Posts Tagged mind map

Todays words from the digital man cave are about music and life and living accordingly. I've been talking about to do lists, road maps, and flowcharts more and more lately. It's on the brain pretty much every day for me, because it's all been changing. Young pupil into Kung Fu master. Cute wolf pup into ferocious hunter type stuff. Okay, not that epic but you understand what I'm saying.

In the midst of this change I've been thinking again about an exercise that people do for fun. And it's not listening to the song of the same name by Kid Cudi. It's making the soundtrack to your life. The idea is that you think through your life, all the major events and create a list. The list is supposed to define you, or rather the list defines the events that define you. The events that have had an impact on you. From beginning to end. For better or worse. After you have the list, you stop and ask yourself "what song do I know that most closely describes that event, the feeling of that moment, or my state of being just after it" and there you go. That's how you create the soundtrack to your life.

I want to take it a step further.

The exercise is fun to do because it gets you thinking about your life and (hopefully) reliving some good memories while you start breaking out the old mix CDs (am I the only one still using those?). It is a revealing activity because it helps you realize what has been important to you over time and you can actually do this list twice.

First, you go through and make the list. This would be like the core "if you wanted my life story as cut and dry as possible this is it" list. Then you take that list and fill in any blanks or gaps in time to make the fully well-rounded list that won't offend anyone because you left off the day you became friends with them. (People hate when you do that) The hidden value in this is finding out not what events have been important to you, but finding out what is important to you that you haven't already experienced in life.

All you need to do is think of what music you truly want to be a part of your soundtrack, and the kinds of events that would fit perfectly with it. Is that event on your list already? Maybe you should do something about that huh? The idea is that you take a backroads approach to finding out what kinds of things you want to do in life. Most of the time when people ask "if money was no object, what would you do?" we start thinking about it intellectually and eventually try to get down to the experiences that make you feel. This way you can start with the experiences, and then work your way up to intellectually figuring out how you'll make it happen.

What about the soundtrack to your life? Is it long and complete, or are there a few songs you haven't added yet? Let me know in the comments and stay connected for more words from the digital man cave!

Todays words from the digital man cave are about a topic that will probably make me sound like an obsessive compulsive, overly technical, monstrously uncool geek. Flowcharts. The glorious glorious world of flowcharts and life.

You’re shaking your head right now aren’t you? It’s okay, I’m used to it. I write for a place called “The Digital Man Cave”. Getting funny looks are sorta the norm.

I’m really not as crazy as I sound. Yes I can be obsessive-compulsive, yes I am a geek, and I have no clue if I’ve ever been a part of “the cool crowd”. But I’m not crazy. I can’t be the only one that flowcharts out the major plot points in their life story. We all do on some level. Do I go left or right? Park here, park there? Do this on the weekend, or do that? If I do this, does it bring me closer to this, or is it only pushing me away from that?

In it’s modern day form we call it  mindmapping now. Businesses create these maps to help them organize information, solve problems, see the relationships between things, and make decisions.

You know, it’s a pretty commonly accepted notion that in order to get somewhere you need to know where you’re going. You need to be able to see if you’re making progress on that journey. You need to be able to clearly know when you’re off-course. You need to have a map. If you know me personally you might think that statement is uncharacteristic of me. Funny even. I tend to try not to plan farther than 2 days in advance because I believe a lot can change more than 48hours out. And because I am terrible at keeping a calendar. So talking about maps is actually a foreign concept coming from me. The old me that is. The new me wants to know what the hell he is doing, before it is happening. Something about being proactive instead of reactive…

Life is kind of like a baseball that got hit funny and is going sideways off into the crowd. It’s unpredictable and exciting, and has the potential to be awesome or painful. Now imagine you were at the game of life, trying to catch a potential souvenir baseball but you weren’t ever really paying attention. You had no gameplan or concept of what you were doing. And that baseball was coming right for your head, as many opportunities and experiences in life are. Kinda hard to sieze life by the ball if you never saw it coming, right?

So do you have a map? Have you ever taken time to do a little mindmapping? It could actually be a worthwhile exercise if you’re feeling a little unguided in life (who isn’t at some point?), because it’s not just for businesses you know.

Let me know in the comments and stay connected for more words from the digital man cave!