Part 1: Expressing your thoughts

 Your IMINDI Space and Discussions

       Once you sign up for your own IMINDI account you will find a blank IMINDI Space with no Discussions. IMINDI will prompt you for a New Mind Discussion. Later, you can add new Discussions at any time by typing a new thought and pressing the "Think" button on the top right hand side of the page. Discussion titles are always in light blue boxes to help you distinguish them from the thoughts within Discussions which are always displayed in light purple boxes.

Starting a Discussion

        When you click on one of the Discussions in your IMINDI Space or type a new thought (any concept or idea) into the text box in the top right hand corner and press Think you will be taken to the Discussion page of that specific Discussion. On the Discussion page you can see all the thoughts in the Discussion by clicking "Show all thoughts" and you can see recent thoughts that have been added to the Discussion listed below.

       To get started on your Discussion you will want to press on the central first thought which is also the title of your Discussion. You will then be taken to the first thought page or map of the Discussion. For example let us suppose that you have created a Discussion on "IMINDI."  In this example the first thought would be "IMINDI", and it would become the central thought in a Thought Map or Discussion also titled IMINDI and identified as belonging to you.

Thought about Imindi on Imindi

       On top of every Thought Map there are 7 tabs: All, Why, What, Who, When, Where, and How? These tabs are designed to help you think of new thoughts that are associated with the central thought in this case "IMINDI", but also to categorize how your new thoughts link to the original thought.  To begin you might press the "Why" tab and type the thought "Collect your Thoughts" into the text box above the Thought Map. (IMINDI currently defines a thought as a maximum of three words) You would then press "Add." The idea "Collect Your Thoughts" would then be displayed as a thought branching off from the central thought "IMINDI."

Thought about Imindi on Imindi

        Now you could go on and add new thoughts to the "Why" category, but perhaps you decide to press the "What" tab and type
        the thought "Thought Engine." You then press the "Add" button and then perhaps type the thought "Web Application."  Now you
        will see that these new thoughts branch radiantly from the central thought "IMINDI" in the "What" category.

Thought about Imindi on Imindi

        Adding more thoughts to the other tabs will flesh out a fuller definition of your central thought. Selecting the "All" tab will show you all of your linked thoughts regardless of category.

        You can continue your Discussion by expanding your thinking around the thought "Imindi" or by clicking on any of the branch
        thoughts that you have created and proceeding to think of thoughts that associate with these second-level thoughts. Your Discussion
        is automatically saved and so you can resume your Discussion at any time. A Discussion on IMINDI only ends when you stop
        adding new thoughts.

       You can edit a particular thought or the title of a Discussion at any time by putting the cursor over the thought or Discussion title word in the line beginning "New thought for " and simply changing the word.