If you could take a snapshot of your thoughts, what would it look like? Like a crumpled mess or a clean sheet of paper? Often, when you have a lot on your checklist, you might find yourself planning for hours but doing nothing to tick items off. There’s no progress, and being in limbo for too long results in procrastination.
Your mind might wander off into an endless chain of thoughts, or you might find yourself scrolling through social media feeds for hours at a time.
It’s in a situation like this that a mind map can come in handy. A mind map is essentially the train of thoughts laid down on a 2D surface. It could be a sheet of paper or a tool similar to Notion.
While you probably use Notion for a sundry of activities, you can’t create a traditional mind map with it. You can’t draw boxes and lines but you can still sort your thoughts out in a hierarchical fashion.
In this guide, we will show you how to create a mind map in Notion with its built-in capabilities.
We will step into the shoes of a freelance writer who has a ton of items to figure out regarding their business and use that as a reference to explain key concepts.
Method 1: Using the Toggle Block
The Notion toggle block feature enables you to compartmentalize content. Clicking on a toggle block unfurls the content it contains and clicking on it again hides the content from the view. You can even create nested toggle blocks which help you get more granular with how you arrange content in your page.
In this method, we will show you how to create a mind map with the toggle block feature.
1. Create a new Notion page
Start by creating a new Notion page for your mind map.
We will reference the below page throughout this guide.
2. List down main points in the form of H2 toggle blocks
Let's first put together the main points of the mind map. We will later pack them with sub-items.
We will set the main points up in the form of the Toggle heading block. The items of this block will be the parent to the sub-items that we would package under them later.
To set up the Toggle heading block, type “/toggle” anywhere inside your page and click on the “Toggle heading 2” option from the list of blocks that Notion provides – as displayed in the below image.
It's time to get into the shoes of a freelance writer. We have put together some key aspects of their career in the below image.
3. Insert sub-items under each main item
When you click on the tiny arrow icon next to the H2 toggle block, it expands to show the content wrapped in it.
Click within any H2 toggle block and type “/toggle”. This time, select the “Toggle heading 3” option from the list of blocks that Notion displays, as demonstrated in the below image.
4. Use the block type that can best expand upon each sub-item
We have added some sub-items under the “Portfolio creation” option, as displayed in the below image.
Notice the database we created under the “Create portfolio website” H3 toggle block? You can use any block that allows you to record your thoughts accurately.
5. Add a Table of Contents
Your page is now packed with your thoughts split into H2 and H3 toggle blocks.
The more thought you add, the more difficult it gets to access the right H2 toggle block, the right thought bubble, if you will.
To make the mind map more accessible, consider adding a table of contents to the page, as displayed in the image below.
Method 2: Using the Subtasks Feature
While using the toggle blocks is probably the best way to create a mind map in Notion, using the subtasks feature can help you build a more concise view.
Here’s how you can do that:
1. Create a Notion database
You can set up subtasks in Notion within a database. That’s why, as the first step, create a basic table database view.
2. Add each main item as a task in the table view
You can add the tasks in the first column of the database and create other columns with the right property types.
For example, if a freelance writer were to create a blog in Notion, they might add tasks like buying a domain name, creating content in Notion, and signing up with Super as the items within the mind map database.
3. Enable creation of subtasks
As with the previous method, each item entry within your database will have some associated subtasks.
To add a subtask within a Notion database, click on the “...” icon at the top-right corner of the database and turn on the “Subitems” option.
4. Add each sub-item as subtask
With subitems enabled, you will be able to see the “+ New sub-item” button inside your database under each item-entry, as demonstrated in the image below.
Click on it to add sub items under the main items.
We have mapped the sub-items under “Portfolio creation” to the same list as method 1, as displayed in the image below.
