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I think I’ve made so many ‘mistakes’ when creating mindmaps… All of them helped me in getting better and better in actually using the technique for reaching my goals and working on my tasks.
When working with hundreds of people I’ve seen that most people go through different stages in creating mindmaps.
And you know what?
Most people make the same ‘mistakes’. That made me think. What if you could receive a good overview of ‘mistakes’ people make. That way you can prevent yourself from making them!
Below is a list of the 11 biggest mistakes people make when mind mapping. Be sure to understand them. When you do, I am confident you are able to improve your mindmaps even more from now on.
- Create a Mindmap Because Of The Nice Picture You Get
- Don’t Understand The Basics Of Mind Mapping
- Have The Wrong Tool To Mindmap
- Don’t Use The Right System
- Keep Your Mindmaps Separated From The Rest
- You Didn’t Think It Through
- Think In Terms Of All Or Nothing
- Use Mindmaps For 5 Minutes And Assume It Is not For You
- Use Words And No Images
- Use Many Images And Few Words
- …
'11 Mistakes' Mindmap by Tim Fulford
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The reason I wrote this article is because I see so many people starting to create mindmaps and other types of visual maps. They love it! (especially during a training).
The sad thing is what happens the next day. They are no longer in the group of like-minded people. They are back at their work place doing the things they did and no longer challenged to grow.
In fact… (and I see this very often), their co-workers don’t know about mind mapping and think it is weird that their formerly sane friend is now using crayons and pencils to write down his thoughts.
Most of the time, only a few comments and laughs are enough to make the mindmapper stop mind mapping. Everything has turned back to normal (and one training day is lost).
I hope you are not one of these people. Later on we discuss this situation in more detail. For now, I assume you have resisted the comments and you continued to mindmap.
What happens next?
Most mindmappers will start to create their own style of mind mapping in a matter of seconds (really, the directions of the trainer are taken into account, but not followed that long).
I gave you the above written pitfalls to keep you on track. It is my goal that you don’t just make mindmaps. I want you to succeed by using mindmaps!
The mistakes are taken from a report I created. This report is 16 pages, so way too long to post as an article here. In it I explain in more detail on all ‘mistakes’ and also give you SOLUTIONS how to prevent them.
What to do?
The first thing you should do is familiarize yourself with the mistakes and solutions to tackle them. When you’ve done that, you will see that your mindmaps will improve. You will benefit more from your mindmaps, immediately!
The next step is to keep on creating mindmaps and reading about how to use it in the real world (not just on paper only, or during a training day).
I firmly believe that most mindmap trainers are very capable of helping people to make a mindmap. Unfortunately, most of them don’t offer the practical tips and applications to really benefit from visual thinking.
Here’s a thought:
Perhaps you have other things you’ve experienced which made your mindmaps less effective. Do let me and the other readers know what you experienced. Let’s learn from each other.
The great thing about this little self-reflection is that you will start to improve your maps yourself as well. At the same time, other people benefit from your thoughts as well.
Enjoy using your mindmaps!
Arjen
Become a visual thinker, not just a visual mapper
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This is interesting and certainly what I have observed when I have been training people to Mind Map. I have produced an iMindMap version of the 11 mistakes because this can serve as a reminder when people are Mind Mapping.
The one I find the most interesting is number 2: don’t understand the basics of Mind Mapping. That is so true. There are so many people who think that they are Mind Mapping and think that they don’t need to learn how to do it. I have had comments from people like, ‘its easy you don’t need to be trained’ and ‘why do I need to go on a course to learn this?’. The answer is simple we need to be taught how to do things, we don’t ride a bike just by jumping on, we watch, we learn, we try, we fail, we try again, we get corrected. The same applies to Mind Mapping.
I thought I could Mind Map until I went and trained as a Buzan Licensed Instructor, then I found out how to Mind Map!
Have a look at the map I have produced from this useful article.
http://destech.wordpress.com/about/mistakes-in-mind-mapping/
This is the link to my article and the Mind Map based on Arjen’s.