A mandalart, or mandal art chart, is a summarisation tool. Here’s how to use it, and some examples. Download our free template when you’re done.
“You don’t need motivation. You need clarity.”
There must be clarity for me, but there is not a lot of it. Many times when I get the feeling of inches, it is not because I am undisciplined but because I am unclear about the destination and pathway.’
Can you remember the last time you got there – your 100 per cent attention focused on something – and time just blurred away? That’s the flow state. And the biggest enemy of the flow state is lack of clarity.
How do you make sense of it all? How do you discard the crap and find the signal?
This tool will help you to understand your goal, and how to move forward to achieve it, by taking the right action at the right time. The first step in conscious creation is to understand what you wish to create in this particular moment.
Furthermore, I will explain how I make use of this tool – Mandalart – to organise my life and work.
And the best part is? It’s so simple to do, and everyone can benefit from it. I’ve been doing it everywhere and at any time, and it’s positive and powerful, it’s … It’s has been so good for me, and now it’s like everything makes a lot more sense to me, and I feel … More complete.
This is made easier by the fact that I just created a free downloadable template that awaits you at the end of this article, so you can pick up your journal today! Let’s get to it.
What is mandalart and who is it for?
Mandalart, which literally is a combination of ‘mandala’ and ‘chart’, is based on Ramon Llull’s 13th century imaginarium device called the ‘Combination of the Arts’ – sometimes referred to as a ‘mandala chart’ or ‘mandala planner.’ The ultimate task of the system is to combine the entries in each row, column and diagonal with each other in order to exhaustively describe the domain Of 3×3 9-grid charts, the mandalart was invented by Yasuo Matsumura in 1979.
It’s an organizer, a planner, and a canvas for brainstorming ideas. But how?
The multitier approach is conceptualised in the mandalart as a 3-tier structure of: ❖ Specific objective(s), why it/they are important for your success. ❖ Key ideas (or, keywords, main points, objects, experiences, etc.) that you think are crucial in achieving that goal. ❖ Representative ideas, smaller units or specific details that embody and bring to life your key ideas.
Key idea/Purpose/Goal
Primary aspects
Secondary aspects of each primary aspect
List your hopes, your work, your targets, your events, your glittering milestones, all with the view of choosing which ones to focus on and developing a strategic plan for the many ways in which they all can thrive in balance.
A mandalart is especially helpful for those:
Looking to set and achieve personal or professional goals.
Seeking to improve their productivity and time management.
In need of a creative way to plan and reflect on their progress.
Interested in visualizing complex ideas or projects in a structured manner.
How to use a mandalart?
Mandalart is incredibly easy to execute, and requires no special threshold for participation. Here, briefly, is how each component works: so that you can harness its full force.
The Center Grid
What belongs in the centre of the grid is your goal, project or theme. It’s what your entire chart is for – the context in which the rest of the elements will evolve.
The Center Block
Refers to the 3×3 block in the centre. This is where you decompose your goal into eight key components or sub-goals.
For example, for using Mandalart as a new year planner, you can type down the year in the middle grid while other eight grids in the middle block could be ‘Health’, ‘Career’, ‘Finance’, ‘Relationship’, ‘Growth’ and so on.
The Secondary Blocks
The eight blocks around the centre block. These are the individual action steps or milestones targeted at the primary areas of your goal.
For example, the “Health” section of your New Year mandalart can include:
Workout 3 times a week
Cut sugar
8 hours of sleep every day
Gain muscle by 5% more
Breaking your goal down into these smaller tasks, then further, still further, makes it a map of how to achieve the goal. Bringing the goal down to bite-sized tasks – because of their down-to-earth quality and built-in order – also puts things in a healthy balance, a perspective that stops you looking too broadly and missing out some essential detail.
Examples of how to use Mandalart in real life
Now that you have a basic grasp of how a mandalart chart ‘works’, allow me to describe some potent ways in which you can incorporate mandalart into your life.
New Year Planner
Mandalart makes for a great planning tool for the next year, listing the goals you would like to achieve for the year ahead and then breaking them down individually. Ensure each goal is clear and well defined.
This is how a New Year Mandalart can include:
Career: For the work front, identify possible professional goals such as promotion, volunteering for new projects, a new job, or learning a new skill.
Finance: Plan for savings, investments, or paying off debt.
Health: Include fitness targets, eating habits, and mental health practices like box breathing.
Growth: What could you learn that would improve your work or help you become a better person? For example, you might want to learn a foreign language or take a course.
Spirituality: Set appointments for your sacred and ordinary rituals such as meditation, yoga, and a brain dump once a month.
Relationships: set some intentions for how you will nurture your relationships with others – directions for new contact or to spend some time with someone each day, such as an hour with my
Fun: Schedule time for hobbies, entertainment, and leisure to have a balanced lifestyle.
(4) Community: Brainstorm ideas on how you can contribute to the greater community (doing volunteer work, for example, or joining in a community event).
The New Year Mandalart is not just ‘a wish come true’ or a plan, as the founders of the competition like to say. It’s also motivation. It’s a visual artefact that shows you what you desire and what steps you need to take to get there. It helps you picture a year from now, providing the tunnel vision to get the job done.
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Monthly Planner
Like a New Year Planner your Monthly Mandalarts can be made at the beginning of any month to set your intentions.
