A Scrapbook Album Dashboard in MindMap Form

MindMapping a Scrapbook Album, Part II

My previous entry of yesterday showed you a blurry graphic of my original mindmap for a large scrapbook album project. This morning I have rejigged this into something even easier to work from. Below please find my Scrapbook Album dashboard.

(Linked from this base map is another mindmap for the processes and work towards writing this album into an ebook). 

I’d like to credit  Mindjet  MindManager as the application which made creating this dashboard a real breeze. I’ve worked with quite a few other mindmapping applications - both desktop and online; and have never found one which is so quick to use, especially when just firing out topics and sub-topics (using the enter and insert keys), and with so many formatting options. Obviously Mindjet MM is outside of budget for some scrapbookers, and there are freeware opensource applications like Freemind out there, but for me, Mindject MindManager Pro is just so much quicker and allows me to put to paper things so much faster. For a mother and scrapbooker, this frees up my time incredibly so that I can now get on with the actual creation of those layouts, and it’s keeping me creative yet organised even in its usage.  Being an ex-Software Test Manager, I am a bit geeky, and will kill applications which lose me data, or aren’t user-intuitive and don’t ease my own time to let me play elsewhere, so I can admit to the Scrapability readers here, that with Mindjet,  I just love it! It’s a shame I don’t own it, lol. 

Next up : I still intend creating a layout with a mindmap as the base image itself. And I’m thinking over how to combine that hand-drawn look of lovely graphic doodles into the structured approach of MindManager’s mindmaps. Because we scrappers just love to doodle, and draw - right?

Some descriptions :

1. Included on this Dashboard mindmap is the process description, in order. This is a general process for digital scrapbookers, and includes the design stage, file saving and uploading. Each section can be found distributed along the main map topics.
2. I have included some example URL links out to some galleries and photobook developers I use, including one to this blog which forms my main digital scrapbooking layout gallery. I haven’t actually decided on the online photobook developer I will be using this time around, so those aren’t written in stone on this mindmap.
   
3. All file folders I work with off my hard-drive are within one-click reach from the mindmap, including all the photographs I need to use to create layouts from, (With dependencies between the photographs and layouts), the digital scrapbooking elements, kits, alphas etc I have collected together to create these layouts with, my own created elements - such as the digital layout templates you see on the map, and the execution tools I use (such as my photo editor, Paintshop Pro).
   
4. Design elements - the most predominant must be the thumbnail images of my completed layouts so far, my own re-usable templates, and the colour palette image on the left. At one glance on this dashboard map, I can remind myself of the predominant design elements, colour schemes etc I want to work with for the overall album.
   
5. Overnight I’ve created some more layouts from the To Do list - via a special online store which allows you to create layouts online (I used CropMom) and I have simply put a big red checkmark against these on the to do list. 
6. Photograph folders are linked with the waiting layouts in orange relationship lines. There is one red relationship where I have a scheduled photographic task to complete over the next week. One layout which awaits these photographs is earmarked as 75% complete.
   
7. All of these various topics with links out to the applications, internet sites, or hard-drive folders and files, can be condensed down or up as I need them (sorry, I don’t know the correct mindmap phrase for this) so in essence this MindMap can open up, or fold down into a very easy page to work from as I go.
   
8. Finally, one topic - the journaling topic, is a long list of subjects I want to include - both in the scrapbook layouts and in the sub-project of writing this all up into a PDF ebook (the sub-project is dealt with in a separate mindmap which is linked to from this Base Dashboard). These journaling topics are flagged with green, yellow, orange or red. Green is obviously done, yellow = almost done, orange is started and red needs doing. As simple as that.
   
9. This is obviously a large scrapbook album project. I have hundreds of photographs, and many layouts to create, and as many subsets of project writeups. I have other projects on the go at the moment, so thought it best to not put in scheduled timeframes on the majority of these To Dos and tasks. I have one schedule - to finish the album before Christmas 2008, and as my time eases up on other external projects of mine, I will use this dashboard to work through the to-dos here.
   
10. As simple as that - a one-page clickable dashboard with all my tools, to dos, files and ideas in the one place, or a click away when I need them.
    

Below is a small image of the overall Dashboard Mindmap, and I’ve included a PDF (1.8MB download) which you can enlarge to see all the glorious (or gory) detail of this scrapbooking dashboard mindmap.

Comments

[Lynette]

Marvelous, loving this.

[melinda venable]

Hello Michelle,
This map is a visual beauty! We are featuring dashboards in our next Mindjet newsletter and would love to showcase your map and story - would you be willing to participate? Keep up the works of art!
cheers, Melinda from Mindjet

[TyuavinOn]

I really like your mindmaps
I also use a Mindmanager Pro 7 dashboard to control my projects at work.
I use a map for each project and hyperlink them from a main mindmap.
Anyway I will be watching your blog for more good ideas.

All the best

Jim

[Kathryn]

I need to get myself Mindjet Mindmanager so I can create my own dashboard. I didn't know about it until now but it looks really useful. Thanks!