefing on how everything fits.

How Is Instant Activate Different from Desktop Search?
With TheBrain all your Thoughts are only a few keystrokes away and appear without the delay and long list of results typical of a standard search. Note that TheBrain does index your documents and you can do a full search by hitting the search button. However, this article is talking about Instant Activate that offers not even a second of delay. As you move from one topic to the next, this time savings make a huge difference in your day.

In fact, even if you are not into visualization I recommend you store mission critical documents in your TheBrain because you can get to your Thoughts so quickly.

Setting Up Your Brain to Maximize Instant Activate
To take advantage of the Instant Activate that TheBrain offers I suggest you do a little infochunking with your Thoughts and Notes. Infochunking is the art of breaking down or deconstructing information into all essential components. We also call this cognitive indexing. Why does infochunking optimize Instant Activate? Because creating Thoughts on things you need to access lets you get really specific with your activations. If all your ideas are in one document (not visually indexed) you can’t activate key concepts on their own.

Get started by creating Thoughts for all key ideas or persons that warrant thinking or action.  For instance, let’s say you have some key metrics and sales figures that you need to reference that are in a word document.  Create a Thought for this information and cut and paste these key points into notes under that Thought. This way when you activate that specific idea you will see this information immediately without having to wait for Word to open the document and then scroll to find this information embedded within the file. 

This works great for email message also. I don’t think I’m the only one who gets long winded messages with only two or three ideas or sentences in them that you really need. When using Outlook, you can drag and drop the email message into your TheBrain and the full message will appear in notes. From there you can delete irrelevant content and simply have just the paragraph you need with a key project requirement etc. With this approach sometimes it may not even be worth dragging in the full email or file, if all you need to access is a key metric or bullet and the idea itself. This optimized view enables you to laser in on the information that is most important during your busy day.

This cognitive indexing is critical for:

• Podcasters who need to remember a variety of subjects and issues throughout their broadcast. Their TheBrain becomes their dynamic teleprompter.
• Sales or client services managers who need to pull up information or recall details as soon as their client or prospect calls.
• Business owners and executives who are managing wide ranging tasks and need to find the details immediately.
• Technicians and Engineers who are troubleshooting complex products or issues. Each step of their solution can be broken down in TheBrain so they can hone in on a particular part or component of the process.
• Project Managers dealing with multiple variables and requirements. All phases of a project can be broken down so instant recall is possible for any aspect of a project.

Remember with TheBrain there is no limit to the number of Thoughts or ideas you can add. So you can literally create your digital memory for anything and everything. This is unbelievably useful. You will be able to find and see the smallest details that would otherwise be forgotten. For instance last month I was looking for a reasonably priced restaurant in Beverly Hills. So I simply activated Beverly Hills in my Brain and there were several Thoughts on restaurants that met my needs. Now I hadn’t been to this area in my Brain for awhile, but it was sure handy! This is the way it goes when you create a network of information on stuff that interests you and things that you need to get done. Like you wetbrain, when it comes time for retrieval it’s all right there, when you need it.