Good stuff. I've been developing a concept called the Capture Map, which is like a meta-model in which things like mind maps can live. It's very visual, but also organizational and modular. You can start such a map with a journaling node, then add separate lists. Connections are a separate topic and run in types, as opposed to having specific mandatory visual qualities like shape gradations.

So far, in my experience, the top two app-types that work well are 1) vector drawing apps like Inkscape and 2) spreadsheet apps like Calc. The latter because even though "it's a spreadsheet (which is a pretty big deal)," "it's also a drawing app supporting layers, etc."

Living document of reference, very alpha: https://www.friendlyskies.net/intj/the-capture-map-a-new-con...