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November 23, 2024

Stop Wasting Hours Organizing Ideas: How I Use ChatGPT to Create Mind Maps in Minutes

My “digital brain” was a mess.

I remember the exact moment it hit me: my thoughts were everywhere.

I had this big, exciting idea for a project—a concept I knew had potential. But every time I tried to pin it down, it slipped through my fingers like sand.

Sticky notes scattered across different Notion pages. Random ideas buried in notes I barely remembered. Long, chaotic note dumps from books, podcasts, and late-night inspiration sessions. Lists and scribbles piled up, scattered across endless digital and physical spaces...

I’d try to organize it all into neat outlines, hoping to make sense of the chaos. But within minutes, I’d spiral into frustration.

The connections weren’t clicking.

I could see fragments of the idea, but the bigger picture? Completely lost in the chaos.

I needed clarity, desperately.

And here’s the hard truth: without clarity, ideas die. They die in your head, slowly rotting into what-ifs and regrets.

I know this because it happened to me before—countless times. I’d have an exciting idea, but the lack of organization kept me stuck. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Nothing moved forward. I’d watch others, some with less “knowledge” or “creativity” than me, make progress. Why? Because they weren’t held back by the chaos.

They took action while I was paralyzed by overthinking.

This wasn’t just frustrating—it was painful. I could feel opportunities slipping away because I couldn’t move fast enough from idea to execution.

And that’s the real problem with messy thoughts: they slow you down. They clog your momentum, holding you back from doing the one thing that matters—taking action.

But here’s the thing: clarity isn’t just about organizing your own ideas.

It’s about how you absorb and process information, too. Books. Podcasts. Tweets, or bookmarked posts on LinkedIn. Clarity is the key to cutting through the noise.

The faster you can organize, prioritize, and connect information, the faster you can act. And in business—or life—that speed is everything.

That’s why mind mapping is essential during the “structuring phase.”

Your work should flow in two looping cycles:

• Expansion phases: where you collect, brainstorm, and let ideas run wild.

• Structuring phases: where you filter, organize, and turn the noise into a clear signal.

No expansion means no creativity. No structuring means pure chaos.

Mind mapping is a must for structuring. One central idea, branching into categories, then breaking those into smaller, actionable steps. It’s a simple but powerful way to bring order to the chaos and see the bigger picture clearly (and quickly).

But there was a problem.

Creating mind maps manually was slow, clunky, and exhausting. Drawing branches, adjusting connections, rewriting sections when something didn’t fit—it was supposed to simplify things, but it felt like another chore.

I needed something faster. Something effortless.

Then it hit me: what if ChatGPT could do the hard part?

The Breakthrough: ChatGPT + Mind Mapping

Mind maps are powerful because they mimic how our brains work—connections, branches, and clusters.

But drawing one from scratch feels like doing a puzzle without a picture on the box.

That’s when I realized ChatGPT could help me by transforming raw ideas into structured maps. And not just any maps—ones I could refine, expand, and use instantly.

But the potential doesn’t stop at organizing your ideas.

You can use it to mind map practically anything you want to absorb quickly, and/or combine with your ideas:

Summarize the core ideas from a digital book.
Break down a guide or a playbook into actionable steps.
Organize insights from a podcast episode (especially if you can access or generate the transcript).
Visualize the structure of a complex topic you’re learning.

This can be extremely powerful—and it’s not limited to ChatGPT.

If you’re using Notion as your digital brain, you can even integrate this process into Notion AI. (I wrote about this in my previous letter—check it out if Notion is your go-to productivity tool.)

The point is, what I’m about to show you isn’t limited to one tool or app. It’s a system. You can replicate it with any AI platform capable of breaking down ideas into logical structures.

The Four-Step Process

Here’s how the process works:

1. Be Clear: Explain your idea or topic simply. The clearer you are, the better the results.

2. Ask AI for Help: Use ChatGPT or another AI tool to organize your idea. Ask it to create a mind map with main topics and subtopics.

3. Get a Text Version: Ask the AI to give you the mind map in Markdown format. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with Markdown—I’ll explain why it’s useful later.

4. Make It Visual: Copy the Markdown into a tool like Markmap. This turns the text into a clean, interactive mind map you can use immediately.

That’s it. Four simple steps to turn mental chaos into a clear, actionable map.

In the sections that follow, I’ll take you through each step in detail.

Step 1: Define What You Want

Every mind map begins with one thing: clarity.

But clarity doesn’t just magically appear. It takes effort, especially when your notes, thoughts, and ideas are scattered across multiple tools.

Here’s what I did:

I started with two pages of notes:

Notes from the book Traction:

A summary of the 19 marketing channels for acquiring customers. Great ideas, but disorganized—just a wall of text.