If you already have a Yearly Mandalart, you can keep the centre block in place from month to month, and simply highlight the top one or two goals. That way, you maintain integrity with longer-term aspirations, while tending to shorter-term priorities.
Note that you can leave a number of the secondary block grids blank. In each chart, limit the number of items, as you would when making a to-do list, to keep the chart actionable and not overwhelming.
Here’s an example of what a Monthly Mandalart Planner might look like for June:
After all, what makes mandalart so beautiful is how endlessly adaptable it is, so it’s up to you to tailor each grid to the things that you want to vitalise at any given moment.
The intention is for you to walk away with a visual template of how your month looks and feels, one that encourages the actions you take, empowers you to use your time in creative and meaningful ways, and supports you in being present and intentional in your commitments.
Project Management
The first step in approaching a new project is organisation and planning. Use a mandalart to your advantage.
Put the project name in the centre box and then fill in the pieces along the way, this allows you to break the project into digestible chunks.
Say, for instance, one of my friends hopes to open a small coffee shop. This was the mandala that she formed to help her explore the situation and see it as a whole:
Strategy: Define the unique selling points, target demographic, and business model.
Location: Find good traffic locations, with low competition. Negotiate rent and term of lease.
Product: Decide on the coffee flavors and food that will keep people coming back.
Finance: Create a detailed budget, including startup costs, operating expenses, and projected revenue.
Legal: Obtain necessary permits, licenses, and insurance for the business.
Marketing: Plan for online and local advertising and prepare materials for marketing campaigns.
Supply: Look for qualified suppliers of coffee beans, equipment, etc.
Staffing: Decide on how many people to hire, when, and how to train them.
And this is only one direction in which it can be applied (home renovation, planning a party, running a work event, arranging a wedding, any construction project etc): by listing and categorising different aspects of the project, you can become clearer on exactly what steps must be taken, and what must be done first.
Major life changes
Changes cause stress – whether it’s relocating the family to a new city, or embarking on a new career or parenting path. Often, there is much planning and preparation that comes first.
If you are starting a new chapter in life or are stuck at some point, a mandalart planner can help you to get your bearings.
For example, if you’re moving to a new city, your mandalart planner might look like this:
Housing: look at neighbourhoods that suit your style, and start hunting for a home.
Getting Around: Earth is crowded, so help stake out a good route – by automobile, bike, bus, train, even on foot
Work: If you don’t already have a job, try applying to work for companies in your field.
Education: if you or your family need school or continuing education, ask about the local schools and learning institutions.
Social life: Figure how to meet new people at work, join a club, or just find something fun to do after work.
Finances: Plan for the move while adapting your finances to the cost of living in your new city.
Healthcare: Locate nearby doctors, dentists, and hospitals, and understand your health coverage options.
Get Moving: Create a plan for executing the move, including the packing, storage, hiring a moving company and timeline.
All this information is represented by the mandalart, so you can test yourself and see if you really have covered every aspect before jumping.
Brain dumping
A brain dump is writing down anything you’re thinking about so your brain doesn’t need to dedicate energy and space to it. You put your thoughts down so you can move on to what matters.
And if you’ve made a brain dump before, chances are that it looks a lot like the brain dump template I created. But ultimately, a mandalart planner is also a device for clearing your head, unburdening your mind, releasing your mental load; whatever you want to call it. The idea is that, by emptying your mind onto paper, it will be less burdened with the thoughts and ideas rattling around in it.
It’s kind of a New Year mandalart planner, only instead of saying things you want to do, you write stuff that’s monopolising your attentional capacity at present.
It can be grouped according to areas of your life: eg, ‘Work’, ‘Family’, ‘Study’; or according to things you have to do: eg, ‘Graduating’, ‘Job Hunting’, ‘Exams’.
Study
Mandalart, meanwhile, can be very useful for learning something new, whether it is students going through a course or adults learning a creative practice. It can be a wonderful structure to help track progress.
For instance, when learning a new language, center grid will be the language to be learnt.
Next, fill the nine grids in the side block with target language: grammar in the first grid, vocabulary in the second grid, listening in the third grid, speaking in the fourth grid, reading in the fifth grid, writing in the sixth grid, culture in the seventh grid, and pronunciation in the eighth grid.
The final step is to populate your Secondary Blocks. For instance, you could fill ‘Vocabulary’ with:
Numbers and Quantities
Time and Dates
Food and Drink
A mandalart planner helps you to break learning down by dividing the mandala into eight or 12 quadrants. Instead of seeing too much at once and feeling intimidated, the program assists you in taking one area at a time and covering all the important bases, which can help to make one’s journey less stressful.
Free printable Mandala template
Below is a grayscale version of the mandalart template that you can print out and colour. To receive this template and other exclusive content and resources delivered to your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.
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Here’s what the vertical version looks like:
Using the Mandalart method, you are actively investing in clarity and focus to reach your goals. With each small step that you print out, you are actually achieving your dreams. Revisit, edit and refine as needed! And remember that your chart is alive, adjusting and changing along with you.
However if you have any questions along the way, or get stuck and can’t find the answer in the book, I’ll happily respond in the comments below. So let the plans begin, may Mandalart take you wherever you desire!
Content and Images source: OurMindfullife.com