How To Start Making Money Online with Mind Maps

My first full day of being laid off was absolutely a waste. I didn’t even leave the house or change out of my pajamas. Not because I was sad or depressed, but because I sat in front of my computer all day thinking of my next money making idea.

The problem with me is that when I start generating hundreds of ideas in my head, I don’t organize my thoughts. In general, things that are organized are successful. For me to have successful and organized ideas, I must find a way to organize the generation of those ideas in my head, before they are even thought through. I found that the best way to do this is to draw a mind map.

What’s a Mind Map?

According to wikipedia:

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

The perfect tool for generating business ideas. There is actually a program called FreeMind that helps you with mind mapping on the computer, but I’d rather do this on paper.

How Mind Maps Work

The best part about a mind map is that as you’re generating ideas, the mind map expands them for you automatically. Plus, it’s like documenting what’s going on in your brain so you see the progression and flow of your thoughts.

I’m thinking about writing and selling another E-Book. The success I had with my first E-Book leads me to believe it has the absolute best profit-margin for any product that I could sell. 100% of the sale goes directly to me. Sweet. There’s actually a great article from Darren on Problogger about Mind Mapping for E-Books, which is where I first learned about the power of this tool.

So here is my actual Mind Map I created today (disclaimer: when drawing up a Mind Map, you shouldn’t edit while doing it or leave any ideas out. That “dumb” idea could actually be your most profitable, so just spill your mind.):

I’ve highlighted the central ideas for you, and you can see how the ideas expand from there. Looking at my Mind Map, I can see I have some potential ideas here. I could write about how to draft on AutoCad and include tips and tricks with instructions on how to work faster. I could write an E-Book about how to negotiate a salary or what to do when you get laid off. The possibilities are endless with this list. You can easily create your own, and see what your Mind Map tells you.

Now of course, I’ll be doing more research on the specific topics in my Mind Map, to see which ones have the most potential. I’ll go over this in a later post, but for now, just know that there is a lot of potential in each and every one of us. Just think about what you do during your day. What are you good at? Or on the other hand, what do you wish you had to make your day easier?

You Don’t Have to Be an Expert

You might look at your ideas and just shrug because you start thinking, “how will anyone pay me for this kind of stuff? I’m not even an expert!” My answer is, people will pay you. If you offer something people want, even though you’re not an expert, they will buy it.

It just may be an E-book that organizes information that’s already known or out there. I’d pay for something if it made my life easier, definitely. Don’t get yourself down, and in my next post, I’ll talk about how to do research to see which of your ideas has the most potential.

Posted on : October 23rd, 2008

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12 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)

Reply Sarah H. on October 23rd, 2008 at 5:39 pm

Sorry about your bad fortune. Hopefully this turn of events can end up becoming something positive for you. I think your method of mind-mapping is a great way to get your ideas organized and a good starting point. Best of luck to you!

Reply Pat on October 23rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm

Thanks Sarah, I really appreciate your kind words. I’m excited about starting up new things, so this should definitely be fun to say the least.

Reply Lindsay on October 24th, 2008 at 8:10 am

Congrats on your success with your ebook. Now that you don’t have that pesky job in the way, you can focus on making real money.

I’ve been hearing a lot about mindmaps lately. I have an organizational streak (not apparently when one looks at my files or bookshelves or anything in my house) that is drawn more to structured outlines than this kind of brainstorming, but I may have to give it a try sometime, just to see if it does anything for me.

Good luck with the new ebook. You’re definitely right in that the profit margins just don’t get any better than with digital products!

Reply 5 Reasons Your Next Big Idea Might Fail | The Smart Passive Income Blog on October 25th, 2008 at 3:35 am

[...] Stuff Down: Seeing things on paper organizes the thoughts in our head. Similar to mind mapping, you can visualize your ideas and easily branch off of them to see what your next step should be. [...]

Reply Andy @ Retire at 40 on November 6th, 2008 at 2:08 am

Heh, mind maps. That’a a great idea. I reckon I should have written about them in my last blog article (I just wrote about ideas first). I’ll write about Mind Maps next time, they’re definitely intriguing things the way your brain can just leap from place to place over such a small period of time. Very powerful tools.

Andy @ Retire at 40´s last blog post..‘Living it Down Small’ instead of ‘Living it Up Large’

Reply Cyn on November 15th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

Brilliant advice. I’ve been doing that for a few weeks now, without knowing it had a name. I was tired of having ideas swimming in my head, drowning out my energy. I got to the point where I told my husband, “I can’t think because I’m constantly thinking!” So I went and bought a huge dry-erase board on which I wrote out what I now know is called a mind map.

Reply Personal Finance Goals (2009) - version 2 — Passive Family Income on February 7th, 2009 at 5:40 am

[...] – I started my mind map this week for an eBook on Trading Options for [...]

Reply Personal Finance Goals (2009) - version 3 — Passive Family Income on March 7th, 2009 at 5:06 am

[...] – I started my mind map a few weeks ago for an eBook on Trading Options for beginners. I also have created the outline I [...]

Reply Christopher on March 16th, 2010 at 4:09 pm

I love doing mindmaps to organize my ideas. Some people might think that they are flow charts considering the image you use at the beginning of the post.

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Reply MkAkan Dot Com on May 17th, 2010 at 8:59 am

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Reply Make Money Online on June 15th, 2010 at 6:29 am

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Thanks so much, and lets stay connected and maybe share some ideas, do some guest posts, and get us both some more traffic and backlinks!

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