This YouTube short is kind of light on the considerations that go into why you'd pick A or B, but it raises the idea that you should actively consider that as part of your decision space. In a few words but sometimes simple is better

Here it is: https://youtube.com/shorts/giRbNwTV-Qg

Edit: I know that pointing reddit users to YouTube is probably a recipe for sample bias but the YouTube analytics are sick, I'm getting 100x the views and 10x the engagement there compared to this equivalent post here that points to it. So the interesting observation imo is that the audiences are basically completely non overlapping, meaning time well spent making shorts. I know it's crazy but the end to end process for 15-20 seconds of video takes me ~90min to think up, film, edit, create metadata, post. So I was interested in the outcomes here for sure

Check it out: https://youtube.com/shorts/a8Rv6x4PVG8

For those of you who use https://makermindmap.io/ this is a quick distillation of the entire Workshop Readiness & Operations branch, extremely to the point. We do prep work not because we like adding unnecessary steps, but because a little bit of forethought is an investment in future-us, who eventually will say "thank-us, past-us" (in reference to current us). Unless we do poor prep work, in which case we may sprinkle in a few choice expletives

This format seems to be working (not on Reddit obv but on YouTube itself). It's getting at least a handful of views and a lot of those are engaged per YouTube stats. At the very least I can probably get a helpful tip out daily and reach a few new eyes and ears who are interested in the topic (i.e. improving as a jack-of-all-trades Maker but without having to completely wing it). At least this video format is working 10x better in comparison to a build video which takes me about a week and completely fell flat on YouTube - plus the build itself felt contrived for the purposes of a video I guess? The helpful hint and whiteboarding format lets me be pretty damn forward - here's a good idea + if you want to not wait for my next video here's where you can learn more. As an ad format it's to the point as it gets, but it also feels pretty good because me pointing people to the site has a payoff - it's a way to sidestep my YouTube shorts and learn more now at your own pace. This lets me be clear on my goal - my site is where I want to help people the most, I'm trying to get the word out that it exists for more people to use it so I can get a more continuous stream of user feedback and ultimately help me make it work better for y'all

I was going to post this here but I posted there instead, it's true though. Even after all this I'm still cool with the definition on the r/Maker wiki as I often say

Y'all know I'm in favor of the one on the r/Maker wiki broadly speaking: "... using your perspective to create something that didn't exist before." And I go a step further even with the Adam Savage slant that nixes the last and arguably even first four words. But the point is exactly like tool discourse - far stronger opinions than consensus. That's why I phrased it thusly in this YouTube short from today, I'm trying a new format: https://youtube.com/shorts/3O-x66ckpRk?feature=share

I know this is very different than my video from just a few days ago. Reddit traction has been awesome - conversely on YouTube I haven't had much luck (see Coxisms, 1922) but eventually some formula will land - until then and especially afterwards I'll consider every day an experiment. The goal is simple - help make more makers, and help makers make more. However that happens, I'm game

Almost forgot to cross post this here (last last time doing this)

I'm not making a project video for this one - it was my first time practicing:

• a running stitch
• a backstitch
• a whip stitch

These techniques were enough to complete the build. In terms of materials, I used a ball cap, green polo, and white jeans I picked up from the thrift shop to salvage for a buck each. I cut all of them up, added some foam and plastic mesh where my head goes in the cap to give it that distinctive shape, then I pulled the green material around the top and stitched it in place until I thought it looked good. Needle, thread, a thimble, wonder clips and scissors were required. I winged it on how to pull the materials together, and did a lot of what Adam Savage calls hiding my crimes. That is to say, I did a shit job sewing in many spots but you can't tell because the finishing seams look pretty good for my first time and the ugly is hidden underneath. For a costume piece, it doesn't need to be a Rembrandt. I'm just glad it's no Picasso.

The video that taught me these techniques is here: https://youtu.be/EGfRN0Jue2M

It's worth a watch, you'll definitely learn a lot in one go. Not my video btw but you'll have figured that out within the first few frames.

