Freemind is a free open source tool to organize your thoughts
and ideas. It is an exceptional way of organizing information - its
like using bookmarks on steroids. Its a graphical tool so you
can visualise sets of information easily.
It works like this - you add nodes to a main node (or 'mind map').
each node is a piece of text that you can write anything
into.
You can write additional notes for each node and/or link the
node
to a web page.
Grahical organization
Because the node structure is graphical you can organize information
easily in groups that make sense to you e.g. you can write the titles
for a book structuring it refining the main headings or you could write
a list of items for your next project e.g. a buying list etc.
Icons
You can also add icons to each node - which you can use to mean
anything e.g. finished (a tick), not ready (a flag) etc.
Oh yes, you can make up maps that have other maps embedded in them and
graphically close or open each node/sub nodes. So you can
easily
focus on the information you want to see.
Tutorial
There is a good video tutorial here
along with instructions on downloading etc. Again - the tool
is
free! You have to sign up for the newsletter to see the video
or
you can just download
it here
Note: The
tutorial gives a flavor of what it can do but you really have to use it
to see how powerful it is.