TheBrain could be just what you’re looking for

I’ve been a bit snowed under recently, I have to admit. I’m trying to post regularly to this blog, but there’s other stuff going on in my life, and lots of it, it seems, even more than I can keep track of. I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true – this blog isn’t my entire life 🙂

So, how to keep things all ticking over, that’s the question. I have several different things that I need to keep in mind, and I need to divide my attention between them carefully. I can’t ignore any one of them, but focusing solely on any one can mean something else, and possibly something vital, might be left out in the cold. Or maybe even forgotten temporarily, knowing the way my memory works.

The answer to information overload: a new brain

Here’s what I came up with: I used to use a mind mapping application a few years ago, and I found it helpful, so I started using it again. The one I use (and I’ve tried several) is called TheBrain. And to me, it’s the best of the bunch. It’s basically very simple, yet the possibilities for using it are virtually endless. It really does depend entirely how imaginative you are.

You start off with a central thought (a thought is what TheBrain calls each branch or node), and this should be the main idea you’re working on. First I should say you can have one massive brain with seperate areas within it for each of your interests, or alternatively you can have a Brain for each of them. Your choice – you can have as many brains as you like, so it might suit you to keep things seperate, it’s just a case of what works best for you.

Setting up your brain

Okay, back to setting up TheBrain: you start with a central thought, and if it’s going to cover everything you might label it something like HQ, or HOME, or anything you like. Then you click and draw out several threads from the central thought, and each one becomes a new thought. So, for example, you might have main thoughts labelled PERSONAL, MY JOB (or CAREER), FITNESS, HEALTH, INTERESTS, STUDIES, TO DO, GOALS, or whatever you want.

From each one of these main thoughts you can draw out dependent thoughts, and so on, much like any mind map application. This gives you a chance to list everything that’s floating around in your brain (your real brain, that is!), and get it all organised where you can see it. But where TheBrain differs from other mind map apps is the whole interface.

The moment you click on a thought it slides right into place and becomes the main focus of the mind map. It takes centre stage, and everything rearranges around it. Some things will diminish into the background, some might stay alongside, but none is central, apart from the one you’ve focused on. I love the way this app works like this, it makes it easy to mentally focus entirely on that one thing, and yet see everything else around it at the same time.

An example of TheBrain at work

And rather than having a huge bunch of sub-thoughts piled up beneath each thought, you can easily tidy the whole thing up. I’ll give you an example.

Say you work in an office and you want to keep track of all your work. So you create a ‘brain’ for work. The main thought is WORK (or OFFICE, or whatever you label it), and the thoughts that radiate from it might be CONTACTS, BUYERS, ADVERTISING, SALES, MEETINGS, or whatever. But then, rather than have a stack of sub-thoughts under CONTACTS, for example, you can just highlight the thought you’ve labelled CONTACTS and click on NOTES at the bottom of the screen and start listing all your work contacts right there. The NOTES tab is a fully functional word processor which you can use to add any amount of information, and keep it neatly in that area (no need for a stack of sub-thoughts).

NOTES adds functionality to TheBrain

And you can do a lot with NOTES – you can create numbered lists (or just bulleted lists), and you can add check boxes if you like, so that you can mark things off as you complete them. You can change text size and colour, obviously, so you can make things as detailed and as engaging as you like, or you can keep it very simple. The main thing is it’s all in the NOTES section and it’ll all appear there any time you focus on that thought. It keeps the whole thing very neat and tidy, a big plus in an application like this; the last thing you want is to add confusion as you’re adding more and more information.

There’s also a DIARY tab, so you can list appointments, meetings, etc, and keep track of them easily.

You can use all the basic components of TheBrain for free, and if you want to upgrade to the full edition there are additional goodies waiting for you, but for most of us, at least in my  opinion, the free edition is plenty. You can download TheBrain 8 here, and for the first 30 days of your trial you’ll have access to all the Pro components so you can take them for a trial run.

There are also regular online tutorials where you can learn more about how to use thebrain and ask questions on specific points.

So if you’ve got a lot going on and you want to keep track of it all in a bit more of an organised way, maybe you should try TheBrain. I’m finding more uses for it every day, and adding stacks more information to it. This is the benefit of the NOTES tab – you can add a single thought but that thought can contain literally as much detailed information as you want to put in it. And without the whole interface becoming cluttered with stacks and stacks of divisions and sub-divisions. 

Here’s a few comments from their “In The News” section:

“TheBrain’s unique approach to information organization enables users to create and link together thousands of digital Thoughts.” – VizWorld

“If you’d like to create a vast mind map which covers a lot of ground, TheBrain might just be what you need.” – PCWorld

“Our brains naturally extend beyond our filing cabinets. We think associatively. Ideas and documents rarely fit into just one folder.” – The Atlantic

“PersonalBrain, a sophisticated knowledge management solution I’ve come to think of as a GPS system for my information.” – AppStorm

“…quite possibly most intuitive mind mapping utility on the planet. ” – PCWorld

“There is nothing like it for organizing information for your book. You can actually do clustering/mindmapping within it, and link to sources and other stuff. An amazing product.” – The Examiner

“Imagine searching for years for something that might not exist. Then finding it. That’s PersonalBrain…” – Riscario Insider

Check it out and give it a trial, see what you think. It might be the next best thing to your real brain!