---
title: "How to Make a Mandalart Chart (and Go Beyond It)"
description: "A Mandalart is a 9-box grid that turns one big goal into 64 concrete actions. Here is how to make one, and why your mind needs more than a fixed grid."
url: https://buildfirstbrain.com/journal/beyond-the-mandalart-3d-knowledge-graphs/
canonical: https://buildfirstbrain.com/journal/beyond-the-mandalart-3d-knowledge-graphs/
author: "Lawrence Arya"
authorUrl: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vibecoding/
published: 2026-06-05
updated: 2026-06-05
category: "Networked Thought"
tags: ["mandalart", "goal setting", "first brain", "mind map", "knowledge graph"]
lang: en
---

# How to Make a Mandalart Chart (and Go Beyond It)

> **TL;DR** A Mandalart (mandala chart) is a 3x3 grid of 3x3 grids: your central goal sits in the middle, surrounded by 8 themes, and each theme becomes the center of its own 3x3 grid of actions, producing 64 concrete tasks. It is excellent for forcing a vague goal into specific moves, which is why Shohei Ohtani famously used one. But its rigid, fixed structure is also its limit. The Build First Brain approach uses the Mandalart as a starting scaffold, then graduates to a flexible, non-linear knowledge graph that real thinking actually needs.

A Mandalart, also called a mandala chart, is a 3x3 grid of 3x3 grids that turns one big goal into 64 concrete actions, and making one is simple: put your central goal in the middle box, surround it with 8 supporting themes, then make each of those themes the center of its own 3x3 grid and fill in 8 specific actions for each. It is a genuinely powerful tool, because it forces a vague ambition into 81 filled boxes of specifics, which is exactly why the baseball star Shohei Ohtani famously built one as a teenager. So learn it and use it. But here is the honest follow-through: the Mandalart's rigid 9-by-9 structure is both its strength and its ceiling. Real knowledge and real planning are non-linear, with uneven, branching connections, not a uniform grid where every idea must have exactly eight children. The Build First Brain approach uses the Mandalart as a starting scaffold and then graduates to a flexible, connected mental graph. If you want to know how to make a Mandalart and what to do once you have outgrown it, here is both.

## How do you make a Mandalart chart?

You build outward from a center in two layers. The structure is a large 9x9 grid, understood as a 3x3 arrangement of nine smaller 3x3 grids. The steps:

1. **Write your central goal** in the very middle box of the central 3x3 grid. Make it concrete, for example "become a professional in X" rather than "be successful."
2. **Fill the 8 boxes around it** with the 8 themes or sub-goals that would achieve that central goal: the major areas you must develop. These are your supporting pillars.
3. **Copy each of the 8 themes** into the center of the 8 surrounding 3x3 grids, so each theme now anchors its own small grid.
4. **Fill each theme's 8 surrounding boxes** with specific, concrete actions that advance that theme. Eight themes times eight actions gives you 64 actionable tasks.
5. **Work the actions**, not the goal. The point of the chart is to convert one abstract aim into 64 things you can actually do this week.

The central 3x3 grid looks like this, with the goal ringed by its eight themes:

| Theme 1 | Theme 2 | Theme 3 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Theme 8 | Central goal | Theme 4 |
| Theme 7 | Theme 6 | Theme 5 |

Each of those eight themes then becomes the middle of its own identical grid. The word borrows from the [mandala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala), the concentric, centered geometric design used as a focus in contemplative traditions, and the chart applies that centered, radiating structure to a goal.

## Why is the Mandalart so effective?

Because it forces breadth and specificity at the same time, which most planning skips. Vague goals fail because they never become actions; the Mandalart's rigid requirement to fill 8 themes and 64 sub-actions compels you to think through every dimension of a goal and break each into concrete steps, a far more disciplined form of [brainstorming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming) and [goal setting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goal_setting) than a simple to-do list.

The fixed structure is the feature. Eight empty boxes per theme create productive pressure: you cannot stop at two ideas, you must find eight, which pushes you past the obvious into the dimensions you would otherwise neglect. This is why it produced results for a famous teenage athlete building a development plan, and why it works for anyone converting an ambition into a system. As a starting scaffold, it is excellent, and a clearer, more concrete one than a freeform [mind map](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map) for many people.

## What is the limit of the grid?

Its rigidity, which helps you start and then constrains you. The Mandalart imposes a uniform shape on knowledge that is not uniform: it demands exactly 8 themes and exactly 8 actions each, when in reality some themes need three sub-actions and others need twenty, some connect to each other, and some ideas belong in two places at once. The grid cannot represent any of that, so past the initial breakdown it forces real, uneven structure into artificial symmetry.

| Property | Mandalart grid | Knowledge graph |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Shape | Fixed 9x9 | Flexible, organic |
| Connections | Center to children only | Any node to any node |
| Branching | Exactly 8 per node | As many or few as needed |
| Cross-links | None | Core feature |
| Best for | Starting, breaking down a goal | Deep, evolving understanding |

The missing piece is cross-connection. The Mandalart has no way to link Theme 2's action to Theme 7's action, but real insight is exactly that kind of [non-linear](/journal/how-to-think-in-knowledge-graphs/) connection between distant parts. A grid that forbids cross-links forbids the moves where understanding actually happens.

