The idea is that these 'keywords' will act as aide memoires or prompts to retrieve larger amounts of information you are familiar with, understand or have memorized. To be fully effective any mind map, and its myriad of tendrils, will consist of just a few words to focus the mind on a particular subject. 'Like other mapping techniques, its purpose is to focus attention and to capture and frame knowledge to facilitate sharing of ideas and concepts.' - The Business Dictionary.Įach and every mind map will be unique to the subject and, more importantly, the person creating it. Creating one is both an exercise in analytics and artistic creativity and, as such, engages your brain to a much great extent than the simple act of note-taking or transcribing.

Source: mindmapping.bg/Wikimedia CommonsĪ truly great mind map should be simple and, as oppose to traditional note taking (like linear text), information is laid out in such a way that it more closely simulates how your brain actually works.

It is, therefore a kinesthetic means of 'brainstorming' and/or note-taking. It is also considered by many of its proponents as a powerful tool for making and/or taking notes.įor many who use this technique, they find it helps your brain to remember (and think) instead of 'getting in the way'. It can be used for pretty much anything but is a great way of working through a problem (like project management) or improving your memory recall on a particular topic - especially during study. Mind mapping can be thought of as a type of visual thinking tool that will help you structure information in such a way that will help you to better analyze, understand and assimilate information to improve memory recall and stimulate creating new ideas. It was first developed by Tony Buzan (A British Researcher) in his 1972 book Use Your Head. Each idea or fact is written down and then linked by lines or curves to its major or minor (or following or previous) idea or fact, thus creating a web of relationships.' - The Business Dictionary. Mind mapping is defined as ' graphical technique for visualizing connections between several ideas or pieces of information. Given the nature of the topic at hand, this article will include a fair amount of images and videos to help you understand and use this powerful technique.Īnd, just before we get started, good luck on your journey to mastering mind mapping from all at the IE team.

Mac os x mind mapping software