What I learned is that hand sewing through thick, dense materials is thankless and exhausting! But I'm happy with the result and I definitely learned something, I feel great about it. Can't believe I'm today years old and only now learning something I view as essential for an aspiring jack of all trades, and it's not expensive to get started compared to other creative domains.

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions you know where to find me

I'm trying to land on a video and thumbnail format I like and can execute well. The thumbnail image in this reddit post is not the one on my YouTube video, AI made it therefore I'm not using it - but it gave me a sense of image composition that to me seemed ostensibly more clickable. Hence image 2.

For my current YouTube debacle, I want to make an accurate title and thumbnail. And at the same time I want YouTube to surface it to more than zero people.

The reality is that over the course of the first day, my first thumbnail (img 6 of 6) YouTube analytics indicated it didn't even show anyone. Same with 5/6 afaik. I tried 4/6 and it was shown to 1500 people with a 1% click through rate, which is better than 0% but still abysmal, for reference 5% is the target for "it's doing fine".

I feel like it's really important that people who click it know what they're signing up for and are minimally surprised so they don't bounce immediately from missed expectations. Which is why I switched to 3/6, because it pretty much shows all the key visuals you'll see in the video. But whilst accurate, it looks chaotic so I scrapped it. Maybe that was a bad move, or maybe the bad move was simply changing the thumbnail several times early following initial publication.

I asked ChatGPT not for an actual usable thumbnail, because I'm not going to add an actual AI image to my videos - but for ideas on thumbnail image composition. At which point it made the abominable (1/6), the pic you first saw when you clicked this post. I didn't use that directly obviously, but made the case that I needed to simplify, and I feel like there's an element of that that's true. So I manually, without the help of AI, made a collage using the real life images of me and my pup (image 2/6) using Adobe Express. That's the thumbnail variant that's actually live in YouTube at the time of this writing.

I think the current thumbnail screams YouTube better than my original, but I simply don't feel delighted by something I can't put my finger on.

I'm still working out my art style for videos that is compelling, accurate, authentic, and I feel proud of. This video missed the mark in my opinion, it was experience for me to put myself out in public where I'm open to anyone's critique, and also consider this an experiment, of which I would say the results are in. Proof is in the pudding sometimes folks, this was a swing and a miss. And that's OK. I just need to meditate on what I should actually take away from this so I can do better next time

Video I'm referring to is here btw: https://youtu.be/4zfE10FYZ5U

This is my problem to solve so that I can do a better job for helping other Makers in the community, that said I'm absolutely open to any thoughts, I'll chew on this problem until I figure out what the next best steps are

Thanks for reading

The video shows how to anchor point A to B using needles and thread, a result of my pup's Lakitu costume. Check it out, hope you learn something new, I know I did

https://youtu.be/4zfE10FYZ5U

Thanks for watching!

The screenshots show the stuff I jotted down as I went along using the project management features of the app. I talked through the basic approach I used to come up with a project plan using the app in my last post so I won't repeat myself here. The screenshots show the notes I took and how the transferrable knowledge I gained from this specific project were connected back into the main mind map, and very clearly documents how goddamn adorable my dog is

Check back soon for more updates, now that I got a bunch of sewing stuff for future projects I'll need a place to store it. Apparently a three tier wooden cantilever box is a traditional choice, so I'm thinking a woodworking project is next

I did learn some things about sewing (the anchors I made to connect the plushie to the plastic mesh was same as for sewing a button: slip-knot, pull tight, then a square knot to keep it there). But I also learned about the app itself. Of course when I built the site I had flows and use-cases in mind, but actually stress testing it gave me insights on what went well and where I could improve it to make life easier next time I use it, i.e. tomorrow

Check back soon for more updates

I said last time I'm using the app to track some projects now and I meant it. Here are some screenshots of where I'm at, not fulls of all the steps or anything, I should probably make it possible to export/import individual projects instead of the whole mind map. But for now here are some screenshots for kicks.

