What if you could save yourself lots of time researching topics and creating mind maps? It doesn’t take long to pull a mind map together but when you are busy, every moment matters and automating some of the research tasks can give you a head start on creating your final document. You can do this: artificial intelligence (AI) is a growing business tool that will start you off in the right direction.
AI? Really?
It’s not all about robots, you know. We’re not quite at the point where knowledge workers’ jobs are completely done by machines, but you might be surprised to know that you use artificial intelligence every day to help you get your work done.
AI is a computer-based way of automating perception, learning, understanding, and reasoning, and we use it all the time. It gives you:
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- Traffic predictions that enable your GPS to find the best route for you on an ever-changing basis;
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- Recommendations on websites based on your past purchasing history;
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- Facial recognition that offers you the option of tagging your friends when you upload pictures to social media sites, and much more.
AI saves us time by guessing what we want to do next. While it’s frustrating when Amazon recommends something you’d never buy for yourself because you bought a similar item for a friend a few months ago, overall, we’re becoming more and more used to these automated suggestions for purchasing and search.
So why not for work?
Using AI in Mind Maps
Creative work relies on being able to tap into vast data sets and pick out the things that are most appropriate. But you have to start from somewhere. AI can curate data and present it to you in a knowledge map that gives you that starting point. If you don’t like what’s on the diagram, consider it a prompt to come up with your own content. When you are staring at a blank piece of paper, that automated knowledge map can give you the kick you need to get started.
An AI-driven mind map can also help you see the connections between items. If you aren’t sure what’s connected to what you can look up a category and see how the links fan out to encompass other topics. It’s reliable and it’s quick: think crowd-sourcing but instantly accessible, easy to use, and with the results already tidied up and presented in a format you can understand.
Save time: Go AI!
Knowledge workers, project managers, and business leaders of all types have to deal with vast banks of data from many sources on a daily basis, and assimilating all of that is time-consuming. AI-driven mind maps offer you structured and organized data, saving you the time it takes to source original information and makes sense of it all.
Mind maps, as we know, are easy to edit and personalize, so you get the best of both worlds: a starting point that is fully fleshed out, and the option to brainstorm additional topics and limitlessly edit the knowledge presented to you until it’s perfect.
This is where the skill of the knowledge worker or creative comes into its own. It’s no longer around sourcing information but in creating linkages and context between data points to weave a story. Mind maps are a visual way of presenting that story, enabling your executive teams to quickly understand the point and make faster and better decisions.
Find out more about this amazing mind mapping tool you could use!
About the author
Elizabeth Harrin is the author and award-winning blogger behind A Girl’s Guide To Project Management. Get her suggestions for being more productive at work on her blog.