A simplified business plan:

A mock version for a service-based agency, including three key objectives: lead generation, client retention, and sustainable scaling.

The goal was to merge these notes into a single, actionable plan.

Step 1.1: Merging Notes

If your notes are small, you can simply copy and paste them into ChatGPT. But if you’ve got a lot of material (like I often do), it’s easier to export your notes as a PDF or text file. Here’s how I did it:

I went into my Notion workspace, where I keep most of my notes.
I selected my notes on the Traction framework and my business plan.
I exported them to a PDF (this is super simple in Notion—click the three dots in the top right corner of the page and choose “Export as PDF”).
Add the document to your ChatGPT conversation.

Now I had everything in one place. Next, it was time to feed it into ChatGPT.

Step 1.2: Crafting the Prompt

A good prompt makes all the difference.

Here’s the one I used:

“You’re a clarity assistant. Your task is to take messy and complex information and turn it into clear, well-structured information.

- My business plan: [paste simplified business plan here]

- My growth framework: [paste Traction notes here]

Create a mind map for using my growth framework to serve my business plan. Include tools, benefits, challenges, and actionable steps.”

Here I give ChatGPT 4o (the free version) two distinct inputs (business plan + growth framework) and explaining the relationship between them, I explained what I want.

Well, here’s what it gave me:

Decent results for a first pass. It connects the dots and delivers a structure with:

Central Node: Using the Traction framework to grow my business.
Branches: Tools, Benefits, Challenges, and Actionable Steps for each acquisition channel.

Good starting point, but honestly, it’s a little too broad. Some parts lack depth, and while the framework is clear, it’s not immediately actionable.

Let’s try with “o1-preview” (paid version) to add more depth:

There's definitely more depth to it: the outputs are richer, with tool suggestions and tailored benefits for each item.

Let me change the prompt a little bit (I want it to be more actionable and give me an execution plan to execute for my team). Let me try with this one:

“You’re a clarity assistant. Your task is to take messy and complex information and turn it into clear, well-structured information.

- My business plan: [paste simplified business plan here]

- My growth framework: [paste Traction notes here]

Create a mind map for using my growth framework to serve my business plan. Include tools, benefits, challenges, and actionable steps. Remove any fluff and focus only on the acquisition channels relevant to my business (with explanations for each choice). Make it highly actionable: my team should be able to execute the plan without confusion.”

This version of the prompt added two key things:

Focus: I asked ChatGPT to filter out irrelevant acquisition channels and focus only on those directly aligned with my business plan.
Actionability: I emphasized that the output needed to be practical enough for immediate execution, including step-by-step instructions for my team.

And here’s what came back:

Now we’re talking.

The revised mind map included:

Central Node: Using the Traction framework to grow my business.
Branches:
- Why this Channel: A brief explanation for why specific acquisition channels were selected.
- Tools: Detailed suggestions for software and strategies relevant to each channel.
- Benefits: Clear outcomes tied to my business objectives (e.g., increased leads, better client retention).
- Challenges: Potential roadblocks and how to overcome them.
- Actionable Steps: A breakdown of execution steps, including a timeline (Month 1, Month 1-2, etc.).

It’s not perfect, but it is a strong starting point. In just a few minutes, I have a roadmap that connects the dots between my business plan and a proven (tailored) growth framework.

Step 1.3: Simpler Prompts for Broader Topics

Of course, not every mind map needs to be this specific. You can also use ChatGPT for broader topics. For example, I asked it to create a general mind map with this prompt:

“Create a mind map of [Your Topic]. Outline central ideas, main branches, and sub-branches.”

I tested it with the topic “Content Marketing.” ChatGPT’s response included:

Central Node: Content Marketing.
Branches: Content Types, Platforms, Audience, and Strategies.
Sub-Branches: Specific details like blog posts, video content, email marketing, SEO, and more.

This is very useful for brainstorming, teaching, or simply organizing your thoughts around a complex subject.

Let's move on.

Step 2: Transform Words Into Structure

Here's where things get fun.

Now we want to turn this long "bullet points" mind map into something clean and beautiful. Here's how:

First, ask ChatGPT to give you a Markdown version (you must switch to ChatGPT 4o):

"Take the mind map you just created and present it in Markdown format, using proper indentation."

Why Markdown? Because it's like the Swiss Army knife of formatting—simple, powerful, and works everywhere. Plus, it transforms instantly into a nice visual mind map (spoiler alert: wait till you see what's next).

Look, we both know that staring at bullet points is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Our brains crave connections, patterns, and visual relationships. That's why we're going to turn this plain text into something that actually makes sense at a glance.

Here’s what the output looked like: