Business Plan Guidelines

My business year tis about to end this month, so this is a very good time to prepare Business Plan for the coming year.
I have written down a little map with guidelines worth enought to prepare my own Business Plan to be presented to top management.

Habits from highly effective people

Several years ago I read some notes about how to increase productivity, beginning from oneself. Based on these lectures and some experiences on my own I did quickly draw a quite simple map.
This one is part of the remembrances I usally post.
I am sorry cause it is in spanish, I will translate into english later on and perhaps in a colorful version.

Capturing ideas everywhere

In one of the last posts we have been talking a little bit about how to handle the multiple tasks effectively by using mindmapping.
Similar concept to GTD (Get the Things Done) but of my own.
One of the topics whenever you want to use mindmapping to control your work is how to capture the multiple ideas that are constantly popping up.
This issue turns out quite easy when you are at the office, just get another new branch in your map and you write it down. What does it happen when you are outside "on the field"?
I am not a proud owner of a mindmapping-inside application portable device, so I attack this problem by using "notes writing" applications on my handy (if I´ve got enought time) or just by dictating the note to the recorder application.
Whenever I came back to the office, I look and listen to my handy and put the different news taks, notes, ideas, links, phone calls reminders... into the mindmapping.
I have also added a new branch to my Activities Framework map, named Rather Urgent Issue, to attach these notes in case they were urgent.

Mindmaps usage from a different perspective

One of the topics I would like to cover is how other users are taking the most out of Mindmapping techniques, either hand-made or software-made.
In this particular case, I show the case from Deepak Ravlani, who is a Business Development Manager at a smartphone software startup, who has also a very interesting blog.
Deepak is a newbie working with these issues, although he foresees great potential for him from these techniques.
Here it is showed a mindmap coming from him, where he takes advantage of the different mindmapping features (and specifically of the different software tools) to have documents, thoughts, files, folders,... at hand.
I think learning with other people can provides us with a hugh range of new usages, possibilities, features and so on, that can takes us to reach further in this world.
Thanks Deepak for your contribution.

What is about me and my blog on the Web

I am pretty sure you already know about this particular mindmanager feature to make Google searches within a map.
I have made a very simple usage of this feature to make two particular searches: one about me and the other one about my blog (which, of course, is all yours).
These two searches have showed me that Mindmanager could be a very interesting tool in order to determine and classify the Web impacts you get from some specific Internet action you want to make.
Of course you can get the draw in flickr.com.

Upgrading my resume

These summer days I´ve been working with my resume. I have taken it our from linkedin and I have polished it up to get a brand new one.
I have always thought that a visual resume provides more information than the written one, specially in those cases where you don´t have enough time to dedicate.

Managing work with MindMapping

I am pretty sure this procedure that I am ready to explain, is not the best in class, but it is the one that works suitably for me.
It is my personal answer to the question, how do I deal with the large amount of tasks, which I am responsible for?
My answer to this questions is composed of different linked mindmaps:
#1 called Activities Framework
It is the root map composed of two diffent parts.
The link part contains links to the different folders, files, mails, appointments in calendar, contacts,... which I require to do my job and also for my personal issues.
The right part contains access to the different maps, where the taks are evolving. I could be able to reach any task in any year, and in any quarter and in any week.
#2 called Taks
You can access from Activities Framework.
Whenever a new task come up, it is included inside. This task is inmediatly added to a customer or to personal diretory and it is categorized with follow-ups icons, deadlines, responsibles and so on, so it can be suitably filtered after to keep track of it.
The different tasks are there till they are completed, their next step is the Follow-up Map.
#3 called Follow-up
It is composed of the different tasks that are accomplish but they also have to be tracked, because you are not the direct responsible, because these tasks depend on other (let´s consider the case in which you bid to a customer, your task is already done but it is stopped until your customer requires dealing on).
#4 calles Finished
When a task is completed and finished reaches this map.
Is case of bids is when you know its status (won, lost) and you know who was the winner, prices differences and so on.
#5 called Finished LT
Where are store the whole set of completed and finished tasks.
It works as a long-term repository, where you go whenever you require some information from the past.
These are the different steps to successfully accomplish the great amount of tasks, which I am direct responsbile for or the ones I must have under control.
If you have some suggestions to improve the procedure, please feel free to contact or to comment.
As most part of my job is related to customers, I used to group up all the tasks related to the customer they are coming from, so I don´t have the complete freedom to show all the different tasks becuase of confidentiality. Unfortunatly, the maps are showed incompleted, but after every maps there are hundreds of tasks.