Productivity

I Take on Bigger Projects Because I Switched From Mind Mapping to White-boarding

I hit a brick wall with iThoughts (a great mind mapper) but using whiteboard app, Prodrafts, has got my book project moving

Virtual whiteboard vs mind map (illustration by author)

Many were puzzled when Apple announced a white-boarding app, Freeform, at WWDC in June 2022. What? It’s not an awful idea, but there are already many out there, not least from Microsoft Whiteboard.

Whatever Apple’s reasons, it made me curious about whiteboard apps, and I stumbled across Prodrafts. The app was rated 4.9, with a small one-off charge, so I took the plunge.

I was hooked within minutes. Until then, I’d used mind mapping apps such as iThoughts, and I was enthusiastic enough about them to write this:

Mind-Mapping Made Me Pull My Hair Out, but Now I Can Build Useful Mind-Maps

The trouble is that, however powerful mind map apps are, it feels as if they get in the way. You have to think about how you want the app to lay out your mind map, and the usual way to enter information is typing…