I love mind-mapping and find it to be an incredibly useful format for everything from planning an event to working out complex software architectures. It’s great because of the lack of constraints that it imposes on the thought process. It is similiar in many ways to the familiar brainstorming setup (and you can indeed use it for this), but it provides a more formalized approach that makes it possible to do much more.

When I first wrote about the business usefulness of mind mapping I came up short when it came to recommending mind mapping applications. Mindjet’s MindManager is great if you are willing to foot a $349 bill ($229 for basic version), but unfortunately that places this invaluable tool out of the hands of the entrepreneurs and small business owners that could benefit greatly from it.

FreeMind 0.80 is the first free replacement I have been able to find that is intuitive and slick enough to provide a worthwhile replacement. Mind mapping is a rapid process requiring an intimite link between the mind and the resulting mind map. The clunky basic interfaces that I previously experienced with other free (and commercial) applications just weren’t suitable for the process. Creating a map in FreeMind is a freely flowing process with minimal interface gripes (I strongly recommend setting the “Selection” setting to “Click” to avoid your selected node changing when you hover the mouse over a different one). It supports the nifty and arguably essential concepts of clouds and icons as well, and with some playing around with formatting the maps don’t need to be the dull grey color.

I have successfully used FreeMind the past week in all my software design work. I’ve decided the application is stable and useful enough to actually entrust my work files to it. If you haven’t had the chance to experience mind mapping due to the relatively high entry barrier for software, I highly recommend this.