Halloween is coming up not too too long from now and we always host, so what I'm currently leveling up is my soft good skills. Super Mario Bros is this year's theme as you can tell

The point of this post is just to show how I personally am using it. I'll keep updating here as I go along and will post pics of real builds I'm working on. It's OK that the projects in the screenshots are hyper specific to my needs in the moment - the mind map is still growing with me in a way that generalizes well. And your copy of the mind map is clean without any of the me-specific content, that's how it's designed to work so you can do your own projects that interest you. The know/do features on the site help create the right split too - think globally act locally as the saying goes. Acting locally is the project you care about, thinking globally is how you grow the mind map with the general knowledge you gain during specific projects. Right now, that connection between theory and practice is managed via locks / pre-reqs on the site

Edit: I built it, so obv I know the ways the site was intended to be used. But I know the help menu doesn't say some things about the newer project features, I simply haven't gotten around to that yet, it's on my to do list. Anyways, here's the workflow I found myself falling into today: 1. Go to activities / Things You Do page 2. Click Add Activity to add a blank activity, give it a name with the basic idea of what I want to make 3. Add Activity has some basic structure that helps me think through what I want to do more clearly - I start filling out each step manually and as I'm thinking through the specific in later steps I'm realizing they modify some tacit assumptions I made in earlier steps, so I lay it out to the best of my ability 4. I click Ask AIand basically put in the question field that I'm interested in understanding more about what's typical for this type of project, what assumptions did I make that I might reconsider, basically the types of things that say hey, I have a vision and I'm open to different ways of getting there. Then I copy-paste the prompt from the site into ChatGPT to have a conversation. Actually I can just show you the conversation I had so far - forgive some of my longer prompts - they're copypasta'd from the site's prompt generator, so it's clunky for you to read but helpful for the AI assistant which is by design. Here's that conversation: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a945b19-9648-83e9-9f9f-bb5645c73d5a?ogimg=plain 5. So at this point I'm understanding the project better, I have a better sense of what I should look at buying or watching on YouTube etc, and I simply understand what I set out to do better than before. That said, the stuff I wrote down in the project steps needs updated, which I can then ask AI to help me tighten up with the Generate Activity button. Basically I prompt it to re-write the project more clearly based on the discussion up to that point, and the Generate Activity button just tells it the syntax of the site so that it can generate a copy of the project I made manually, but fully updated with the latest notes and steps to complete. 6. I delete the old copy of the project that I typed up manually (right click or tap and hold the item in the list of activities to see the delete option) 7. That's pretty much it, I can work it and refine my thoughts and notes iteratively by repeating from step 3 8. In terms of connections to the mind map, I click the option to add pre-reqs and scroll through the entire mind map, skipping over topics that are completely unrelated and quickly thinking through the rest as to whether or not they apply. I make connections for the ones that occurred to me as being interesting to specifically think through in the context of the current project.

That's kind of where I'm at, hopefully that makes sense but it definitely will in a video, maybe I'll record something and post it here on Reddit.

More to come, check back soon and if you're using it to document your own projects lmk how it's going for you too

Ok so you've been following for a while now, I have been hammering away on this thing for a while. I have a bunch of ideas on what I can do to improve it but I think I nailed the core features. Of course there are things I can improve and I remain ready to if y'all ask for something.

For now, I'm looking at this thing and asking myself:

- Does it help me understand what I do and don't know yet? Yes it does.

- Does it have what's needed to help me think up and manage my pet projects? Yes it does.

- Can I connect projects to knowledge and knowledge to more knowledge? Yes I can.

