I have a lot of ideas. I'm in the habit of writing them down, but organizing, revisiting, and evolving them can be an arduous process. I get frustrated by using list apps like Reminders when planning out a coding project, a comedy set, a vacation, an event, a life plan; anything that requires up-front thought or organization of interconnected items.

This is where the concept of "Mind Mapping" comes in. Mind Mapping is a popular concept among productivity enthusiasts. You can find countless videos and articles online about Mind Mapping, I won't repeat their content in this post. Take a look at the photo at the top of this post for an example mind map. You get the idea.

After I discovered the concept of Mind Mapping, I set out to find the best Mind Mapping app for iPhone, iPad and macOS.

IMO, Good Mind Mapping software must do a few things:

1. Work on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS–syncing your documents across devices with ease
2. It should support the same features on iOS and iPadOS as it does on Mac. It shouldn't be dumbed down for mobile devices.
3. Support exporting your Mind Map as outlines
4. Support drag and drop, and split screen on iPad for importing and exporting content to and from the app
5. Make it super easy to move items on the map from one place to another via drag and drop
6. Allow you to create weak connections between nodes, so that you can indicate a relationship between items on different branches of the tree
7. Provide a high-level expand and collapsible outline view of your mind map
8. Provide task support–where you can treat select items in the mind map as a task to complete
9. Integrate with the Shortcuts app for maximum automation
10. Support tagging of individual items

Mind Node checks all of these boxes. Visit their website to download the app today. Here's a blog post of theirs that highlights some of its more advanced features.

It costs money, but it's worth it if you have ideas to organize. Unfortunately, they are moving to a paid subscription, but they have proven to be capable developers who frequently update the app. Apple leaves them with very little choice (find my rant on that here).