The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps. Tony Buzan

One, What is a Mind Map?, introduces you to Mind Maps and how they work. It explains the basic Mind Map ‘rules’ and takes you step-by-step through your first Mind Map.

      Chapter Two, Know Your Brain, Unlock Your Potential, digs deeper into the reasons why Mind Maps work and how they actually help your brain learn and think creatively. The better you understand your brain and how it works, the easier it is for you to help it perform to its best.

      Chapter Three, The Ultimate Success Formula, looks at learning how to learn. It gives you a foolproof formula for learning and success that you can use in combination with Mind Maps. With the TEFCAS success formula and Mind Maps you’ll always succeed!

      Chapter Four, Mind Workouts for Mental Success, delves into the world of creativity and shows you how Mind Maps are the ideal tool for quality creative thinking. It also looks at how strong creative skills help your ability to remember things with ease, and gives you important memory principles that you can use with Mind Maps.

      Chapter Five, Physical Fitness for Mental Power, highlights the importance of physical fitness for mental fitness. It looks at optimal ways of getting the right balance of exercise, sleep, and quality nutrition, and shows you how Mind Maps can help you achieve this balance.

      Finally, Chapter Six, Mind Maps for Everyday Success, shows you just some of the infinite ways you can use Mind Maps in the workplace, socially, and in your general life planning. Use the Mind Map examples in this chapter to inspire you and your fabulous imagination, and you can be sure you will demonstrate your brilliance in everything you do.

      Mind Maps wonderfully and dramatically changed my life for the better. I know that they will do the same for you, too.

      Be prepared to be amazed – by yourself!

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      chapter 1

      What Is a Mind Map^®?

      A Mind Map is ‘the whole-brain alternative to linear thinking. [It] reaches out in all directions and catches thoughts from any angle.’

      Michael Michalko, Cracking Creativity

      Overview of Chapter 1:

       How Mind Maps Can Help You

       What You Need to Create a Mind Map

       Seven Steps to Making a Mind Map

       Creating Your First Mind Map

      A Mind Map is the ultimate organizational thinking tool – the Swiss army knife of the brain!

      A Mind Map is the easiest way to put information into your brain and to take information out of your brain – it’s a creative and effective means of note-taking that literally ‘maps out’ your thoughts. And it is so simple.

      You can compare a Mind Map to a map of a city. The centre of your Mind Map is like the centre of the city. It represents your most important idea. The main roads leading from the centre represent the main thoughts in your thinking process; the secondary roads represent your secondary thoughts, and so on. Special images or shapes can represent sites of interest or particularly interesting ideas.

      Compare a Mind Map to a map of a city

      Just like a road map, a Mind Map will:

      

Give an overview of a large subject or area.

      

Enable you to plan routes or to make choices, and will let you know where you are going and where you have been.

      

Gather together large amounts of data in one place.

      

Encourage problem solving by allowing you to see new creative pathways.

      

Be enjoyable to look at, read, muse over, and remember.

      Mind Maps are also brilliant route-maps for the memory, allowing you to organize facts and thoughts in such a way that your brain’s natural way of working is engaged right from the start. This means that remembering and recalling information later is far easier and more reliable than when using traditional note-taking techniques.

      All Mind Maps have some things in common. They all use colour. They all have a natural structure that radiates from the centre. And they all use curved lines, symbols, words, and images according to a set of simple, basic, natural, and brain-friendly rules. With a Mind Map, a long list of boring information can be turned into a colourful, highly organized, memorable diagram that works in line with your brain’s natural way of doing things.

      

How Can Mind Maps Help You?

      Mind Maps can help you in many, many ways! Here are just a few.

      Mind Maps can help you to:

      

plan

      

communicate

      

be more creative

      

save time

      

solve problems

      

concentrate

      

organize and clarify your thoughts

      

remember better

      

study faster and more efficiently

      

see the ‘whole picture’

      

save trees!

      According to Michael Michalko, in his best-selling book Cracking Creativity, a Mind Map: