Mind Mapping For Dummies

Chapter 1

Introducing Mind Mapping

In This Chapter

What characterises a Mind Map

How to create your first Mind Map

What you can use Mind Maps for

Would you like to know how to create a Mind Map? Before we get started, I first want to give you an idea of what a Mind Map actually is and how many different opportunities there are for using Mind Mapping. I can assure you: you’ll soon find this technique absolutely indispensable.

Presenting Information Visually

If you flip through the many Mind Maps depicted in this book you’ll notice that they look more like pictures than text. Mind Maps are a bit like a tree looked at from above, with its branches radiating out in all directions from the trunk. You’ll also notice that Mind Maps do contain actual words but that these are always reduced to mere keywords.

A Mind Map, for example the Mind Map specimen in this chapter, can contain the same information as the continuous text in the chapter itself. The main difference is that in a Mind Map content is not presented in lines and rows as in continuous text but is actually visualised. In addition to keywords, visualisation involves a sequence of graphic elements such as:

Colours

Symbols

Pictures

Spatial arrangement of branches

The second main difference is that a Mind Map is an individual, personalised map, which reveals the thoughts of its creator. This means that Mind Maps are not automatically self-explanatory, since no two people would create exactly the same thought structure. Nevertheless, Mind Maps can also be understood by other people; for instance, when you’ve read the content of the book or already know something about the topic.

You can use the specimen Mind Maps in each chapter in a number of ways, for example, by taking a quick look at them just before reading a chapter without understanding everything in them or after reading a chapter as a quick recap of its content. This is also helpful if you pick up the book again after a break and want to recall the material.

Give it a try!

Mind Mapping is a technique that you can learn from, work with and put into practice. Let’s start with an exercise. The exercise gives you your first taste of setting up a Mind Map and introduces you to Mind Mapping procedures.

To master Mind Mapping properly, work through the exercises described in the book. Just reading it through without doing the exercises won’t enable you to apply Mind Mapping successfully. Mind Mapping is a technique and the best way to learn it is by putting it into practice. As you start writing and creating your mind map you activate your ‘muscle memory’, meaning that you remember the information more than by just reading it. The exercises and instructions in this book help you to do this as effectively as possible.

Please have the following to hand:

A sheet of A4 or, even better, A3 paper.

A pen with a fine point, for example a biro.

And now let’s get started:

Write the word ‘Success’ in the middle of your sheet of paper (see Figure 1-1).

Draw a sort of frame or cloud around the word (later on you’ll learn about leaving the central word ‘open’, increasing creativity).

To the central concept attach six branches that are long enough for a word to be written on them. Remember to keep the branches quite short to start with – you can always make them longer afterwards.

Mind Mapping doesn’t prescribe how many main branches a theme should have. That depends entirely on the theme concerned. In this exercise I stipulate the number of main branches: there should be six.

Figure 1-1: Six main branches around the central theme.

Take a couple of minutes to consider what you associate with the notion ‘Success’ and what concepts or ideas occur to you in this connection. Write each of your concepts in the form of one (!) keyword on one of the branches of the Mind Map.

For each word consider whether and how you could express the concept in visual form. Then write or draw them beside the keyword on the branch concerned. Don’t worry, artistic quality is not an issue here!

After five minutes your first Mind Map may look something like Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2: Six associations for the theme of Success.

If you now compare your six associations with my associations you’ll probably see that you associate completely different concepts from mine with the theme of Success. That’s quite normal, as everybody has different experiences and a different background and hence also different associations.

Even if you and a colleague draw up a Mind Map of a very specific professional theme quite independently of each other you’ll be surprised at just how different your Mind Maps look.

Taking the Mind Map a stage further

Use a further ten minutes or so to take your Success Mind Map a stage further by drawing sub-branches from each main branch and adding greater detail. There’s no limit on how many sub-branches you can add to each main branch. Just put them wherever further associations arise and extend the Mind Map accordingly.

You can:

Add sub-branches at as many levels as you like

Attach as many sub-branches to the same level as you like

Jump to and from individual themes within your Mind Map

In Chapter 4 I explain just how people think. One feature of our brain is that it thinks by association and by leaps and bounds. You can make use of these characteristics with Mind Mapping by extending your thoughts at a point in the Mind Map where they’re best suited.

Now start the exercise and come back to the book after about ten minutes.

Figure 1-3 contains my own example for this exercise.

Figure 1-3: Mind Map taken a stage further.

Free association or strict logic?

When drawing in the sub-branches for each of your six concepts you’ll make associations which at first sight have no direct connection with the central theme of Success. Figure 1-3 depicts the concept ‘Business’ as a main branch on my Mind Map. With this concept of ‘Business’ I associate, among other things, the concept of ‘Entrepreneurship’ meaning perhaps that I’d like to found a number of companies in my lifetime. From the concept of ‘Entrepreneurship’ I arrive at the concept of ‘Playground’. In my specific case I’d like to found a number of small companies as a playground for my ideas!

In my Mind Mapping seminars I sometimes meet people who weigh up each new concept on the Mind Map and ask whether it really has a strictly logical connection with the theme of the Map. In our case I might wonder whether the concept ‘Playground’ is really logically connected with my theme of ‘Success’. When drawing up the Mind Map in this exercise, try not to worry whether each word can really be traced back logically to the central idea. Otherwise you’ll only restrict yourself and, at worst, write down nothing at all. Allow your thoughts and associations free rein.

A little reflection please

Now that you’ve finished this exercise I’ve the following questions for you:

This first exercise on ‘Success’ took you a total of 15 minutes. In your view, what are the differences with ‘normal’ messages which you simply write down?

If I’d asked you to express your thoughts on the theme of Success instead of producing a Mind Map in just 15 minutes, would the number of thoughts and their depth have been similar?

In my seminars I often get the following feedback when I ask these two questions:

The Mind Mapping process provides a flow of associations and so it’s much easier to add new thoughts.

In this way significantly more ideas are generated than in normal messages.

The structure of the Mind Map allows you to add new thoughts at every point without having to squeeze them in somewhere.

The practice of working with key concepts and branches enables you to penetrate a theme much more quickly and deeply.

The spatial arrangement of branches displays connections and links between themes which could not be identified in linear representations.

A Simple Technique with Many Applications

Mind Mapping involves a couple of easily assimilated ground rules. With this set of rules you can apply Mind Mapping to many situations, wherever information has to be structured and organised. This could also be as simple as a compiling ‘shopping list’ (see Figure 1-4). But you’ll usually use Mind Mapping in more complex areas.

Frequent applications of Mind Mapping are:

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