This morning I read a story about a former congressman. I would like to share what I learned and how you can apply that immediately in your own life. After all… isn’t life all about experiences and sharing them? Here’s the story.
While in office, the congressman received hundreds of letters and thousands said they were his friend. You could say he was really popular.
Then he lost his seventh campaign. Instantly he noticed that he did not receive that many letters. People did not want to be near him. He said he could count his true friends on both his hands…
The lesson he learned what that you could better have a few real friends than many friends who only claimed to be your friend. In other words:You should prefer QUALITY over QUANTIFY.
This made me think about my mindmaps.
There is one thing I always tell people who start mind mapping. One thing they should stick to for at least a few weeks. This is it:
When creating mindmaps, especially when you are new to this, you should create (on average) only 1 new and practical mindmap each day. The reasons for this are simple.
1. Take giant steps when you and your mind are not really yet used to it
When you start mind mapping, your mind is not yet comfortable using the technique. You may start using it a lot and feel disappointed after a few days. I’ve seen so many people start mind mapping. They started over and over again, only to realize that they could heads nor tails of where to begin using them.
My advice: Take baby steps to create a mind mapping habit first. Then you can increase the number of maps you create and use.
2. It’s not the quantity of maps but the quality that gets things done
Suppose I ask you to take care of a number of tasks, work on a few projects and to assist me in some work. Would you create multiple different maps for each project? Perhaps you wouldn’t if I were to give you all the information at once.
But suppose I would call/email you and send you a number of things to do during the day and week? Most people in that case would create a mindmap on each topic. They probably do this because the mindmap is an overview of one particular topic/project/task.
Doing that easily in a large number of separate mindmaps. I’ve seen people create individual mindmaps on paper and in their computer on single topics, often many maps each day. Before you know it you are overwhelmed by your mindmaps. I like to call that map stress. Most of the time the result is that they stop using it all together.
My advice: stick to one mindmap for all your projects. You can probably manage all the information easily this way.
How to use this right now:
Make sure you create create and use one mindmap for all the projects you work on this week. That’s right! Only one mindmap to overview your work this week. You’ll see how much more efficient you become doing this!
As always, the key to getting this to work for you is to implement it right now.
Don’t delay, act now!
(or are you in a position where you have plenty of time and you don’t have to move forward?)
The lesson for today for me and for you is:
ALWAYS PREFER QUALITY OVER QUANTITY!
Not just in mind mapping, but in life in general.
Let me know how you implemented this small technique and we move forward together by USING our mindmaps and visual maps.
Arjen
(mindmaps work for me)
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Great advice Arjen!
I’m currently using a couple of different mind maps for different projects at work, but perhaps consolidating these into a single map will make these easier. It certainly will allow me to see at a glance my progress on each project.
Quality over quantity is something I use in a lot of my work. For programming, blogging and general work. It’s not how much you get done, it’s how well you do it.
The quality of a single mind map far outweighs the number of quick mind maps that could create in the same time.