The goal of this website is not making you work to create mindmaps. You and I are interested in letting our mindmaps work for us. Still, in order to get them to work for you, you may have to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the basic process of mind mapping. That’s why I created this practical tutorial.

I will not discuss things like the orientation of your paper, details of creating branches, images & words, why the mindmap is so nice for your brain, and the numbers of colors you can/should/must use. All of this is discussed and explained in my e-book and by other people as well.

Having said that, here we go! Let’s have a look at the Process of Mind Mapping.

Stage 1: Pre Mind Mapping – Identifying your topic

A mindmap is a brain friendly visual representation of information on a certain topic. This means that the topic of the map is in the beginning the most important item to identify. If you don’t identify the right topic, you are heading into the wrong direction. Knowing what you are creating an overview on brings you halfway there.

Ask yourself:

• What do I want to summarize or create an overview of?
• What is the best (single word) topic to use for this map?

To make the map a ‘real’ mindmap, draw or find an image which represents your topic. Put this image (+ your topic in words) in the middle of the map. You are now ready to add your information to the map. This is done in the next step.

 

Stage 2: Mind Mapping – Adding content

Content is added in only two easy steps. First you have to find the content, then you need to add it to the map and create a clear structure.

Step 1: Finding the right words and images

Most people like to add many, many words to their mindmaps. This is fine of course… if the mindmap directions where not telling us to use only one KEYWORD per node (max). This means you have to find only one word or image describing a certain piece of information. You can imagine that this is the tricky part .

In the beginning it will probably take a lot of time or thought to find the right word. Once you are more familiar with this, you’ll have no problem (most of the time). My simple trick for doing this is to think about the first image or word which comes to mind. Most of the time, this is what you are looking for.

To me, finding only one word often seems (and is) limiting me. Sure, you find that one word to describe your information. The problem is probably that you have more than one association with that one word. However, the CONTEXT of the word (the POSITION in the mindmap and the word itself) provides you with enough clues to understand what you mean.

When I really need to the exact words/images to describe a specific situation, I always use my GOOGLE TECHNIQUE (more on that in the mindmap course and the ebook).

Here’s what happens in the mindmaps I receive and see: People simply add (too) many words or even (small) sentences to their first maps. Don’t do this. Restrict yourself to the use of only one or two words. That is why you should think carefully about the right word describing the topic. Then you add that specific word/image to your overview.

But where to put it??? That’s what we will look at next in step 2.

 

Step 2: Creating the structure of the mindmap

In a mindmap (by definition) information is connected by branches. Each word only has one ‘parent’ node but can have zero to many ‘child’ notes. Here is the easiest (and most logical) way of adding the words and images to your overview:

Simply put it right there where you think it should be

But what if you don’t know how to do this? Here’s an example. Suppose you created a mindmap like the one below for a presentation:

What if I ask you to add the word Engine to the overview. Where would you add that?

And the word crashes? Under traffic or fun? Well, that depends on the information the word crashes is related to. If it was a clip showing movie crashes going wrong BUT you can laugh about them, it would be fun. If you talk about real life accidents and what you can do about them, it would be traffic. Come to think of it, if it would tell you something about stopping you from getting injured, it would be located under engineering.

So you see, it all depends on the piece of content you add to the overview.

Once you did that, you created an overview of your information. You may even call it (by definition) a mindmap! Still, there is one thing missing.

 

Stage 3: Mind Mapping – Optimizing the mindmap to assist you

Most people only add information to a map and that’s it. Even if they need to use to map to inform, convince, educate or entertain other people using that map, they stop before stage 3.

You see, the mindmap is a great tool for personal information management. It can even be used (at least on a computer) for managing your business information with others.

The problem is that people who create mindmaps (on paper or on a computer) normally only create a brain friendly overview for themselves. They don’t take into account that the map can or will be used by others.

Once you put yourself in the situation or mindset of the other person or people who look at the map, you create a great overview. Another side effect of this is that you will deliver your message much, much faster and better!

So use this third stage to create a map that is optimized for your audience.

 

Stage 4: Post Mind Mapping – USE THE MINDMAP

Ok, I just had to add this step to the tutorial (after all, we are unleashing the mindmap!). Most people ‘use’ the mindmap only to add structure to their thoughts, ideas and information. Make sure you take it one step further. USE the map. When I write USE, I mean not only create it once and look at it. Create and use it while moving forward!

The first thing you should do, even before you create a mindmap, is identifying why you create a mindmap (so not even what you will mindmap). What is your intention or goal with the map? Is the mindmap the best (visual) format for your information?

It might be that creating plain linear (default) notes are a much faster and easier way for organizing your thoughts. If so, just do that.

If you do feel the need/urge or desire to mindmap, make sure that the map is created in such a way that it leaves room for adding more information. Don’t cram everything into one small area of your paper/desktop, leaving no room for additional information. This will limit you when you use the map.

One of the most important issues in using mindmaps is that you UPDATE the mindmap. The map, when created, is only a tool or means to help you achieve your goal. This means you don’t spend too much time working on the map afterwards or using it all the time. You only use the map to get going, for direction or as a notepad. You focus on what you do and let the map be your assistant. That’s it.

One final thing: Traditional mind mapping focuses heavily on using different colors. When creating an overview of your week or project(s), use enough colors. The map (again) is your assistant, not a tool to waste your time on by perfecting it.

Let your mindmaps work for you!

 

Arjen

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Related posts:

1. 10 Steps In Becoming A World Class Mindmapper
2. Use Mindmaps And This 4 Step Process To Eliminate Presentation Stress
3. How To Change Your Perspective Without Changing The Mindmap Content: Mindmap Calzone
4. Capturing And Overviewing Great Ideas With Mind Mapping
5. Top 5 How You Should Not Practice Mind Mapping

Tagged as: goals, improve your map, mindmap, process, unleash, visual map