Royane Real
Get It Out of Your Head and Into a Mind Map
By: Gina Hiatt
Introductory comments by Royane Real
Have you heard the term “mind maps” or “mindmapping”? Mind mapping refers to a technique developed by educational consultant Tony Buzan to help create a visual summary of how facts and ideas are interrelated to each other.
When you use a mind map, you jot down in your own words the ideas you want to summarize, and make a visual illustration of all the other ideas that are related to your main topic. Learning to get your ideas onto a mind map can streamline your life, whether you are in business or a student in school.
Mind maps can be a much better way of taking notes in class for most people. By using mind maps you have a better idea of how everything you hear in your lecture really fits together. Because you are mapping out relationships of ideas, you have a better chance to recall the material later.
What’s wrong with taking notes the traditional way? When you simply write down what you are hearing in a lecture presentation, your brain isn’t getting involved in the substance of what you are listening to. Your brain isn’t working hard trying to decide what is important and what is not important.
The more your brain gets actively involved while you are learning and studying, the more likely it is to actually understand the information that is being talked about. When you understand what you are learning about and understand what is important, then you have a far better chance of remembering the material later when you are writing an exam.
When you learn to use mind maps, you can much more easily take notes on complicated topics and remember them later. You can also use mind maps to help you see how various ideas and facts are related. Mind maps can make you become both more logical and more creative, because you while you are organizing the components of your mind map into the most important themes and the sub-themes, you also can start to see on paper new relationships between the ideas that you might miss if you take notes the traditional way.
Because mind mapping requires your brain to think in a manner that is closer to how your brain thinks anyway, it is easier to access information later, even if you only vaguely remember some of it at first.
In the following article on mind-mapping, the clinical psychologist and coach Gina Hiatt gives quite a clear explanation of how to create Mind Maps. She also gives you some ideas about the many ways in which mind maps can be used to improve your thinking and your learning. Mind maps can be particularly useful for writers who are tackling a complex project.
As Gina Hiatt points out in this article, mind maps are also very useful to use when you are faced with a complex problem in your own life. Instead of letting all the ideas in your head move around in circles, start writing them down on a mind map. Let yourself make arrows and circles and connections so that you can see what is most important and what is less important.
By learning to use mind maps, you can greatly accelerate your ability to learn and remember, improve your creativity, improve your writing ability and make better life decisions.
( The above introductory comments were written by Royane Real. If you want to learn more ways to get more productivity out of your brain, download my popular book, How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative Get it at http://www.lulu.com/real )
Feature article:
Get It Out of Your Head and Into a Mind Map
By: Gina Hiatt
Do you ever feel like you have some great ideas, but when you sit down to write them, they're not so great? Or even worse, you can't really get a sense of what the ideas were? In one of my graduate student coaching groups we have been discussing the difficulty of translating partly formed ideas into words on paper. One technique that makes use of a normally underutilized part of our brain is called "Mind Mapping."
What is a Mind Map? Tony Buzan, who created the word "Mind Map" and has written extensively on it, describes it as a powerful graphic technique that makes use of the way our brains naturally work. He says it has four characteristics.
1. The main subject is crystallized in a central image
2. The main themes radiate from the central image as branches
3. Branches comprise a key image or key word printed on an associated line.
4. The branches form a connected nodal structure
How Do You Mind Map? Mind mapping is best done in color. If you have some markers or colored pencils, and a sheet of white paper, you're ready. If you don't, just use what you have.
Start with the central idea that you are trying to wrap your mind around. It could be the big picture (e.g. your next chapter) or a smaller idea (e.g. the next few paragraphs.) Write it down in one or two words at the center of the paper, and draw a circle around it. If there is a symbol or picture that you can put with the words, sketch that in.
The idea is that you are activating the non-verbal side of your brain. The quality of what you draw is not important, since you will be the only one seeing it. The same is true for the ideas you come up with. Don't edit, just put in what comes to mind.
There are no rules for the way to proceed from here. I tend to break rules, anyway. The way my mind works, I start thinking of related ideas, categories, and ideas, which I write in little circles surrounding the circle in the middle. I then use lines to connect them.
Tony Buzan likes to draw curved lines emanating from the center, and write the related or associated ideas on the lines. The result looks like a tree emanating from a central spot.
My technique looks more like a bunch of lollipops.
As you continue to add associated ideas to your outer circles or branches, you continue to draw the connections. You will notice as you fill them in that there are cross connections that appear. I find it helpful to draw lines between those interconnecting ideas.
How Does a Mind Map Help? The brain is an associative network, and the right hemisphere (in most people) is responsible for non-verbal, visual, associative and much creative thinking. Normally when writing, we are mostly making use of our left hemisphere, which tends towards the analytical, one-thought-at-a-time approach. Our internal thoughts, however, are not shaped like that. Thus we have a roadblock as we try to get our brilliant thoughts on paper.
By using a Mind Map as a starting point for thinking, you can bypass the blockage and feeling of overwhelm caused by overly analytical thinking. The Mind Map allows you to see more than one thought at a glance, and in doing so helps clarify your thinking. It shows the way ideas are interrelated (or less related than you thought.) It allows more access to creative, non-linear parts of your brain.
How Can Grad Students and Professors Use Mind Maps? At this point, you're probably thinking, "How is it that Gina writes so brilliantly and clearly? How does she keep all her creative thoughts straight?" The secret is that I use Mind Maps to write my articles. So it's not a high IQ but my Mind Mapping skills that got me where I am today.
Here are some helpful ways to make use of Mind Mapping.
1. Use it for brainstorming ideas for your proposal or new research project.
2. Make a Mind Map of your next chapter or the one you're currently stuck on.
3. When planning your career, make a Mind Map to show the pros and cons of your available options.
4. Use a Mind Map to take notes.
5. Mind Mapping can help keep you awake and interested in your subject.
6. Prepare for an upcoming meeting with a Mind Map and use it to explain your ideas.
7. Use it in teaching, both to prepare classes and for handouts.
Play around with Mind Mapping. You'll find it's a refreshing break from the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other way that we approach many things in life.
Article source: http://www.articleset.com
About the Author:
Gina J Hiatt, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, tenure and dissertation coach who helps faculty and graduate students realize their dreams. With my encouragement, support and expertise, grad students, professors and writers are all able to complete research and writing projects and publish, while maintaining high teaching standards and other commitments.
My web site, http://AcademicLadder.com, is full of self-assessments, articles, resources, polls and newsletter archives. Check out my site to get help with time management, procrastination, writing, creative thinking, career decisions, choosing research topics, teaching and more. Sign up for my newsletter at http://AcademicLadder.com and get the free and unique “Academic Writer’s Block Wizard.”
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