Conscious Owl: Mind Mapping: Brainstorming Everyday Breakthroughs

You’ve just made the most important decision in your life. You have asked a beautiful young lady to marry you, and lo, and behold, she has accepted your offer right then and there! You gave each other a deep kiss with a sudden flush of passion, and she gladly popped on your engagement ring.

Only one problem: what to do? Both of you are busy professionals working 50 to 60 hours per week. Who has time to plan a big wedding? To top it all off, you have a limited budget and are reluctant to hire a wedding planner.

Is there a fun and easy way to get a quick overview, and then build from there? There sure is. Just build a mind map with crayons, markers or colored pencils on a large sheet of paper, or even on your iPad or Tablet.

What Is a Mind Map?

Tony Buzan, who developed a visual approach to brainstorming, which was first pioneered by agencies creating ad campaigns, developed mind mapping way back in the 1970’s. Originally, agencies would jot ideas down on blackboards that team members would contribute, censoring nothing. They had no particular structure. The objective was simply to capture ideas in a nonjudgmental fashion for further consideration.

Mind mapping took this a step further by introducing color and a tree-like structure with a separate branch for each word and picture. It could be developed in just minutes, rather than hours, as more linear outlines might require. Because the ideas were reduced to a single word, it became easy to make comparisons and associations and see larger patterns in a single glance.

This approach to brainstorming has grown increasingly popular in later decades due to the increasing visual literacy of the emerging generation, using the Web, graphic computing and videos in social media. Infograms have become ever more popular, and both Microsoft and Apple have introduced electronic pencils for their tablets.

Why Are Mind Maps Such a Breakthrough?

Now, not only can you think it, say it and write it, you can also draw it. Somehow drawing unleashes our creativity like nothing else, even if we don’t think we are in any way artistic.

Few of us in school had the luxury of art classes, but most of us in nursery school and kindergarten were encouraged to use crayons and doodle around. We built deep associations of fully engaging with what we were creating, feeling what we were doing. As adults, paper and pencil bring back fond memories.

Planning the Traditional Way

Traditionally, when we planned something, we laboriously constructed elaborate, formal outlines at best, using only words and numbers. At worst, we had to throw together long essays as to what we intended to do. This all seemed most respectable. Throwing in images and pictures seemed frivolous, unprofessional. Things were not regarded as all that real unless reduced to black and white. In large corporations, creativity was equated with insubordination.

Brainstorming the New Way

Now that everything has been digitized, we can work directly on a computer, or draw things on paper and easily scan it into our desktop or laptop. More and more, when you say notebook, people think electronic. Most of our media apart from eBooks, is full of graphics, illustrations, photos and video. It is much more natural and appropriate to our culture to mix media and break things up spatially. Planning has suddenly become a whole lot more fun!

We can now tackle major projects, such as planning a wedding, remodeling a kitchen or writing a book, in a very simple and intuitive fashion, either alone, or with colleagues, friends or loved ones. We can consciously create our life on a daily basis without making things tortuously complicated.

How Can You Get Your Right and Left Brains Talking to Each Other?

If you have ever seen a cross-section of the human brain, you will find that we have two separate lobes, or hemispheres, joined together by a bridge towards the bottom. It has been thought that each lobe has separate functions, each corresponding to opposite sides of our body.

Our left-brain processes information corresponding to the right side of our body in a linear, analytical fashion, much like a spotlight giving intense focus on a single object, or an observer watching a train pass one car at a time. It is wonderfully granular and detailed, but lacking in breadth or perspective.

Our right brain processes information corresponding to the left side of body in a free-flowing spatial and emotional way, much like a floodlight at night that lights up the patio, but without providing too much detail or an aerial view of a train where you can see the locomotive and every car, including the caboose, in a single glance, but with little detail.

When you put both halves of the brain together, you get a much richer perspective, using both your intuitive and analytical faculties. You can get an immediate take on a situation, and then zoom in and get as granular as you want, just like a Google or Apple map.

This happens when you give equal importance to both sides, rather than prejudicing one side against another. Traditional education biased us against our right brain. The Internet and contemporary media are now balancing the equation by engaging all of our senses at once.

How Are Mind Maps Used to Design Any Project?

Mind maps are perfect to capture the flow of our thought process, whether as an individual or within a group. Ideas sprout like plants, and then branch out, intersecting each other. As the process continues, something like a tree emerges with larger and smaller twigs. Color adds emotional vitality, and the inclusion of icons, symbols or simple pictures speaks to our right brain.

You start with simple questions: What do we want to celebrate in our wedding? Who do we want to invite? What kind of atmosphere do we want to provide our guests? How can we make the event as memorable as possible? You then take a sheet of paper, or a large screen, and draw simple branches with words or symbols above or below, and start having a single word capture a thought.

As the brainstorming process progresses, you start filling up the paper or the screen. You may want to stop from time to time and examine the pattern, making associations between words, images and concepts. Money-saving ideas may emerge around producing the wedding. You may gain additional clarity on what you want to say to the world, even how you want to put your marriage vows.

What Kind of Projects Can Be Created Through Mind Mapping?

All kinds of projects can be developed, from managers on a construction team to consultants and advisors working on a legal case to entrepreneurs wanting to create a compelling business plan. Marketing professionals can roll out a brand new product, exploring all the avenues and channels that need to be addressed. Writers can use the process to forge highly original stories, articles or even jokes.

Parents can use mind maps to explain scientific concepts to their children. Teachers can use mind maps to build highly spirited teams. Students can prepare for exams the easy way, but thinking more actively after lectures, rather than passively plowing through textbooks and hoping to remember everything in time for the final.

Mind mapping works for all kinds of people, male and female, young and old, professional and laborer. It works, not only for visual learners, but also for auditory and kinesthetic learners, as it engages all the senses, as you talk and draw, and well as write and see. It works equally well for you as an individual, as well as with a group of friends. It will seem more like play than work.

What Is the Best Way to Start Mind Mapping?

You can easily fool around with doodling and a notepad, picking up colored pens and pencils. You can also watch a video or two on YouTube. However, if you are like most of us, you could immensely benefit from a real pro, such as Barry Mapp, who has taught it for 20 years in schools, colleges and universities to all kinds of people.

Barry has a careful, well-thought-out process combining audio and video that takes you step by step through the process, starting with observation, then training in reading mind maps, then creating your own mind map with assistance to finally create a mind map all on your own, along with extended instruction on its unique benefits and many uses, including preparing for speeches and job interviews.

READY TO BE FAST?

You will find Barry’s approach affordable and enlightening. Given the degree to which mind mapping will add clarity and inspiration to your life, you might want to get started today.