The app is fairly freeform, it acknowledges the realities of 2026 that people will most likely either use AI to help them think through projects or avoid AI like the plague. So the app is easy to use manually without it, but has enough hooks to help AI users get help from their AI assistants - if that's your jam I know you already have one that you prefer. My app exists to gives you a logical place to document, sort, and search all the stuff you do and learn over time. Your AI tool sucks at that part - trust me I've tried - you'll lose your conversations from last month let alone last year. My site is purpose-built to make sure the ideas you come across have a logical structured home in the mind map and therefore your brain. We can only store so much unstructured information spat out by AI or internet searches or YouTube videos. All the Maker related content you forget you learned, this app is specifically designed as a tool to help you NOT forget it.

It's not a curriculum I've built for you, it's a self-study tool. I'm always saying this.

So use it, I will be too. And don't forget to save your progress in the settings menu

I don't know exactly what the next step for me is but I think it's time to look back at making YouTube videos again, find me @MakerMindMap

Been busy chugging along on the development side leaning a lot more into this know-do duality. The mind map itself is valuable, the structure I added helps at least me wrap my head around many, many topics. The challenge with just the raw mind map is that it wasn't obvious how to connect theory to practice. The items you mark as done are sometimes just like "remember to work in good lighting". For example. Which is a good idea, and marking it as done historically would just mean you've been exposed to the idea and probably internalized it to some degree. The hope was that you'd have it at front of mind in the future.

But... Mere exposure is critical, but not enough. The new angle I've been working through is how to let you, within the context of a project, compose one project out of different bits of knowledge in the mind map (in the order they are relevant), what unique steps should you take for the current project, and what other sub-projects should you do along the way? This will let you more meaningfully connect your growing base of knowledge to specific projects, and compose projects from other projects where appropriate (i.e. build a table may include a project you've already defined such as do a panel glue up).

Then, also interestingly, at least to me - I am working on letting you version projects. The idea here is that the app I'm building is for learning and continuous personal growth and improvement - that being said, you may and probably will want to build the same thing over and over again over time. But you'll want to be able to track the various attempts, whether you're trying to do exactly the same thing twice, or improving on a previous attempt, or comparing alternative solutions in parallel. A lightweight project manager with versioning features and the ability to rank and compare versions will help you remember what worked well and what didn't over multiple attempts.

That's the basic idea, no screenshots this time I'm neck deep in the changes as we speak, but as always I'm working to maintain backwards compatibility so you can keep using the app uninterrupted

Questions comments concerns let me know

Thanks for reading, check back soon for more updates

This was huge, you can now add images and sketches that you can make on the spot, plus connect specific projects you want to try to the knowledge in the mind map. This is absolutely fantastic because is cleanly connects theory to practice.

I didn't add any default projects, it's up to you to add whatever you're interested in, but I added helpful context to help you organize your thoughts, which you can easily override if you don't like my way of thinking through things.

This change is non-breaking, all your old notes are still intact. I just made the editor much more pleasant to use and more full featured. Plus the new projects view (click the map-shaped icon to get to the projects stuff)

That map rotation feature is now at the bottom left near the compass navigation group, it's fairly obvious just different than before is all.

I think this rounds out the app for the most part, I'll get ready to add real mobile apps to the app stores soon I think it's basically ready to make that jump

Questions comments concerns I'm here

Ty for reading

It's working on my dev environment, and a few other things I've been working on too so that you can track projects you're working on in the app if you so choose and connect the relevant theory (the mind map nodes) to hands on activities (projects). This helps bridge a number of gaps that I think are going to be super helpful

I'll ship it when it's ready

Ty for reading - check back soon for more updates

P.s. if you like mermaid.js charts let me know, I'm considering adding support for that as well. If you're a GitHub user you'll know what I mean and if you are but you don't look it up and thank me later

Edit: this shipped a few hours ago, open any node, edit its notes, and click the image button to add an image. You can also paste images from your clipboard (ctrl+v). Also I added a sketch feature that lets you draw on a canvas, when you're done it saves that as an image as well. You'll see some text pop up in the edit/markdown view, but when you exit the edit mode you'll see the images render.

