MindManager vs Smartsheet

• I am lazy (and ADD) - I don't like to re-enter tasks, concepts or plans. By using MM I am able to capture my ideas and plans on the fly - and then return at a later date to refine, focus and organize my thoughts into a more coherent logical "item"... all without being forced to retype any of my original thoughts unless I care to.
• I use the sort and filter features extensively to 1) Set importance (Must do, important to do, should do, etc) and 2) When (Today, soon, this week, this month). I also use the color coding of items to draw my attention. I also set key project names/categories for each item (no more than 7).
• The sort and filter then let me quickly identify the items that I must focus on "now" - a "shortlist".
• In my consulting days, and now with the several non-profit boards that I work with, I use a modified "PowerPoint" version of MM to get my ideas across and to "brainstorm" with my audience (action items, strategies, priorities).
• For my literary non-fiction writing, I use MM to cast "islands" (random brainstorming), and no less than 3 days later to coalesce these "islands" into "continents", and then to drag the continents into the "proper" order. For my freelance newspaper work, the process is similar - but the organization changes to identifying and featuring the lede.

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• Formulas. While not as robust as Excel, the formulas offered in Smartsheet are quite good.
• Team collaboration. Multiple teammates can access and work on the same sheet at once.
• Templates. The standard templates meet all my needs, and are a great guide for what Smartsheet is intended for and the problems it is best suited for solving.
• Project management. It is great for creating, assigning, monitoring, and tracking tasks and projects.

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• No support for team-based project files. Multiple people can only edit simultaneously during pre-scheduled meetings.
• A project file can be opened by 2 users at the same time, but when they try to save, a conflict is generated and the project file is duplicated with unmergeable changes.
• Published projects should have some kind of queue on save to ask the owner if they want to also update their changes on the published version.

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• It would be helpful when importing an Excel spreadsheet if the format would remain the same; such as the color of the rows and columns.
• Sometimes when viewing rows on the mobile app, they don't align properly when scrolling across.
• I would like to see more in-depth training videos.

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• Without MindManager the BIM text would not have been what it is, the flexibility allowed a much higher quality final product.
• Using MindManager is an enormous timesaver when I use it for anything. Especially projects that seem overcomplicated at first glance can be clarified quickly with the use of a map.
• It is comforting to know the power of the tool before becoming intimidated by a complex set of circumstances that need to be addressed. MindManager allows a situation to be quickly analyzed and dealt with.

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• It has allowed us to get easily organized and share the progress of projects with the team and some of our internal customers allowing us to deliver information much quicker, and reduce some of the meetings times and back and forth.
• It has allowed us to easily collect process and procedure documentation, and tack updates. Previously we had several hundred documents in many different file folders. This allows us to catalog this information quickly add in additional fields/data points for sorting/details/primary users/additional info. We can easily find and share this information, and overall we are much more efficient.

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