MN is sluggish, nothing works 100%, waste of time ( I use a significantly amount of time on solving problems related to MN).
MN is based on a couple of good Ideas but the execution is nowhere near acceptable. If it works for you, good. It unfortunately did not work for me.
I used MN for three courses on uni (I’m studying mathematical economics and sometimes I take a physics course). I had it installed on all my devices. I got my exam results monday morning - worst results ever. This was no surprise. The blame: MN.
For me, MN is good at what Liquidtext is good at - annotating and collecting information across multiple documents, to help facilitate users to more easily summarize and digest said information. Within my own workflows, it comes down to the mind-mapping function.
Everything else, I kind of eschewed, incl export functions and its own flashcard system. Where the software stands now, it doesn’t really excel beyond its main purpose. I still use OneNote and Anki, software that I find to be much more suited for tasks such as handwritten notes and SRS, but I’m also okay with MN not being the be all and end all for my productivity needs.
I will echo that MN, even in its 3rd edition, is lacking a lot of polish… and that’s why I’ve always been wary of deeply embedding my workflow in this program.
As a member of the MN team, I’m really sorry that MN3 makes trouble to your study. And as a user of MN3, I have to admit that MN3 may annoy some novices because of its variety of features.
In order to let users have quick start, our team are trying to make more detailed instructions and user guide, which may save some time for novices. By the way, if you meet problems while using MN3, please send us e-mails or just post your questions to the forum.
(PS. I’m a student major in math(may be a bit like you). And I’d like to share my workflow on MN3 briefly.
At the beginning, I excerpt some difficulties from books.
Then I will make Q&A cards.(Just merge answer card with question card)
Finally, I will add these cards to card deck and export them to Anki. And I think it’s a good way to review and retrospect.)
I use MN only for creating mind maps. I don’t use the integrated flashcard feature but instead create the Anki cards manually: I copy the MN note link to a separate Anki note field, so I can link from any Anki card to the corresponding MN section. In the Anki card template I have a button which opens the note id. On my mac and even on my iPhone this opens the MN app and navigates to the correct section of the mind map. This is really awesome.
I’ve found a workflow which works for me. Maybe you should give it another try? Or tell us what exactly didn’t work for you.
Here is my workflow. As I’m a science student, I always use MN3 to make cards and export these cards to Anki.
Use “rectangle excerpt” to excerpt some questions and you know MN3 will automatically makes corresponding cards. By the way, I’d like to give you some tips while making Q&A cards: merge answer cards with one question card.
2.export these cards to card deck(you might as well select “auto add to card deck” in “excerpt settings”, which may save you a lot of time)and export them again to Anki.