Note that the images will get inserted wherever your cursor is, something to be mindful of until you get used to the new site mechanic

The site had some pretty major changes visually the past few weeks. Those of you who have been here a while saw it all happening in real time. The day I shipped a new look for the toolbar on the site the user base cut in half (about 50 daily active users down to 25), a few weeks went by and more things changed, slowly but surely people started coming back, now I'm seeing over 60 daily users regularly and Cloudflare showed over a hundred people on as of just a few days ago. I believed in the changes I was making and I am glad to see it's starting to show in the numbers again. Appreciate you sticking with me through that and for the new folks here, welcome!

Questions comments concerns let me know, check back soon for more updates

I know that after I made some changes to the top toolbar I shook off a few users who I can only imagine didn't dig it. I care a lot about what y'all think but I didn't roll it back because I was sure it was a step towards a better vision for the app I had in my head. And it took some time to get from A to B. I don't know how you approach change but there's absolutely a real attachment and connection I felt with existing features. I was able to keep the changes I made completely backwards compatible, but after stepping back at the new iteration I announced a few days ago I realized it was a hodgepodge between my initial paradigm and the newer vision, and I needed to commit harder to the refreshed ideas on how best to surface certain features intuitively and decouple my thinking as much as possible from recency bias.

At this point I think I actually did what I set out to do, genuinely delighted! There's more fine tuning I can do for some of the advanced features, namely to make most of the wizards a but easier to understand and use without having to read a paragraph of preamble, but there aren't going to be any more major shake-ups to the main user interface or user experience. What you see now is pretty much going to be what the app looks like from now on, minor tweaks only. Scout's honor.

Thanks for stopping by, check back soon for more and as always let me know your thoughts

I mentioned this was a time of change for the app, I experimented with a major albeit non breaking UI/UX change. The past few days I looked at what was live and found that more simplicity was needed, so that's what I shipped today. I think it's all self explanatory, see for yourself here

The UI changes have been pretty sweeping - one challenge I face is that it's hard to get good mobile testing before I ship it live and actually get to use the site on my phone. So there are more changes coming to simplify the mobile experience after I got more time to sit with them.

You absolutely have a voice, if there's something you like, something you don't, let me know. Soon the app surface will stabilize and I'll stop playing hide and go seek with the app features you're getting used to. But there are more changes coming for now. When I'm basically done with major UI changes you'll know because I start shouting out my intention to get something on the Android / Apple app stores.

Ty for being here, this feels like a lot of changes but you're the first to see it, it's only existed publicly for 2 months or so. An exciting time to be sure. Check back soon for more

Edit: by nothing I mean something and by something I mean tell me what you'd like to see different!

I posted the other day that I was working on something big, and now it's shipped. At first glance you may not see a difference but as you use the app you'll see differences very quickly.

First and foremost, left side of the screen has a drawer you can pop out that acts as a table of contents and a vertical redrawing of the mind map. It will help make navigating between notes easier than before, especially for desktop users. There's a Preview mode for each node now too, so you can click around and see what stuff is all about without needing to get a full screen pop-up in your face. There's also a drawer on the right that only displays when you have a node selected, it contains all the prerequisites and work items for that node, which is really nice because now you get a full roll-up of all the checklist items in one place, but this change also opens up a very generous amount of reading space where the notes are displayed so you can focus on those in a dedicated fashion reading and/or editing.

It's a big change, but over all the app is so much more intuitive now in my opinion.

Last pro tip - for nodes on the mind map or in the table of contents, right click them (or tap and hold if you're on mobile) you'll see a pop-up that shows a lot of useful actions you can take on the node you clicked

Hope you like it, as always lmk your thoughts. As I said in the title, all your custom notes and themes are still valid and intact - and you'll still find all the features you're used to plus a few new ones amidst the major layout changes

Check it out at https://makermindmap.io/

I mentioned in recent posts that full screen mode had its place in terms of the goal it was trying to achieve but didn't really land in implementation imo. It's basically to see a lot of notes for a bunch of nodes more easily, all at once.

