Mind mapping is an effective and innovative tool that can help individuals and organisations improve their productivity, creativity and problem-solving skills. Mind maps are perhaps one of the best tools I use with my students, and also one of the best methods I use with myself too! In this comprehensive guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know about mind maps and how to create effective ones.
Table of Contents
What is a mind map?
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A mind map is like a ‘picture’ of ideas and concepts, often used to organise information and simplify more complicated information. Usually, it begins with a central idea and branches out to other details. Actually, the branches are similar to that of a tree!
Benefits of Mind Mapping
The benefits of using mind maps are endless. They provide a great way to channel creativity, as they encourage a lot of creative thinking! This is because you are actually visualising these concepts instead of studying them in a linear way. In fact, research shows that visual information actually improves your learning!
They also allow you to problem solve better, as you are seeing information and ideas from a different perspective. Really, I often use mind maps with my students who have dyslexia and/or ADHD due to this great advantage. Those with ADHD and dyslexia benefit greatly from visual types of learning, which makes mind maps a truly effective tool.
If the last two reasons aren’t convincing enough, here’s one more! Mind maps are a great tool to increase your productivity, as you can even plan and prioritise your tasks. This will help you accomplish your tasks in less time, which shows us that mind maps can be used for many other things besides academics too.
How to create a Mind Map:
Now that we’ve gone over the benefits of mind maps, let’s go over the steps for creating one. Here’s a simple process for creating a mind map.
1. Creating a central point to start mind mapping
Like I said before, mind maps have a particular structure; that being a central point which branches off into added information.
Some great mind map techniques that could work here depend on creating a good main topic. If you’re studying a chapter of biology, your main topic could be something like ‘Bacteria’. The most important part about deciding what your central point will be relies on how broad your topic is.
If you are going to choose a very narrow topic, it’s not going to work as well in your mind map. You have to think of the central point as the bark of the tree, whilst the other points next to it are the branches.
It could also be a ‘question‘! Don’t limit yourself to just using a word, you can ask a question such as ‘What is the theme of ‘betrayal”’ in Macbeth?’, and create a lot of branched points next to it!
Try it out! This part is really the gate-way to creating the perfect mind map as everything quite literally supports the main point.
2. Connect the branches to your main point
These branches are basically your building blocks, they will provide more information about the core topic which you are focusing on. It is important to keep them concise but informative at the same time. A short sentence is good enough to convey a lot of information!
A great mind mapping tool is to come up with 3-5 other points which will allow you to write more later. Let’s say one of your branches is about how bacteria reproduce, you can then plan on eventually creating another branch next to it with more information. See the picture on the right here for a better understanding of what I’m talking about.
3. Add more branches for greater mind mapping
These sub topics can eventually be expanded on to make sub- sub topics and so on! Every sub topic should provide more detail and context, especially if you are mind mapping for note-taking!
Even though you are expanding on information, it is important that the branches remain simple. Look at the example next to this paragraph in order to better understand the layout.
You should try to create more branches, and sub branches until you have no more information to write on the topic. Remember, every branch needs to connect to the branch/central point before it.
4. Colour code your mind map and add images
You can see in the picture in the last step that different colours were used for some of the branches. This is because a very important part of using a system like this is colour coding in order to get the best out of your mind map!
Colour has long been known to improve the learning process, and having a category with its own colour is even more likely to help you learn something more efficiently! What’s more is that you can also add/draw images near your branches!
This is a great way to further associate the information on your mind map into your brain! Visuals are a god-send for these kinds of things, and you can really let your creativity shine.
If you’d like to know more about colour coding, go read my complete guide!
What type of mind mapping software can I use?
Well this really depends on personal choice.
You can either create mind maps physically with a simple pen and paper (or a tablet), or else you can make use of the countless mind mapping softwares which are available online.
Most of the mind mapping software online creates the branches for you, gives you the choice to colour code and even add images! It’s a great option if you prefer to work digitally.
If you’d like to use a software I like to use, I highly recommend IOctopus! It’s extremely simple to use and it’s customizable using colours and images!
I use it especially when I need something more clear and neat to understand. What I particularly love about IOctopus is that it actually gives you a two week trial period, in which you can basically use all of the features.
If you like the software enough, you can actually subscribe and use this code: 5ZCUDPRB to get a 21% discount. It’s a pretty good deal!
Conclusion
Mind maps are a powerful tool for improving productivity and studying skills. Whether you’re a student, professional, or just looking to improve yourself, mind maps are a valuable tool worth exploring! Grab your pen, paper or favourite mind mapping software and start today!
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