Five Reasons Why Mind Mapping Rules

Apr 23, 2010
12 Comments

Mind mapping is a technique for brainstorming in an organized but nonlinear way that lets you see how ideas relate to each other. You can do it with a piece of paper and a pencil, a whiteboard and a marker, or with software on your computer or the web.

At its simplest, you write down your ideas as you think of them and draw connecting lines between them to show relationships.

Mind Mapping rules because:

  1. You’re free to go anywhere as you think, rather than be restricted to older forms of topic organization like outlines.
  2. The free-associative nature of it feeds back on itself so that as you mind map, you actually gain new insights and get new ideas.
  3. It’s the fastest way I know of to “splat” out ideas and see them whole (and how each topic relates to others). I can mind map almost as fast as I can think (not that I can think that fast, but it’s faster than other methods of capturing ideas).
  4. Software mind maps can be ported to other formats like outlines, images, PDF, HTML, and Microsoft Word & PowerPoint. This makes them ideal for my main use of them: information & training product creation. I use XMind.
  5. Web-based mind maps like Mindmeister and Bubbl.us are collaborative. You can mind map with others (sometimes in real time) collaboratively, which is completely awesome when you’re working on a project together with others.

I use mind mapping to plan out information products and training programs. Friend and mentor Greg Balanko-Dickson turned me on to the practice a few years ago and I absolutely love it.

I was recently interviewed by mind mapping expert Chuck Frey for his mind mapping training program. The thing about mind mapping is the more you know about it, the more you get out of it, and since it’s often the first thing you do (brainstorming), it gives you the best possible start. So if you use mind mapping, it might be in your long term best interests to get a hell of a lot better at it.

I don’t make anything from this, but if you want to hear my take on mind mapping and get tons of other great training and help to improve your mind mapping techniques, take a look at what the Mind Mapping Insider course has to offer.

  • I still haven't been able to bridge the gap between a physical pen and paper mindmap and a software based on. I always find myself fighting with the software wishing that it could do very basic and simple tasks that are so easy with "normal" tools. I'm curious, which route have you taken? I'm guessing it's software?
  • remarkablogger
    Software, absolutely. Working with pen & paper just turns into a big mess
    for me because I can't edit or delete anything. Not only that, but I can't
    port the information into a Microsoft Word outline or a PowerPoint deck,
    which I need for the creation of digital information products.
  • Love mindmapping, but funny enough, it's not the first place I go to brainstorm with yours truly. I needed this push and listing of all its benefits to bring myself back to the habit. So may good ideas can vanish into thin air if you don't capture them right then and there!
  • Mind mapping is new to me, but I'm interested in it and I will read more about it. Making outlines has worked very well, but I'm always up for other techniques in writing.
  • I use mindmapping when I am trying to learn something new, when I am working on trying to express something old, and to solidify my expertise by chunking information. As brain blogger, it makes sense, because mindmapping works the way our brains work, very cool.
  • It's a technique I was shown a couple of lifetimes ago when I was a corporate type, and I never really got the hang of it.

    But recently I've started using mind mapping to help me with blog post ideas, and it's working well for me, so I'll start to introduce it in other areas of work.
  • I'm currently using MindNode Pro for my novel, and it works great. But when it comes to blog posts and articles, I haven't been as successful using it.
  • I've been using mind mapping in article writing for a few years now, and it's never let me down yet when I need to come up with new ideas or flesh out existing ones. I had no idea there were collaborative mind mapping options, though. Something new to check out.
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