Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping

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  W ALK edUCatORs & tRaIneRs 2009 VOL 3 YOUR TALK Ideas tO ImpLement • aCtIOns tO eXeCUte Using PSYCHOLOGY & HUMOUR for Results TIM WADE SCOTT FRIEDMAN
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  EDUCATORS M & TRAINERS ind apping Author, consultant and mind mapping trainer Raju Mandhyan explains how mind maps can help you improve your learning, teaching and speaking! M ind Mapping is a fun and simple technique that can help you generate large number of ideas, sort them by effectiveness and applicability. It can also analyse options learning, thinking, and speaking skills. I came upon this technique several years ago while I was conducting a presentation skills workshop for the British Council in Manila. A young At first, I thought she was getting bored. Then I thought that perhaps she didn’t like what she was hearing or probably knew much more than I did. It was intimidating and scary. Curious, more efficiently, structure presentations, Englishwoman with bright eyes and an I walked up to her and expressed my memorise more and store large volumes easy smile sat through my workshop concerns. She smiled, held up the Mind of data, ideas, opinions and thoughts and seemed to do very little except Map book and her notes in a Mind Map on single sheets of paper. Originated keep her eyes on me. She seemed to be form. Later in the session, she shared by creativity expert Tony Buzan, Mind listening to every word I spoke with an with us the rationale and the benefits of Mapping has done wonders for my uncanny ease. the technique. It allowed her to listen Unleashing personal excellence with creative thinking Walk your Talk www.WalkYourTalk.asia • Vol 3 2009 46
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  EDUCATORS &TRAINERS and participate a hundred percent and at down as quickly as they occur. For more on the central theme. Make the the same time capture all ideas on paper example, if 10 ideas flash through our central image a representation of the in key words, colours and images. minds then we may only be able to topic. Use images rather than words. That night, I went home and did some express only half of them verbally and research, called up some friends, and was intrigued enough to spend days less than a quarter in writing. Mind Mapping provides the answer to this 3 Draw the main, appealing ideas as thick branches coming from the central image. Unworry about order, and weeks learning more about it. In a malady: It is like a thought-grabber with importance or relationships. That can be matter of weeks I started applying the eight or ten sets of limbs. Capturing rearranged later. Let your brain, initially, technique and soon became addicted. It your thoughts quickly gives you time storm up ideas. worked fabulously! to analyze and qualify them later. This Today, I apply it for reading, researching, writing, strategising, makes your thinking process more effective. Putting down thoughts in 4 Whenever possible, use different color themes for different branches. managing meetings and most images and colours also enhances This will make it easier for you to powerfully for public speaking. This retention and invites the creative, right segregate and qualify ideas later. At all is how I define Mind Mapping: “A side of your brain to come and play! rates, be fast about mapping and leave colourful, two dimensional, quick the analysis and ordering of ideas to a representation of your own ideas, Here are ten steps on how later moment. to create a Mind Map. 5 thoughts, emotions and options Maintain one word per branch 1 captured on paper in colour and in your Take a blank sheet of paper and lay and keep that word on top of the own pictures. The key words here are it laterally. A blank sheet will allow branch. This one word may allow for a “your own,” because a Mind Map is not freedom and will not let lines influence freewheeling of additional ideas and will a streamlined presentation that can be you into linear thinking. A lateral layout create many more associations. understood well by any person other means you can spread wide your ideas than the creator of the Mind Map. The rationale behind Mind Mapping and still be able to read them later. 6 Add images wherever you can instead of words. You already know is that our senses take in a lot of information, and all this input generates 2 Draw an image of your topic or using at least three colours at the centre of the paper. Three colours and that a picture is worth a thousand words and people remember images better than words. responses, ideas, and opinions that cannot be expressed vocally or written an image will allow you to delve a bit Walk your Talk 45 2009 Vol 3 • www.WalkYourTalk.asia
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  EDUCATORS & TRAINERS 7 Add arrows between images and branches and ideas expressing Benefits of Mind Mapping the logical left and the creative right side of the brain, the mind becomes relationships or commonalities among the ideas. There will always be a 1 Noting and reading only relevant words saves a lot of time. increasingly alert and receptive. 2 persisting relationships or repetitions in Reviewing is graphical and can be Over the years, as an ardent “Mind- your outputs. That’s okay. Our mind is a done at a glance. Mapper,” I have come to realize that volcano of thought not a computer. Mind-Mapping my ideas and emotions 8 Flow with abandon. Do not judge your thoughts. Grab your ideas 3 Concentration on real issues is enhanced. helps me look at them through a deeper, more colorful perspective. 4 Key words are easily discernible Mind-Mapping my ideas and letting first and quantify them later. In them percolate for a while allows my other schools of thought, it is called since they are placed according to importance for easier recall. subconscious to kick-in and gently brainstorming. With Mind Mapping delete what is unnecessary, enhance you are letting your conscious and unconscious mind brainstorm together quietly and efficiently. 9 Use capital letters, print, and be creative with your Mind Maps. Printed words are always easier to read back and during the “slowness” of printing your intellect does a rapid approval of the word/idea. The word and the idea also stick better into our memories. 10 Last but not the least, have fun doing it. Reading a Mind Map A Mind Map is drawn from the center going outwards and read from the outside going inwards. The primary branches form the main points and the secondary and tertiary branches form the sub-headings or points. The branch and its sub-branches are read flexibly. 5 Clear and appropriate associations are made between key words. and internalise what is useful and good. The process also increases my faith in Read clockwise and then convert single words into simple sentences as you go. 6 The brain finds it easier to accept and remember the visually stimulating, multi-coloured, multi- the value of the material and confidence in my own self. And, finally, it has also helped me Structure, sequence, and polishing off write and release two very successful dimensional Mind Maps rather than the language in the complete text can be books, The Heart of Public Speaking and, monotonous, boring linear notes. done later. The Heart of Humor. 7While Mind Mapping, one is constantly on the verge of new realisations; this encourages a continuous and potentially endless flow of thought. 8 The Mind Map works in harmony with the brain’s natural desire for Raju Mandhyan completion or wholeness. 9 By constantly utilising both • www.mandhyan.com Walk your Talk www.WalkYourTalk.asia • Vol 3 2009 44
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  W ALK LeadeRs & pROFessIOnaLs 2009 VOL 3 YOUR TALK Ideas tO ImpLement • aCtIOns tO eXeCUte Colin Syn Deputy Chairman Singapore GP One Dream, Singapore - SGD 10.00 One Vision, One Formula Australia - AUD 9.00 China - CNY 50.00 Hong Kong - HKD 55.00 Malaysia - MYR 25.00 New Zealand - NZD 11.00 UAE - AED 25.00 Vietnam - VND 125,000 for Success! United States - USD 7.00