How to Mind Map

Mind Maps represent a task or idea in a pictorial form with a minimum of words. They rely on key pictures and key words that act as 'triggers' to the person / people who have designed it and that will also resonate with people viewing it.

The centre of the Mind Map is often a picture. This picture expresses the central concept of the Mind Map, whether it's a task that you need to perform, a presentation you are giving, a plan for a book you want to write or an outline of a book you've read, the Mind Map breaks down complex ideas into a series of logical and intuitive branches.

Each branch contains a major idea that supports the central concept and branches, further, to the minor ideas that support the major ones.

The use of colours helps you to visually associate ideas with colours - something our brains are very adept at doing, and this is further enhanced by the images. Where appropriate, including humour makes the Mind Map even more interesting so your brain really latches on to the concepts and remembers them.

Start with the subject of the Mind Map at the centre, using shape, colours, and an image to make it interesting and memorable.

Now add the first level branches. If your program supports "Rainbow Coloring" or similar automatic colouring of branches, this is an easy way to have colourful Mind Maps every time.

The first level branches are often called the "Basic Ordering Ideas" or BOIs. Normally you are best to have between 5 and 9 BOIs, as this is the number that your brain is designed to deal with best in short term working memory. Make them colourful and interesting shapes and use images to engage your "right brain" intelligence.

When you are brainstorming ideas, it is good to use either one or two words per branch because when you focus on that word, you will build more associations that relate to the word.

When you are summarizing material, you may find it helpful to use a short phrase on a branch and use it more as a linking of completed thoughts and ideas. This is also a valid way of creating your Mind Maps, but I would recommend using single words wherever possible, as it really does engage your brain more effectively. It may take more effort to start with, but it is well worth it.

If you are giving a presentation from a Mind Map, having single words on the branches makes it easier to keep the presentation flowing.

Sometimes it seems difficult to choose which word should be the parent branch versus a child branch.

As a rule of thumb, think of each of the candidate words, and how many child branches would be likely for each one. The one with the most child branches should be the parent, because it is the dominant idea.

This works in most cases, and generally will lead to the most useful Mind Maps.

Create some child branches with nothing on them. Your brain will scramble to think of ways to fill in those ideas.

If you have the Suggesterator installed in NovaMind, look at the suggestions for new ideas that it will give you.

If none of this works, have a rest - go and do something else, or get up and walk around. Your subconscious will continue to work on finding new ideas for you.

Continue to add sub-branches in any order. The main branches are normally read in a clockwise direction from the top of the Mind Map, and the sub-branches are read from the top down.

There are a couple of useful concepts to be thinking about when you are creating your Mind Maps:

• Blooming - taking one idea and recording all of the direct associations for that idea, creating a whole lot of branches connected to that one original idea.
  
• Flowing - taking one idea and thinking of one association for that idea as a sub-branch, then taking that idea and thinking of one sub-branch and so on, creating a linear chain of ideas.

In different situations, both of these techniques are useful for populating your Mind Maps. Balance the blooming approach of creating all the sub-branches from the title, and the tendency some people have to exhaustively create a complete branch with all its sub-branches, before moving on to the next branch.

Both approaches will stunt the usefulness of the Mind Map as you are forcing your mind into a completely linear, completion oriented approach instead of allowing the natural processes of your brain to follow multiple associations and provide the information as it comes up with it. Let the ideas bloom and flow simultaneously, and capture them as they arrive, placing them on the Mind Map in the location that seems best at the time.

If your software has BranchStorm capabilities, you can use that to blast your ideas out there onto the Mind Map as quickly as you can think them.

You can always graft them somewhere else later if you choose different associations.