Method and apparatus for displaying a thought network from a thought's

Abstract

An effective method and apparatus for organizing and processing chunks of interrelated information (or 'thoughts') using a digital computer is disclosed. The invention utilizes highly flexible, associative thought networks to organize and represent digitally-stored thoughts. A thought network specifies a plurality of thoughts, as well as network relationships among the thoughts. A graphical representation of the thought network is displayed, including a plurality of display icons corresponding to the thoughts, and a plurality of connecting lines corresponding to the relationships among the thoughts. Each of the thoughts is associated with one or more software application programs, such as a word processing or spreadsheet utility. Users are able to select a current thought conveniently by interacting with the graphical representation, and the current thought is processed by automatically invoking the application program associated with the current thought in a transparent manner. Users can conveniently modify the thought network by interactively redefining the connecting lines between thoughts. In another aspect of the invention, attribute values are associated with the various thoughts of the network, and the network is searched to identify a subset of the thoughts having attribute values equal to a desired set of values. Further aspects of the invention include techniques for scheduling selected thoughts of the network for desired operations at specified times, and storing timing and usage statistics in order to preserve a history of the processing tasks performed on each thought.