Mindmaps Unleashed

Practical Mind Mapping

Arjen — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:17:27 +0000

I’ve been really busy these last couple of weeks/months training people and creating new materials for practical solutions. Right now, I only want to share with you a tip I saw helps so many people every day in their usage of mindmaps.

You see, most people don’t really want to create mindmaps that use images, colors and are fun to look at.

People want to get clarity on the things they are thinking about, what bothers them, what makes them move forward, what holds them back and what they actually don’t know .

All these things are important to people. They are important to you!

That is why I (often without knowing) have been preaching to people they should use their mindmaps in such a way their mindmaps work for them. No point working on your mindmaps simply to create a mindmap. When you do that, the tool becomes a goal and you don’t move forward.

Create maps that work for you. In 95% of all cases, this means you hardly use any images in your mindmap. You only give structure to the thoughts, ideas and information you have in your head. You combine this with the information that floats around you.

For me, this results in visual maps that give me overview. I might call them practical mindmaps. I could also call them summaps (summary maps) that summarize the information into practical knowledge I can use to move forward.

You do this as well. Create practical overviews. I don’t really care how you like to call them. Call them mindmaps, visualmaps, concept maps, idea maps of summaps. The name and the (software) tool are the least important, the result is what counts.

Imagine yourself setting at your desk… looking at the map you just created and finally understanding your life, business or personal situation. You see in one overview the path you have to follow to create the results you are looking for.

At that single moment in time, you don’t think about a name to describe the technique that led you to this overview. You simply want to move forward… because you now know how to.

That is the feeling I give people when I mentor them into creating practical overviews.

That is the feeling I want you to experience.

Create practical overviews and you are on your way to realizing that!

Would You Outsource Your Mindmap Creation?

Arjen — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:10:00 +0000

You probably create your mindmaps yourself. You may even be working together with others on mindmaps. Bottom line: You are working on the mindmaps you need and use.

Here’s something to think about.

Do you remember creating book reports when you were in school? I do and I know that I didn’t really like to create them. I love(d) to read books, yet writing a report on them while and after reading… not the most interesting thing to do for me.

So what did I and many others in my school do? We exchanged our reports and re-wrote them in our own words (if we had to hand them over to the teacher).

We basically used the reports of others to create our own.

Why shouldn’t we do this in using mindmaps?

I know that a couple of years ago there was a person selling summaries of (business/management/marketing/self-help) books in mindmap format. This idea is really great! You don’t have to read the book. In fact, you don’t have to read an entire summary of a book that is usually a couple of pages!

You just take the mindmap on a single sheet and you read and study that! Any thing not clear? Just read the chapter or paragraph in the book then.

From that one sheet, you learned about the entire book content.

I have not yet seen mindmaps of study books that often (online). I know students I work with are creating them. The only thing is that they usually keep them for themselves. There is not yet a good deal of mindmap-exchange-traffic between students. Probably because the mindmaps are personal pieces and not written to work that well for others.

Would you use the mindmaps other people created on reports or books they read and use them?

Why (not)?

One step further: Would you hand over a important report and have someone else create the mindmap for you?

You would basically be out-tasking your mindmap creation this way.

Who has any experience with this?

I would love to hear your experiences and thoughts on this.

Mindmaps, Mainstream, Really?

Arjen — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:00:59 +0000

Many people are, and have been talking about when and if Mind Mapping will go mainstream soon. After further investigation, I want to give you my thoughts on it (again).

Some of things I hear when my students and I talk about mindmaps are this:

This is a personal tool!
Wow, this looks a lot like the way I make notes already
This method is not clear, I can’t use this. People won’t take me serious!!!
Can I really use this with my team members?

Different people, different opinions. Some love mindmaps, others get frustrated and really hate them.

Now combine this with things very mainstream like coffee and Windows computers:

Coffee

Great, don’t want to leave my home before my cup of coffee
Coffee is my way of relaxing
I discuss most of my project details near the coffee machine
I hate coffee. I can’t drink it!

Windows computers

I have a love-hate relationship with my PC
I only use it at work because I have to
Windows is great, I love the entire system
MAC is everything, Windows is evil

I think Windows computers and coffee are pretty mainstream. Nearly everybody uses it one way or the other.

