Whoever told you that planning things was the most important part of the equation was right. When you don’t plan anything effectively you know something is going to go wrong. Disaster will strike.

In the past you would have to write everything down on a piece of paper. Whether you were brainstorming business ideas, mapping out your future novel, or planning your next family vacation you would write everything down in your little notebook nice and neatly. When you wanted to change something you would have to score it out. If you ran out of paper you would need to write it on a different page.

That’s not going to be a problem for you anymore. Luckily you now have access to amazing apps that will help you plan out anything. If you have an Apple computer their app store is the best in the business. With over 270,000 apps you know there’s going to be a few beauties in the pack. You can take your notepad and throw it away because you’ll never need it again. You now have the power to do everything from your Mac. Let’s take a look in more detail at the best brainstorming apps that are a few clicks away.

MindNode

One of the easiest ways to jot down ideas was writing everything down on a piece of paper and drawing lines to join each one. The idea was that you’d have some sore of method to the madness. All those ideas scattered around everywhere would be connected to something.

MindNode is a little like this except everything is done on your computer. Each idea is represented as a node and you can connect them to each other with your mouse. It gives you a great visual idea of how everything joins together and you can come up with your genius ideas.

iThoughtsHD

This is one of the most powerful mind-mapping tools in the world and it’s a pleasure to work with. Any size of mind-map can be created, just in case your ideas get a little out of control. They can also be displayed with any color so you can go a lot deeper without becoming confused.

All the branches of your mind-map can be collapsed so you don’t overwhelm yourself. You don’t want to think too hard when you’re in the creative process. Once they’re done you can easily export them and have the image file on your desktop while you work.

Index Card

When some people are planning things out they love using index cards. It makes sense because it’s such an easy way to do it. You could write down everything you wanted to add to your new book and arrange all the cards into chapters. Now you don’t have to worry about using physical cards because you can do it straight from your desktop.

This makes life so much easier since you don’t have to worry about making a mistake and throwing away countless cards. You can also see them in an outline form so everything is within your view. It’s nice to have one clear picture that’s taken from 10ft back.

Penultimate

There’s a reason why this is one of the most popular apps for brainstorming. It delivers more than you could ever need. Apart from taking notes we always like to draw silly little pictures. Sometimes we can’t put our ideas into words and it’s the only way. With Penultimate you get to sketch out drawings like you would on an artist’s pad.

On top of that you even get to choose from a range of pens and even what type of paper you feel like using. Not everyone can draw great sketches without any lines. There’s a few other things you can do, mainly choosing what color you want it to be in and the thickness it comes out at. It’s definitely something to keep in your creativity toolkit.

The writer of this article, William McCartney, is a very techsavy person. He works for Cheap Chips, a company that deals in hi-end product like GoPro HERO2 Outdoor Edition HD Camera.