Darina Loakman.com

Happy New Year. I hope you’ve got lots of plans and dreams for 2008. I’ve been sort of working on half-power this week until the boys go back to school on Monday. That’s one of the great things I love about working from home I can do that. I can still get stuff done but without the full commitment.

So we’re supposed to be writing our goals, listing our resolutions and making our plans for the New Year. I have to confess I haven’t always found that easy, I know what I should be doing but actually sitting down and doing it is a different matter, however for this year for some reason I’ve actually enjoyed doing it much more than usual and I think that might be down to the way I’ve decided to do it this time round. Normally I write a list and keep it somewhere I can keep an eye on it and track it, but it’s just a list ! and even if write dates and specifics it doesn’t seem to have a huge impact ! Anyway this year I’ve started using mind maps for goals and plans.

I’ve used these before for work related projects but to be perfectly honest I never really got them ! They didn’t seem to be as exciting to me as they were to some people? Anyway a couple of weeks ago I had some sort of epiphany when it came to mind maps and decided to give them another go and something clicked with me (eventually !) I’ve been creating them left right and centre ! for everything that comes to mind, I’ve printed them out and I now have a real visual path that I can follow to achieve what I want to.

Of course you can do them on paper with pen but I prefer the shortcut of using mindmap software and the one I’m using is a free opensource one call freemind. It’s very easy to install and intuitive to use you can get it here http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

So if you’ve been struggling with your plans and goals for the year ahead, I’m now a convert to mindmaps (just a few decades behind everyone else !) and I’d encourage you to give it a go.

till next time