OK, turn off that 60's psychedelic music, this is serious. A few years ago I asked a number of friends and colleagues if they knew of good “To do” list software, which would allow for flexible note-making, and reorganisation of priorities. A number of suggestions were made and followed up, but none quite provided the flexibility I was looking for.
I have also come to rely on it for any situation where I need to set out some initially vague thoughts and bring structure to them, for example: fee proposals, methodologies, unusual reports, research proposals and so on.
When my eldest daughter was going for a job and was asked to prepare a short presentation for the interview, describing how she would deal with particular issues relating to the job, I suggested that a mind map would marshal and present her thoughts. She used Freeplane and came up with a compelling, structured argument, presented both onscreen and in a handout. After the interview, I asked if there had been any comments about the mindmap and was disappointed to find that there were none, but the great news was that she got the job. In a later discussion about the interview, it turned out that her future employers had been impressed and wondered, ‘how on earth she had produced that excellent map thingy...’ ;-)