Mind mapping is not that main stream yet, although it has the characteristics. You have people who love it and who hate it. You have some people who have to use it. There are people who use a method that resembles mindmaps.

According to the Buzan organization, there are hundreds of millions of people using mindmaps. I would say this makes mindmaps already a main stream tool. It might not be as mainstream as coffee, but it is certainly not some small technique a couple of million people all around the world use. It mindmaps are not a big mainstream tool, they represent definitely a sub culture in information management.

Just think of mindmap users as the Senseo drinkers in the coffee world. They are drinking coffee, except a different brand. We, the mindmap community, might even become as big as the Starbucks coffee drinkers one day, if more people start to understand and use mindmaps. I see an important role in this for me and you!

Perhaps you can ask people around you the next couple of days if they ever heard of mindmaps or they recognize the mindmap shape (you probably have a mindmap with you all the time, right ?)

Mind mapping is one of the first visual thinking techniques that was introduced to the main public for organizing their information. From that moment on, more and more people started to use it.

I don’t think we should ask the question if or when mind mapping will go mainstream. It will. Visual thinking is already being used in mainstream.

We now have the tools and the techniques to use it. We are able to express ourselves in a visual format much easier than 20 years ago. People will benefit more from this everyday.

The moment visual thinking is mainstream, the mindmap will be one of the prominent, easiest and powerful (personal) tools in the visual thinking arena.

80/20? More like 95/5!

Arjen — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:32:30 +0000

I’m sure you heard before of the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule (or principle).

This principle tells us that 20% of what we do accounts for 80% of our outcome. This is of course an average number. There are numbers that tell us there is an 70/30 60/40 or a 99/1 ratio. The interesting thing is that in nature the majority of these ratios is unevenly divided. Balance tends to lean towards 100/0 in stead of 50/50.

Today, I want to make you more aware of this powerful principle in mind mapping.

You know already that a mindmap allows you to present huge amounts of information on a single sheet of paper. This is because we group the information, remove words that are not needed and we have powerful associations with the words we use.

In fact, the most powerful mindmaps are the ones that show you only a few words and images. These words and images are keys that open up massive amounts of information in your head. And of course, at the same time, the mindmap itself becomes an image that you remember and that gives you access to information stored in your map and your brain.

The moment you understand this, you will no longer create mindmaps that store too many words and images.

I’ve seen these maps, you’ve seen them: The mindmaps that can’t be read when you zoom to view the entire map…

These maps are nice, but usually not that interesting for your brain. They not only give access to huge amounts of information. The creator of the map just wanted to cram every piece of information into the map as well!

The best thing you can do is apply the 80/20 rule to your map.

I am sure you don’t need all those words. And even if you do… just move the majority of the words on a node to the notes section! You won’t lose the words, yet you won’t see them immediately as well. This clears the mindmap and helps you to GAIN OVERVIEW.

Next time you find yourself stuck with a mindmap that isn’t good to overview, use the new and improved version of the 80/20 rule… the 95/5 rule.

It took a lot of time to come up with this brand new concept, as you understand of course . But now I am ready to share this with you.

From every 20 words you have in a mindmap that has too many words, you remove 19 into either the notes section or you simply remove them.

I’m sure it will be strange in the beginning. It will create more clarity in your map.

Enjoy!

Mind Mapping? Sure, But Not Just Mind Mapping…

Arjen — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:10:22 +0000

As you know, I train many people in mind mapping. But, this is not something I teach them to use as a tool on its own. They have to use it with for instance (speed) reading and note taking.

A mindmap is only a tool. Yes, a powerful tool, but only a tool.

A mindmap must be used together with other techniques. Just by mind mapping, you will not save time. After all, you use the mindmap to create a planning or to gain overview (for example). The mindmap is a tool that allows you to create time.

For others, the mindmap is a tool to summarize huge amounts of information on a single sheet of paper. They save time and increase their knowledge.

Other people create a mindmap to reduce the (mental, physical or emotional) pressure in their lives. The mindmap is a means to create clarity and understand what bothers them.

And of course there are people who simply like to clear their minds by creating a mindmap. They may do this to relax or to get that one idea that helps them move forward and solve their problems.

So many people… so many ways mindmaps are used.

I am sure that you are already using your mindmap as a tool in a longer line of tools that help you move forward. If not… stop and think about the reasons you started mind mapping. What was it that made you stop and learn about this method of information management?