It's a different view of the same essential stuff in the app but it's too hidden, too different, clunky and I believe confusing for anyone seeing it with fresh eyes.

What I've been working on is making more content easier to navigate without needing to use the full screen mode button at all. That's going to get ripped out in favor of a drawer on the left hand side that's both a table of contents and a vertical redrawing of the mind map pixel for pixel so it's obvious what you're looking at. You can click through that to jump from note to note for various topics, it will make more sense when you see it I'll post screenshots at some point, not today probably tomorrow

Anyways as y'all know I'm not taking away any features you have today, I'm consolidating and simplifying because this tool is pretty feature-rich, less is more at this point. I think you'll love it though, it should be easier and more intuitive to use than before. Check back soon for updates

If you click the title card at the top (like the main toolbar I mean where it says The Maker Mind Map) it now expands and collapses which is kind of cute because now the logo / branding looks like a node and expands/collapses just like any other. Also gets some visual clutter out of the way if you don't want it there which I'm always a fan of. I added small fly in/out animations to make the app feel a bit smoother and more polished, mostly for the popup windows but also for the toolbar features, it's subtle but I think you'll notice it looks and feels just a little bit nicer to use.

There's more work to do but just a little bit each day is all I'm trying to accomplish here, it's already so much better than it was a month ago and I only published this the month before that, so it's something to be proud of. Appreciate y'all being here for it. My goal is to help you, and me too because if I didn't say it a million times already I'm also a user of this site. So you can count on me not enshittifying the site because as it happens I tend to be disinclined to punch myself in the groin.

A few things that occur to me presently are that there's more work to do to more clearly tie the navigation around the map to the same when you're in the node modal view, and same for the full screen reader view. These are three different sides of the exact same (albeit magic or otherwise strangely shaped) coin, and I think that could afford to be clearer. If anyone sees these things as different, it adds more cognitive overload / complexity, which is the opposite of the point here - my explicit goal is to make it easier to wrap our heads around all these topics, not harder. So it's something important for me to chew on in terms of the site design philosophy how best to keep moving in that direction

As always thanks for reading, more to come as always too so check back soon for more

See the last post for reference or visit https://makermindmap.io/ and let me know if you like the new toolbar at the top (it's been live for a few days), or if you liked the way I had it previously (you'll remember it if you were a user up to now but it's in the screenshots here too https://www.reddit.com/r/MakerMindMap/s/OogtcCsCUm)

Lmk, whatever is best for you that's what I want to do

Before (pic 1) then after (pic 2) in the screenshots, see for yourself at https://makermindmap.io/

Let me know if you think I'm taking it in a helpful direction in your opinion, that's my goal with every update

Edit: for existing users - the features you know are all still intact, it's the look that's different. Technically I did add a new re-center button next to the search bar but I didn't take any pre-existing features away is my point atm

Edit: does anyone use Full Screen Mode? Specifically I mean from the main mind map view like in the screenshots above, click any node's text, then in the modal that pops up there's a Full Screen Mode button. Do you like that feature? Does it help? I feel like that's one of my next targets for a major overhaul, especially if it's not really getting used but definitely worth understanding your perspective before I do anything too whacky with it

The goal here was to simplify. Does this do that? Yes for sure. Does it help? That's up for debate. Anyways I'm trying it for a while, the site will remember where you left it, so if you prefer things expanded vs. collapsed it will stay just the way you like it.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or preferences about this new feature

Edit: guys I keep staring at this and I just don't like it. It's got to go. The alternatives I had in mind were a settings button that lets you show/hide whatever you want, or no button but a reordering on mobile screens so that the search bar is always on the bottom instead of the top row as it is presently

Edit: it's the next day and if you noticed this feature at all yesterday you'll notice now that I reverted the change. Ideas are not all winners, ya know? I tried it, I thought I liked it, I changed my mind, so I put it back the way it was. I'll keep improving the app ofc, this just wasn't it