Tony Buzan

Mind Map Handbook: The ultimate thinking tool


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with speed and ease.

      Mind Maps wonderfully and dramatically changed my life for the better. I know that they will do the same for you.

      Be prepared to be amazed – by yourself!

1 How to Mind Map

       1.1 Introducing The Mind Map

      In this chapter I will answer the following questions:

       Just What Is a Mind Map?

       What Do You Need to Make a Mind Map?

       How Can Mind Maps Help You?

      Just What Is a Mind Map?

      A Mind Map is the ultimate organizational thinking tool. And it is so simple!

      The very basic Mind Map below is a plan for today. Each of the branches emanating from the central image relate to different things that need to be done today, for example, calling a plumber, or doing the grocery shopping.

      A Mind Map is the easiest way to put information into your brain and to take information out of your brain – it’s a creative and effective means of note-taking that literally ‘maps out’ your thoughts.

      All Mind Maps have some things in common. They all use colour. They all have a natural structure that radiates from the centre. And they all use lines, symbols, words and images according to a set of simple, basic, natural and brain-friendly rules. With a Mind Map, a long list of boring information can be turned into a colourful, memorable, highly organized diagram that works in line with your brain’s natural way of doing things.

      You can usefully compare Mind Maps to maps of a city. The centre of your Mind Map is like the centre of the city, and represents your most important idea; the main roads leading from the centre represent the main thoughts in your thinking process; the secondary roads or branches represent your secondary thoughts, and so on. Special images or shapes can represent sights of interest or particularly interesting ideas.

      Just like a road map, a Mind Map will:

       Give an overview of a large subject or area.

       Enable you to plan routes or to make choices, and will let you know where you are going and where you have been.

       Gather together large amounts of data in one place.

       Encourage problem solving by allowing you to see new creative pathways.

       Be enjoyable to look at, read, muse over and remember.

      Mind Maps are also brilliant route-maps for the memory, allowing you to organize facts and thoughts in such a way that your brain’s natural way of working is engaged right from the start. This means that remembering and recalling information later is far easier and more reliable than when using traditional note-taking techniques.

      What Do You Need to Make a Mind Map?

      Because Mind Maps are so easy to do and so natural, the ingredients for your ‘Mind Map Recipe’ are very few:

      1 Blank unlined paper

      2 Coloured pens and pencils

      3 Your brain

      4 Your imagination!

      How Can Mind Maps Help You?

      Mind Maps can help you in many, many ways! Here are just a few!

      Mind Maps can help you to:

       be more creative

       save time

       solve problems

       concentrate

       organize and clarify your thinking

       pass exams with good grades

       remember better

       study faster and more efficiently

       make studying a breeze

       see the ‘whole picture’

       plan

       communicate

       survive!

       save trees!

      Let’s compare your brain and the knowledge in it to a library.

      Imagine that your brain is a newly built and empty library waiting to be filled with data and information in the form of books, videos, films, CDs and computer discs.

      You are the chief librarian and have to choose first whether you wish to have a small or a large selection. You naturally choose a large selection.

      Your second choice is whether to have the information organized or not.

      Imagine that you take the second option, not to have it organized: you simply order a dumpster of books and electronic media, and have it all piled in a giant heap of information in the middle of your library floor! When somebody comes into your library and asks for a specific book or place where they can find information on a specific topic, you shrug your shoulders and say: ‘It’s somewhere there in the pile, hope you find it – good luck!’

      This metaphor describes the state of most people’s minds! Their minds, even though they may – and often do – contain the information they want, are so horribly disorganized that it is impossible for them to retrieve information when they need it. This leads to frustration and a reluctance to take in or handle any new information. After all, what is the point of taking in new information, if you are never going to be able to access the stuff anyway?!

      Imagine, on the other hand, that you have a giant library, filled with incredible amounts of information on everything you ever wanted to know. In this new super-library, rather than all this information being piled randomly in the middle of the floor, everything is filed in perfect order, exactly where you want it.

      In addition to this, the library has a phenomenal data-retrieval and access system that enables you to find anything you want at the flash of a thought.

      An impossible dream?

      An immediate possibility for you!

      Mind Maps are that phenomenal data-retrieval and access system for the gigantic library that actually exists in your amazing brain.

      Mind Maps help you to learn, organize, and store as much information as you want, and to classify it in natural ways that give you easy and instant access (perfect memory!) to whatever you want.

      Mind Maps have an additional strength. You would think that the more information you put into your head, the more stuffed your head would become and the more difficult it would be to get any information out. Mind Maps turn this thought on its head!

      Why?

      Because with Mind Maps each new piece of information you put into your library automatically ‘hooks on to’ all the information already in there. With more of these grappling-hooks-of-memory attaching to any piece of information in your head, the more easy it is for you to ‘hook out’ whatever information you need. With Mind Maps, the more you know and learn, the easier it is to learn and know more!

      In summary, Mind Mapping has a whole range of advantages that help make your life easier and more successful.

      It’s time for you to start your first one!