Mind Maps: A tool that makes your life faster and more efficient
Google Maps makes navigating faster and easier. We can’t imagine a world without Google anymore. But our daily life is totally screwed. Take a minute and try recalling your goals and your ambitions. Now, try to go back to that time when you were 7 year old. What were your dreams back then? We tend to sell ourselves short by giving in to laziness and procrastination. We also know that we need to have a plan, a timeline, a schedule in place which needs to be followed. Robin Sharma in the “The Greatness Guide” said, “The price of discipline is always lesser than the price of regret.” Yes, heart in heart we know that. And we know we need to become more productive in our daily lives. We need to manage all our tasks in the 24 hours granted to us everyday to be able to achieve our short term and long term goals. But most of us don’t know what are the tasks we need to do. Or atleast you don’t have everything fresh in your head right now. Now you can. Here is a tip I use: Mind Maps.
A mind map is a diagram used to visually organise information. Over the years, many educators, scientists and philosophers as well as businessmen and entrepreneurs have been using mind mapping as a tool to brainstorm, structure their thoughts and act their plans.
Tony Buzan*, a popular psychology author, suggests the following guidelines for creating mind maps:
1. Start in the center with an image of the topic, using at least 3 colors.
2. Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your mind map.
3. Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters.
4. Each word/image is best alone and sitting on its own line.
5. The lines should be connected, starting from the central image. The lines become thinner as they radiate out from the center.
6. Make the lines the same length as the word/image they support.
7. Use multiple colors throughout the mind map, for visual stimulation and also for encoding or grouping.
8. Develop your own personal style of mind mapping.
9. Use emphasis and show associations in your mind map.
10. Keep the mind map clear by using radial hierarchy or outlines to embrace your branches.
After you create a mind map, try to schedule your activites around it. Build agendas and keep deadlines. It is bad to have a to-do list with no deadlines. Also, you can try keeping a done list. Look it up over the internet. I hope you can use mind mapping as a tool to give your productivity a boost. Do let me know your thoughts on the same.
* Source wikipedia.org
