Boost Your Brainstorming With These
Essential Free Apps
Mind-mapping,
note-taking, whiteboarding, and more.
When
thoughts get moving a mile a minute, even the most structured brainstorming
sessions can get out of hand. These five apps will help you corral your ideas,
queue up inspiration, and collaborate with your colleagues.
You're
a big dreamer. A veritable space cadet. Now your ideas can get the space
treatment as well. Mindly (Android, iOS) lets you pad out your ideas like you're building a
solar system: a sun-like main idea in the middle, out of which several
planet-like concepts, notes, images, and other elements are born, each planet
having one or more moons representing other ideas. It's a great way to organize
the ideas in your head.
Simplenote (Android, iOS) focuses on letting you take quick notes
without worrying too much about organization. All your notes are searchable and
sync to other devices, with a built-in to-do list to help you stay on track if
you need to get certain tasks done. If you're not naturally super organized,
this can be the app equivalent of having sticky notes all over your desk—except
easily searchable and with legible handwriting.
3. Hoard For Later
You
can just sit there brainstorming all day, every day. Try Pearltrees (Android, iOS) if you're looking to bank some inspiration
for future retrieval. The app houses books, art, movies, blog posts, PDFs, and
other interesting things you find as you peruse the web. You can organize your
finds as interests and see what like-minded people have favorited themselves,
while sharing your collections with everyone else.
Finally,
a way to experience the white-knuckled thrill of a... well, meeting. Even if
you're not in the same room as your colleagues, you can share a real-time
virtual whiteboard with SyncSpace (Android, iOS). Add text and doodles as a group, and when
you've finally gotten all your ideas down, you can email your whiteboard around
as images or even edit it later if you need to make some changes.
5. See If That Idea Has
Legs
Sometimes
you just want to play devil's advocate. Idea Growr (Android) and Idealist (iOS) each let you outline a basic idea and
then challenge yourself to prove it's viable by answering a series of questions
about why the world needs compostable laser printers. Once you've
defended your idea to yourself, each app lets you send it to others for review.
Don't give up, no matter what Julian in Accounting says.
Bonus
App!
Cruise
through all the inspiring links in your social feeds and use Flynx (Android) to queue them up for later reading.
Articles load in the background for quick consumption once you're ready.
By
Doug Aamoth
http://www.fastcompany.com/3049230/app-economy/boost-your-brainstorming-with-these-essential-free-apps?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=4&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=07312015
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