Mindmapping: does it work for you?
By Catherine Nolan
I've been working with an author recently who uses Mind Maps for just about everything (professional and personal). He loves them and they make sense to him.
But I don't get it.
Now I know that's a strong statement, I know that Mind Maps are great tools, my colleagues and peers use them, and we even recommend all our authors use them. But for some reason, I cannot for the life of me, figure out how to do it myself.
I recently mentioned my deficiency to this particular author and he was kind enough to send me a book recommendation and some tips. He's agreed to let me share his thoughts here.
The Mind Map Handbook by Tony BuzanMind you, any Mind Map books by Tony Buzan are good. They are all the same and generally only the first 100 pages are needed. The rest is usually padding about using your memory.
A lot of people use software, but I never get on with it. Doing it on paper makes it harder so I have to think more. I generally use blank paper (lined, if it's the only stuff available) and a four color pen.
Start with a central idea or image and have branches spreading out from it.
The branches are usually curved and get thinner the further out they go. I think that makes them more brain friendly.
Use no more than one word per line and place it on the line rather than at the end of it. That way the line-idea-word becomes one thing and there is less cognitive overhead.
Even better than one word is an image that represents the concept. That forces you to think about it deeply and uses the other side of your brain. The more work you put into it the more likely the idea is
to stick.Mind maps work best when you don't just have trees of ideas spreading out, but start to find cross-links between branches on different trees.
Wikipedia has a great page on it.
I think the best map on there is the first. The course notes example has the words on the end of the branches and the computer one is a bit too clinical for me.
Well I ordered the book (and will be reading this over our holiday break, check back for a review). Am I the only one that seems to have this block? What's your opinion on Mind Maps?
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It took me a long time to get into them. I found that by following the rules to begin with, and then modifying them to make them personal helped a lot.
I try mind maps on and off. Like you I'm fascinated at their claim of usefulness but I haven't been able to get out of my traditional note writing. Looking forward to your review!
Yes - they work for me and I like their style. I use MindManager and plain old paper and pencil. I usually don't think in a linear fashion, so starting multiple threads and filling them in as I go works well for me.
You must have read my mind Catherine. :o)
Perhaps it could be considered a "mindmap", but for me I have found brief notes more useful than forcing ideas into mindmaps. It's all brainstorming, right? :o)
OK, so when is Head First Mind Maps coming out and where do I sign up as to be a technical reviewer?
I love mind maps. A great free web app is bubbl.us at www.bubbl.us
This site is really easy to use and lets you export the mind maps to html. How perfect!
Here is a test of HTML embed code that I created. Since I am on Chapter 2 of "Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML" guide, I thought I'd create a simple mind map of what I've learned so far. It's basic, so no laughing!
If a bubble diagram shows up here, cool. Otherwise, copy and paste this html code into your text editor (I use Notepad), save, and open in your browser. Here goes....
Hey, I have read the book and been practicing since. My verdict: IT WORKS!!! By that I remember so much more from doing a mindmap for 1/2hrs than revising in the 'traditional' methods I used to before. I know lots of people seem to think mindmapping is just brainstorming- it's not-you can check that very easily, there is probably a Mindmapping book in the library by Tony Buzan mentioned above- choose one of the themes and do it the way, you would 'brainstorm' and compare you would see very quickly the huge difference between the two- and that the Mindmap is a lot clearer and hereby easier to remember. I believe that it could help anyone- but I am not saying it does not take some getting used to- it can be hard when you have been learning linearly for such a long time + combined with all the other learning techniques this can really be helpful.
I would like to make a comment on the remark that "computer mind maps are a bit clinical". I would agree from an artistic point of view, however, the big advantage of making a mind map using a software tool is that it enables you to move (parts of) branches to other areas of the map. (without having to erase stuff) So after the initial brainstorm you can create a new order or categories in your mind map. This helps to identify the key concepts of your topic. Organising the mind map often results in new "brainwaves" which you then add to the mind map.
The limitation of a mindmap (to me) is the hyarchy of it. There can be branches which could be equally important to several other branches. In a mindmap you could visualise this with clouds around branches and links between the clouds... however, this seems to be a bit of a work around. It seems "concept mapping" offers more
possibilities in this respect.
I cannot live without mind map. please visit http://pkab.wordpress.com, a blog that dedicated for mind mapping or concept mapping stuff, full of mind map examples.
hope this help you to grasp what mindmapping all about.
best regards,
suryadi