I couldn't get someone to understand my hand-written mindmaps. Hubert Smits pointed me to freemind a cross-platform open source mindmap diagramming tool. It is very easy to install (RPMs for linux are included) and well thought-out: I can create a mindmap in minutes about as fast as taking ordinary notes - the most important actions are easily done with the keyboard. I'm usually not so thrilled about computerized diagramming, but freemind is easy and quick to use. Below, I quickly made a mini-mindmap to show how it works

Now I would like to have something similar to create readable diagrams of effects quickly...