Mind Map Handbook: The ultimate thinking tool. Tony Buzan
of start-up capital? Do you need to borrow money? All of these issues can be plotted out on your Mind Map, using the key words for each of the main things you have to consider. This will allow you to see problems before they arise, and take the necessary steps to avoid them.
As your venture develops, you can use your Mind Map as a constant point of reference to check that things stay on track. For example, very often your finances and cash flow take up so much time and importance that it is easy to forget all the brilliant marketing ideas you had for making money in the first place (ironically, it is these very marketing initiatives that could increase your revenue). But if you refer to your Mind Map on a regular basis, you will not forget any of your initial ideas, and you will be able to implement them when the time is right.
With a Mind Map at your side, you are giving your new venture a head start to success.
For an example of a completed Mind Map on this topic, turn to Plate 6.
Shopping Mind Map
Mind Maps are a wonderful shopping aid. They guarantee that you remember everything you wish to buy, and streamline the entire process. They also feed your brain with a constant diet of whole-brain stimulation as you use the Mind Map to remind you while you shop.
No more the infuriating confetti of random scraps of paper, which fracture your thinking, stress your mind with uncertainty, and as often as not get lost! You could even use a Mind Map to plan out all your shopping when faced with buying gifts for Christmas or other special occasions.
First, draw a central image to remind you of your shopping. Then use each of the main branches to think about each person for whom you are buying. Write their names as key words and draw in some sub-branches on which to put their details. For instance, what are their hobbies, their likes and their dislikes? This will help you decide what gifts would be most suitable.
You can even use the Mind Map to work out the most efficient route for your shopping trip and the best stores for each present. Then, when you actually go out, you can take your Mind Map with you for reference to make sure you remember everything.
Use a Mind Map to shop, and your shopping planning will be faster and more efficient, you will buy everything you wished to buy, you will rid yourself of the nagging doubt that you have forgotten something, and you will never have to make those unnecessary return trips to pick up those things you forgot! (See Plate 7 for a Mind Map on this topic.)
How to Reduce a Book to a Single Page Mind Map
Mind Mapping a book is easy. In fact books are made to be Mind Mapped! This can be invaluable for study. Mind Maps enable you to get to grips with the subject before you start, as well as providing a fantastic study aid to which you can refer.
To reduce a book to a single page, first scan through the book, checking for the main divisions and chapter headings. These will give you the main branches of your Mind Map, which can radiate from your central image. The central image will either be one that summarizes the topic of the book or an illustration of the book itself.
With this master structure in place, you can fill in the details as you go, even though you are not always reading ‘in the right order’.
The Mind Map, because it is a ‘self-organizing system’, will present to you the developing overview of the work, increasing your understanding and comprehension, making your study and learning faster and more enjoyable, and vastly improving your memory.
When you review a Mind Map of a book, it is like looking at a photograph album where you immediately remember vast arrays of information with the trigger of each of those ‘thousand words’ pictures.
Novels are easy to Mind Map. With a novel the chapter headings, if there are any, will probably not make the best main branches. Something else, however, will!
All novels are made up of a number of major component parts, which allow you to condense an entire book onto a single page. These main elements are:
Plot – the structure of events
Characters – their type and development
Setting – the places and times where the events of the novel take place
Language – its general level, the type of vocabulary and its rhythm
Imagery – the kind of images the author provides for your imagination
Themes – the kind of ideas with which the novel deals, including such common themes as love, power, money, religion, etc.
Symbolism – where the author substitutes one thing to mean another – for example flowers for love, thunderstorms for anger, calm seas for peace, etc.
Philosophy – some books present a point of view in order to challenge the way we think
Genre – novels can be categorized under different headings, for instance, political, adventure, mystery, detective, historical, etc.
When you Mind Map a novel in this way, you will never again get confused about which character is which, what time is when or what is actually going on! The Mind Map will be like a beacon for you, lighting your way as you progress, and giving you a far richer, deeper and more complete understanding and appreciation of whatever you read.
If you are studying or planning to take further education courses in any subject, book Mind Maps are the ideal way to get that ‘A’!
Computer Mind Maps
Computers can be helpful when you Mind Map! Although it is still your brain that comes up with all the ideas, the latest software can allow you to draw a Mind Map on your screen. The advantages of this are obvious. You can save your Mind Maps in a file and then transmit this information to others. Computer Mind Maps allow you to store vast amounts of data in Mind Map form, to cross-reference that data, to shift branches around from one part of the Mind Map to another, to rearrange entire Mind Maps in light of new information, and to hold global conferences.
Many companies are now using computer Mind Maps for storing and sharing information and for keeping track of projects. Use them in conjunction with handmade Mind Maps – the combination is explosive!
As you have seen, Mind Maps have many and very varied uses.
In the chapter that follows, I will introduce you to Mind Maps as a super-tool for improving your creativity and ability to generate thoughts. First because creativity is such a vital ingredient in our modern lives, and secondly because using Mind Maps creatively reveals a fact about your brain and its potential that will amaze and delight you.
1.4 Making The Most of Your Creativity with Mind Maps
Unleasing Your Amazing Creative Power with Mind Maps
Linear Note-taking and Its Problems
The Worldwide Web in Your Head and ItsCreative Power
The Great Creative Geniuses and Note-taking
This chapter will explore how Mind Maps work through the brain principles of Imagination and Association to maximize your creativity.
Unleashing Your Amazing Creative Power with Mind Maps
Do you feel you are creative?
In this chapter Mind Maps will show you not only that you are, but that you are amazingly creative. To do this, let’s go back to the exercise in Chapter 1.2, on ‘Fruit’. Look back at your own Mind Map or use the sample Mind Map on ‘Fruit’ on Plate 1. There are five