## How do you go beyond the Mandalart? Build the First Brain

By treating the chart as a scaffold for building a flexible, connected model in your own mind, not as the final form. The thesis: the 2D Mandalart grid is a great start, but real cognitive power needs infinite, non-linear mapping, a structure where ideas branch unevenly and connect across the whole, which is a [knowledge graph](https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/knowledge-graph) rather than a fixed grid. Your **biological knowledge graph** is that flexible structure: concepts as nodes, with as many or as few connections as reality demands, and the crucial cross-links the grid cannot hold.

This is **First Brain before Second Brain**. The Mandalart is a Second Brain artifact, a useful external chart, and its real value is in the thinking you do while filling it, the breaking down, the forcing of specifics, which you should be wiring into your own head, not just into 81 boxes. Use the grid to start, then let the structure in your mind grow past it: add the cross-connections, let some branches go deep and others stay shallow, and follow the distant-node links the grid forbade, the method in [how to map concepts in the brain](/journal/cognitive-mapping-how-to-build-your-first-brain/) and [how to connect ideas in the brain](/journal/building-a-biological-graph/). The Mandalart graduates into a living graph. The method for building that flexible internal structure is the core of Building Your First Brain, free for the first 1,000 readers.

## What are the honest caveats?

A few, so this is fair to a genuinely good tool. First, the Mandalart's rigidity is a real strength, not just a limit: for starting out, breaking down a goal, and forcing yourself past easy answers, the fixed 8-and-64 structure is exactly what helps, and a freeform graph can be paralyzing for a beginner, so "go beyond it" means after you have used it, not instead of using it. Second, you do not have to fill all 64 boxes for it to work, partial Mandalarts are still useful, so treat the structure as a prompt, not a quota. Third, the tool versus the graph is not a competition: many people benefit from using the Mandalart to start and a flexible map to develop, so the practical answer is both, in sequence. Fourth, no chart does the work, the value is in the thinking and the doing, the 64 actions matter only if you execute them, so the chart is a planning aid, not an achievement. The durable lesson holds: a Mandalart turns one goal into 64 concrete actions through a disciplined 9x9 grid, which makes it an excellent starting scaffold, and the next step is to let that structure grow into a flexible, cross-connected knowledge graph in your own mind, which is what real thinking needs and what the grid alone cannot provide.

## Frequently asked questions

### How do you make a Mandalart chart?

Draw a 9x9 grid seen as nine 3x3 blocks. Put your central goal in the very middle box, then fill the 8 boxes around it with the 8 themes needed to reach that goal. Copy each theme into the center of one of the 8 surrounding blocks, and fill each block's 8 boxes with concrete actions for that theme. You end with 64 specific tasks. Then work the actions, since the chart's purpose is to turn one vague goal into many doable steps.

### What is a Mandalart?

A Mandalart, or mandala chart, is a goal-setting and brainstorming tool structured as a 3x3 grid of 3x3 grids. Your main goal sits in the center, surrounded by 8 supporting themes, and each theme becomes the center of its own 3x3 grid filled with 8 actions, producing 64 concrete tasks. The name comes from the mandala, the centered, radiating geometric design, and the chart applies that structure to break a big ambition into specifics.

### Why did Shohei Ohtani use a Mandalart?

The baseball player Shohei Ohtani famously built a Mandalart as a high-school student to map out becoming a top professional, placing that goal at the center and filling in the themes and actions, from physical training to mentality, that would get him there. It became a well-known example because the disciplined breakdown the chart forces, eight themes and sixty-four concrete actions, turned a huge ambition into a daily development system, which is exactly what the tool is good at.

### Is a Mandalart better than a mind map?

They are good at different things. A Mandalart is more structured and concrete: its fixed 8-and-64 grid forces breadth and specificity, which helps when breaking down a goal or starting out. A mind map is freer and better for open exploration and showing organic connections. Many people use a Mandalart to start and force specifics, then a more flexible map or mental graph to develop the connections, since the grid cannot represent cross-links between its parts.

### What is the limitation of the Mandalart method?

Its rigidity. The grid demands exactly 8 themes and 8 actions each, with connections only from center to children, so it cannot represent uneven branching, where some themes need many sub-actions and others few, or cross-links between distant parts, which is where much insight happens. It is excellent for starting and breaking down a goal, but real, evolving understanding needs a flexible, non-linear knowledge graph, which is why the next step is to grow the chart into a connected model in your own mind.

## Dive deeper in

- [What is graph thinking? Thinking in connections](/journal/how-to-think-in-knowledge-graphs/)
- [How to map concepts in the brain: build a First Brain](/journal/cognitive-mapping-how-to-build-your-first-brain/)
- [How to connect ideas in the brain: build the edges](/journal/building-a-biological-graph/)
- [Best way to prompt AI for creative writing? Mind maps](/journal/visualizing-the-llm-prompting-via-mind-maps/)

---

Source: https://buildfirstbrain.com/journal/beyond-the-mandalart-3d-knowledge-graphs/
Author: Lawrence Arya — https://www.linkedin.com/in/vibecoding/