It's Uncanny

This post about surviving a task explosion is exactly what I need at the moment...

... now if only I could find the time to read it. :)

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Wiki research in mindmap format... nice!

I've always been a fan of the concept of mind mapping, but for the most part, for me, it has remained in the realm of pencil and paper. I've found a few good tools, but just haven't put enough effort into any of them thus far.

Will Simpson posts about a great online app called WikiMindMap which pulls the search results for any term from wikipedia.org and displays it in a mindmap format. The output is great for this type of data since it let's you expand different nodes to effectively drill down without the clutter.

I've seen a few posts in my feed list about mind mapping in the past. What tools are people using to do this stuff on the desktop? Leave a comment and let me know.

Are You Using GMail for Taking Notes?

While I'm big on pencil and paper, and I enjoy sketching and planning ideas on paper, I'm also deadly good at losing papers in the quagmire that is my desk. So I'm looking for a way to take quick notes (like documenting phone conversations) electronically. Ideally, the solution should be:

- cross platform
- accessible from anywhere (ie. online)
- searchable
- simple to use


While I found a vast number of note-taking solutions, I'm leaning towards using Gmail. Here are some reasons why:

- I already use it extensively. No additional tools in the belt.
- I always have it open at work and at home, so it's quick to access.
- It's inherently dated and timed by virtue of being an email.
- It's Gmail so it's searchable and can be filtered.


I'm interested in making it a little more useful to me as a note-taking tool, so I'm trying to hone my use of shortcut keys, and I'm looking into how I can organize the subject line to make the Gmail filtering into a useful system.


Do you take notes? What do you use? Any ideas (or other sources) for using Gmail in this way? I'd appreciate the input.