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1. Start in the center of a blank page of paper.

2. Use an image or picture for your central idea or thought.

3. Use color markers to stimulate the brainstorming process.

4. Use free association to connect your central image with concepts or ideas.

5. Always use curved lines to overcome "linear" thought patterns.

6. Each node of your mindmap should include just one word that best represents that thought.

7. Use images throughout the process to stimulate the thinking process.

I know. Mindmapping sounds confusing. But the basic concept is to stimulate your brainstorming process in order to organize and/or develop creative ideas to problems.

I go into the problem solving process in more detail below.

Problem solving using mindmapping begins with ensuring you have the problem correctly identified.

Many times your efforts to resolve a problem may be hampered by confusing a "problem" with a "symptom."

For example, a shipping firm may discover products are being delayed in the shipping department.

A rush to judgment here may suggest the problem is "delayed shipments."

Wrong. That is the symptom of a deeper problem.

Before you begin the mindmapping process, you need to identify the true problem.

In this example, the problem may be a matter of products coming out of the warehouse late, or paperwork and invoices not arriving on time, or perhaps the problem concerns the management or labor within the Shipping Department.

The point is, the delayed shipments are just a symptom of this problem, and not the problem itself.

Let's assume you determine the problem with your shipping delays is the late arrival of products from the warehouse or suppliers.

Using mindmapping, we would place an image or word that best conceptualizes this problem in the center of our paper.

In this case, I will use the image of a clock face to suggest time.

Excusing the crudity of my mindmap image in this block of text, the idea here is to start with your central idea, and then devleop nodes, or clusters of ideas on how to resolve the problem.

Our central problem is late arrival of product to the Shipping Department.

Using the mindmapping process, we may identify the following clusters of potential problem areas contributing to this issue.

1. The warehouse may be getting "issue" documents delayed by customer service.

2. The warehouse may be disorganized, making it difficult to efficiently pull products for shipment.

3. The warehouse may be undermanned, creating time constraints for pulling product orders.

At this stage you don't know the underlying issues to the "problem." And, the ideas you come up with may not even be relevant.

However, by using mindmapping, your team will be able to come up with areas or specific topics that warrant further investigation.

In your mindmapping process one of your nodes of interest suggests the warehouse may be disorganized, making it difficult to effieciently locate and pull products for cusotmer orders.

Your further analysis of this potential problem leads to confirmation that indeed, the warehouse is in shambles.

This may have been obvious to anybody walking through the warehouse, but its impact on customer service --notably the delay of shipments--may not have been apparent.

Now that the warehouse's condition has demonstrated an adverse impact on cusotmer service, management can determine--through cost benefit analysis presumably--that an overhaul of warehouse operations is in order.

There is a lot more ot mindmapping than I have protrayed in the overview example above.

To fully realize the potential of this powerful brainstroming method, I suggest you read some books by Tony Buzan, or consider a software package that can take your mindmapping to another level.

Click Here to learn about MindMapping and claim your free 24 page report "How To Get Started With MindMapping."