XMind
I've only recently downloaded XMind, but so far it looks like another good mindmapping option. You can find out more about it, and download it yourself, from the XMind website.
Frequently, clients find they can benefit from additional tools and other resources to help them accelerate and/or enhance their development process.
Over the years I've come across a number of things that have been helpful to both clients as well as to me in my own process.
If you have some favorite tools, books, or other resources you think I should know about, please let me know - assuming I find them useful too, or see how they could help my clients, I'll certainly add them to the list here.
MindMeister
MindMeister is an online mindmapping system. The basic account is free, and you can even collaborate with other Mindmeister users on your mindmaps.
iMindMap
Tony Buzan, the guy who is often credited with inventing mindmapping, has developed an application for creating mindmaps. The software is easy to use, has plenty of features, including a 'library' of images you can include in your mindmaps, and the ability to export to a variety of different formats.
Wild Divine
Wild Divine is a computer software and hardware system that helps you train your brain through bio-feedback. Through learning to control your respiration and heart rate, you can greatly reduce stress, not to mention increase overall awareness.
I first discovered this a few years ago at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association where they had a display for the Journey to Wild Divine. It's sort of like a video game, except that you 'control' the game play through your state of mind (and body), wearing sensors on your fingertips to pickup heart rate, etc.
Freemind
Freemind is a free, open-source application available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
You can find Freemind here.
While Mindmeister is an online system and allows for easy collaboration, Freemind is a desktop application and does not offer collaboration features. However, Freemind is very capable, and does have the ability to export mindmaps to a variety of formats including word processor outlines and several web page formats.
MyThoughts for Mac
At first I wasn't sure about MyThoughts for Mac, from Mode de Vie Software - it seemed a bit simple (particulary after using iMindMap). However, I've come to really like it. It's had a couple of updates since I first started using it, and it's simplicity is actually really refreshing (and it turns out being simple doesn't mean it's not feature-rich enough). Of course, it's Mac only. For $49 it's got a pretty good feature set, and as a native Mac OS X application, it performs nicely.
The Institute of HeartMath
The Institute of HeartMath offers a variety of products and services, focusing largely on bio-feedback and education. It's some pretty cool stuff.
From the HeartMath.org site:
The Institute of HeartMath is an internationally recognized nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to helping people reduce stress, self-regulate emotions and build energy and resilience for healthy, happy lives. HeartMath tools, technology and training teach people to rely on the intelligence of their hearts in concert with their minds at home, school, work and play.
Visit the Institute of HeartMath website to learn more.
pzizz
I've been using pzizz myself for several years.
Now, you may be asking yourself - What the heck is a pzizz?
Think 'zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz'
pzizz is an application that can be used to help you get to sleep if you have insomnia (those of us with active minds sometimes have trouble 'shutting off' at night). It can also be used to help fight fatigue and mind fog during the day by inducing short power naps.