PKM

Why Scrintal App is Beyond Mind Mapping in Your PKM

2 min read

I don’t like to talk about apps because I do believe in workflows.

Apps are just a way to implement them. Yet, some apps improve your workflows.

The combination of defining and creating workflows plus using apps to polish them and even create better ones is the perfect fit to develop the PKM of your dreams.

This is what happened to me after using Scrintal. It has improved my workflow.

Here’s why.

I’m an outliner. Outlining helps give structure to my thinking.

But, when a thought is too abstract or too wide, I need visual tools that allow me “to see my thought”.

That’s why I do believe in mind maps. They’ve helped me a lot throughout all my life.

It’s a pleasant sensation to leave my brain empty, throwing out all the crazy ideas that come to my mind when thinking about a broad topic or idea.

I drop them all everywhere, I start moving things up and down, and, step by step, I begin to create a structure of rational thinking that makes sense to me and my audience.

Structure allows understanding. Understanding things is how you grow, evolve, and achieve the life of fulfillment you’re pursuing.

That’s why mind mapping is so important.

Anyway, I’ve been using it for quite a long time an app called Scrintal that has improved a lot my thinking process.

Scrintal beats any other mind mapping app I’ve tried before because:

  1. It allows to throw ideas, and there isn’t a previous visual structure in the graph. It’s me who put things where I want to. It’s a delicious blank canvas.
  2. I can move things from one place to another. I can add, remove, and anything in between, like in a workbench.
  3. It’s a note-taking app. That means when I get into a node, I have a blank sheet to start writing as the devil, extending all my thoughts by writing instead of just visualizing. This quick move from visual thinking to writing thinking makes Scrintal shine.
  4. Being a note-taking app allows me to use markdown inside the text of a node. Markdown helps me keep creating structure in my thoughts, combining headers, lists, and simple formatting.
  5. I can increase the visual thinking technique by grouping nodes using the same colors. That visual image clearly defines borders between the different parts of my thinking.
  6. The way I can zoom in and out is simply amazing, quickly moving my thinking process from a wide bird’s eye view to a microscopic detail in a matter of milliseconds, at the same speed my brain works.

Takeaways

  • The combination of visual thinking and writing thinking is simply awesome.
  • That’s when a tool allows me to merge the physical part of my brain and the digital one.
  • That’s how my workflows grow. And me too…

 

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash.