Brainstorming and mind mapping tips

Are you the type of person who finds it easy to interpret your thoughts using doodles? Perhaps you are the type of person who makes endless lists and timelines to capture your ideas. Or perhaps you rely on to-do lusts that never get done for lack of time, will or coordination with other ideas.

There is another method to structure your thoughts, one that you might have heard of, which has been getting the thumbs-up from various thinkers and the intelligentsia in general. This revolutionizing method is called "mind mapping". As the name suggests, it is a tool to map the thoughts, ideas, and processes related to different subjects in your mind. Some experts have even suggested that mind-mapping tool is the key to unlocking your genius. So if you are all attention now, let’s explore this intriguing way to open your the realms of your mind to achieve greater success.

Tony Buzan invented the mind mapping technique in the 1970s. The tool is a graphical representation that reflects the way your brain works; besides this, the main subjects of your thoughts gain center stage and the themes radiate out as branches and sub branches.

Each branch is a key image or has a key word, which is printed on the branched line. You can add the details to the main branches (read ideas) and radiate these further out. Many people use lined paper and staid black or blue colored inks for mind mapping. This looks pretty boring. In order to make your notes more attractive, capture your own imagination and thus stimulate your brain, try using colored inks, music and charge your imagination further. Suddenly, recording your thoughts and taking notes will be more exciting and fun.

Real-life Mind Mapping Applications

Mind mapping is especially worthwhile for professionals in the education sector such as professors, teachers, and research students. A mind mapping tool can be an invaluable helping hand for people who deal with large amounts of detailed data on a regular basis. That is what make sit ideal for brainstorming. Five or ten people will come up with five or ten approaches to a given situation. Mind mapping helps organize the various branches of thought and build relationships between them, leading to a more effective way of choosing a course of action.

The beauty of mind mapping technique is that it combines the thinking of both left and right brain. Translated into simple English, this means that you will be able to remember information better and your brain shall also find recording and processing information faster, thus increasing your recall rate.

Actually, a mind map is just a simple flow chart of the information you know about a given subject. If you own an online business or if you are in the teaching profession, then a manually drawn mind map or a mind map tool, such as mind mapping software, can provide you the expertise to make an inventory of what you know and what you need to know about a particular subject. That's where brainstorming again kicks in, to fill in the gaps of knowledge and extend the map.

Using Mind Mapping Software

A key benefit of mind mapping software is that it helps you organize information in a hierarchical manner; this is not possible with simple lists. The tree-like structure helps you get a better grasp the information you have assembled and thus helps you organize your thoughts and capture the details. The added advantage of mind mapping software is how you can interlink various streams of information on various maps.

You may observe that information stored in a mind mapping tool or software is easily available and ready for use, as you require. This method has a variety of uses, allowing you to integrate the information in your mind map with other applications, particularly useful when combined with brainstorming software or timeline software, or when brainstorming results in new branches that need to be added to your mind map.

Since our memory works on the basis of association with various factors, a single idea has the potential of being linked to your mind in a multitude of ways. What mind mapping really does, and rather effectively, is to allow associations and links to be created, recorded, and thereby strengthened. They can also be duplicated in numerous ways, using different starting points for the branches of information.

Remember, your mind, our minds remember keywords and pictorial representations better than sentences. This way, you are able to not just create a better recall value but also accommodate a lot more information on a single piece of paper or computer screen.