Mind Mapping Changed My Life — It Could Change Yours
Why you should try it out — or try it out again.
In early May 1968, while student riots were taking place in Paris, Reggie Dwight was adopting the stage name of Elton John and the first peace talks between the USA and North Vietnam were taking place in Paris, I was spending hours upstairs in the new library of the University of York, UK.
A 3rd year undergraduate, I was studying for my final exams in Economics and panic was setting in. I didn’t feel I had command of the subject. Worse still, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. In addition to rereading my course notes, I was taking more Economics books from the University library to study, as if in some way all this extra information would magically become available to me when needed in the exam room. Occasionally I would look out of the window reminding myself that there was another world out there.
At some point, only weeks before the day of judgement, I remember sitting at a large table in the library with Economics books all around me. I felt frustrated and depressed. My revision approach was not working!
I pushed the books aside, took a blank sheet of paper and wrote Economics in the centre. Then I started to write down around the centre the names of subjects that I had studied. I found myself branching from some of them into the subjects they contained and drawing lines to connect them.
Gradually all this began to take shape. Before long, I had an overview of the whole subject of Economics for the first time. I could start to see which parts had contents that felt more comfortable and which ones were less so! When it felt done, I highlighted the areas that were troubling me.
I felt more energetic about Economics than I had for a long time. I used this drawing to inform my subsequent revision and reached the exam less stressed and achieved a good result.
I found this approach of drawing out ideas and information to be both fun and useful and continued to apply it. In the early 1970’s, I discovered that what I was doing was a recognised practice and had been given the name ‘Mind Mapping’ by Tony Buzan. Over the years it has become a core thinking tool for me in all walks of life. I love to share it with others. It is the first thinking tool we teach/demonstrate on our science leadership programmes.
Here is a lovely Mind Map about focusing for students courtesy of Learning Fundamentals.
Why I’m a Mind Mapping Missionary
The development of the brain’s cerebral cortex and the thinking that it makes possible is what makes humans different from other species. We externalize our thinking in 4 primary ways — speaking; singing; drawing/ painting/ making; writing. In the context of education or work, writing is probably the most significant.
How do we write down our thoughts? Typically using lines or lists. This approach is not very well suited to
· Moving thoughts around on paper
· Seeing connections between them
· Creating structure and organisation
· Forming new ideas
Nor does it take advantage of the vast capability of the brain, with its billions of brain cells, vastly connected where thoughts don’t run in straight lines, but form neural networks.
Mind Mapping on the other hand enables ideas to form on branches around a central thought and develop in any direction making it easier for new thoughts to emerge and patterns to become visible.
This is great for quickly
· Getting all your thoughts down on a subject (brain dump)
· Brainstorming new ideas
· Pursuing questions (eg for research or problem solving)
· Structuring ideas and information (eg for any written work)
· Preparing for future events (eg meetings)
And all of these can be achieved with minimal use of materials or energy — just a pencil/pen and paper and some brain activity.
And how has Mind Mapping changed my life?
Through chemistry and events.
Chemistry? Thinking — the connection of neurons through synapses — is an electro-chemical event. Different thoughts produce different chemicals and emotions. Over time all this mind mapping will have produced different thoughts which have changed the chemistry of me.
Events? Since May 1968 I have made thousands of mind maps. Some of them affected decisions that I took and thus the sequence of my life thereafter and the events which resulted.
Which makes me think — I wonder what my life might have been like had I not had that discovery moment in a university library in May 1968? Would my wife (and 6 week old first child) and I have left London in 1974 for a dairy farm in the south west of England? Would we have started the UK’s first organic ice cream company in 1989? Would I have connected with my new business partner in September 2008? (We spent our first week talking and mind mapping together). Would we have started providing leadership training for scientists in 2009?
That would make an interesting mind map!
Frustrated with meetings that don’t work well?
Here’s a 5 minute mind mind map to make them much more productive.
