The Power of Mind Maps
With visual elements and graphical links we can organize information in a way that is easy to remember. A magnificent technique for achieving this is to draw a mind map
What are mind maps and how to create them
Mind maps are diagrams composed with a central topic and its main elements visually connected with links. It’s a technique to better understand the composition of any subject. You start with a central topic and draw branches with the main concepts related or ideas about the topic. It gives you more freedom to take better notes in a non-linear way.
Why are mind maps useful
When it comes to learning and understanding something it can be very difficult to digest and remember a lot of information just by reading plain text. Mind maps allow you to organize information in a memorable way with graphical links and visual elements such as images that are easy to remember.
Maps are unique for the individual, it’s all up to you what information to write down depending of the type of research that you’re performing. You can enhance your learning by mapping your thoughts with associations and triggers about the subject.
Generate more ideas through relationships
Because of the nature of the maps they inspire you to deeply explore every new concept that you write down. That gives you many possibilities for new connections. At any time you can take a look a the big picture and try to associate any term of any branch with any other and think about how they may or may not be related with each other. By seeing the whole picture you can get new insights.
By writing ideas with their connections you can boost your creativity. It simulates the brain and provide you a way to fast flow your ideas. You have the freedom to jump between branches and keep writing in any of them. the process of organizing and categorizing your thoughts also helps you improve your critical thinking skills.
Your problem solving process can be improve with new perspective of things. analyzing choices in the light of the big picture gives you a better understanding of the problem. You can easily integrate new knowledge to the map and organize information logically.
Abstract and simplify complicated topics
This is something that mind maps have definitely help me improve in my work and in my life in general. Writing mind maps teaches you how to simplify concepts to only their main elements and abstract complex information by extracting the key points.
This is a useful skill for organizing or designing a big project because you can make decisions with the full context of the big picture. When dealing with multiple variables is really easy to get lost into the details. By classifying the elements of the project you can get a high level overview at any time. That way your train of thought doesn’t get too far from the main subject
Learning how to create Mind maps and use them to take notes can help us understand the world we live in. everything can be described as a model. Every model is made of the composition of sub elements. With mind maps we can visually and explicitly represent the composition of every model in a way that is easy to remember.
Any time you want to learn about something more in depth or want to come up with brand new ideas, give mind maps a try. It can provide you many different perspectives.
