[PirateDave]

4. Sometimes writing UML diagrams works

I found myself doing this more often and find it very useful. I've been using Freemind and it seems to do the trick. http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

[fourier]

Yes this could work for personal things. But it is often you need to represent your understanding of the current state of affairs and propose your ideas, so the UML is a good tool to do it - everybody understand it or could learn in like 0.5 hour.