You know I don’t really like the term information management. Still, the mindmap does just that:

The mindmap helps you to capture information
It then allows you to give structure to your information
Because of this structure you increase your overview
That overview makes you see new options
These options are evaluated and result in actions
The actions you take help you move forward
This will change the content and probably the structure of you mindmap

And there you have it…

The mindmap is a tool that is part of the whole. It is part of your personal formula to make you more successful.

I believe that if you can define your own personal success formula, you can move forward faster in life and enjoy life more.

BUT… it all starts with the way you use your mindmaps.

How do you use your mindmap most of the time?

Wordt geladen…

How Much Time Do You Save Using Mind Mapping?

Arjen — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:25:38 +0000

Did you hear that some people tell you that you can save an hour each day simply by mind mapping your thoughts and ideas?

I wonder if the only reason for this is them creating a mindmap. An hour a day is a lot of extra time!

Sure, by using a mindmap you will be more organized. You can create a nice planning and know when to do what. Still… an hour each day is a lot of time for people like you and I. (I mean people who are already enjoying an above average level of productivity ).

A few weeks ago I told you about Tim Ferriss and his 4 hour work week… I wonder how mind mapping affected him in his activities!

My question for you today is fairly simple.

How much time do you save every day (on average) because you use mindmaps? Do you think your productivity was increased because of the mindmap technique or because you use a computer mindmap tool?

Please let me know your answer below:

Wordt geladen…

For me… I think mind mapping itself increased my productivity with perhaps 20 to 30 minutes each day.

That doesn’t seem to be that much… until you understand that this means that it creates an additional 73 hours per year!!!

YES, because of mindmaps I have almost 2 additional working weeks each year that help me to move forward faster than people who are not mind mapping.

Makes you think… it certainly made me think

Enjoy your day!

Many Mindmap Software Solutions

Arjen — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:58:19 +0000

There are a huge number of really interesting, powerful, nice and handy mindmap software solutions. This can be a bliss, but also a burden. Today I want to tell you why this diversity might be exactly what we are looking for in our software solutions.

Last week I saw I huge overview of mindmap tools on a website. Of course I already knew there are many, many tools you can use. In 2002 I created a website that offered about 25 different mindmap brands to people looking for a nice tool. Yes, that’s right, 25 brands, not different versions.

As you can probably understand, that was a lot of work to keep updated and to learn about each tool. While I could find a nearly perfect tool for a person who wanted to do something special with a tool, I thought this had to change.

I decided to focus on (only) 5 major providers. These five could assist in over 95% of all tasks people wanted to do. Thank you for the 80/20 rule

Right now, I only use a couple of tools. I keep up to date with the 5 I sell. I still know quite a lot about many other tools.

The bliss in all these tools is that you can find any tool you need. There are so many!

The burden for many people is that they have to find a tool in a huge list of solutions!

Here’s my advice for you:

If you are new to mind mapping on a computer, or just new to mind mapping and you want to get started right now, go for one of the big names. You can think of for example MindManager from Mindjet or MindMapper from Simtech. They offer very good tools that help you getting the job done.

When you are already using a tool, chances are you will keep using that same tool or update to a new version. The reasons? Here they are:

You created all these (hundreds of) maps in that format already
You know how to use that tool and learning a new tool may take too much time

The first reason is an important one. The second one is something that is not that strong I think. Learning to work with a new tool usually takes about one hour. In that hour you learn how to use the tool basics and you can mindmap your thoughts and projects again.

Here’s my tip of the day for you

Since you and your co-workers may not even use the same mindmap tool (if you have co-workers that also mindmap) you can share maps by saving your maps as images.

You may even export the map to MS Word and your colleague imports the MS Word file. This of course requires this functionality in your mindmap tools.

Do share your thoughts on how you share your mindmaps right now!

Overall, I think the huge number of mindmap tools is something really good for all of us. We can decide to spend few dollars or spend a couple of hundred dollars on a tool. We can find a tool that really helps us with our particular way of working.

Since most people are Lone Rangers in mind mapping, there is usually no need to work together with others in mind mapping. Therefore, you need to find a tool that helps you most and use that!

(of course this does not really apply to companies using mindmap tools and teams working together via mindmaps – but you know that already)