June 5, 2009

Getting organized in the face of adversity

Back in the end of February, my cervical herniated disc (orig diagnosed in 2005) came raging back with a vengeance, affecting my right arm and shoulder so severely that it forced me to stop playing, reduce my computer work and cut out any type of strenuous physical activity. With the preoccupation and frustration of finding relief from this vexing medical issue, I find myself having difficulty staying focused on anything or follow thru with projects and goals.

Recently a coworker hipped me to one of the new types of products that fall under the category "mind mapping software". One of the goals of this software is to help more clearly mirror and assist with the brain's organizational and thinking process when creating and documenting tasks. It is much more intuitive than let's say a linear outline, which forces a conformity and presumes a degree of pre-knowledge to the scope and hiearchy of the task. Although I haven't reviewed the merits of the various products currently on the market, I am quite fascinated with the product, Personal Brain recommended to me. Like most people in this self-helpy generation I often document my goals on paper, rewrite, toss and rewrite again and then forget about them. Tonite I'm giving Personal Brain a crack at it and I've done a video capture for you to check out.

I'm currently using the trial pro version. Not sure exactly which features will still be available if continue with the free version. In the demo I've mapped out my various projects, and I'm shown navigating to a folder I've created for my friend Charles Monteiro's music project and then drilling down to the tunes, and notes and attached finale files for the tune sketches. It's somewhat hard to see in blogger video view. If possible it might be best to use the download video option so that you can see a larger screen rendering (for example in Real Player)

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