Study Smarter

Note taking success with Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a simple and essential skill for learning faster and retaining information. It’s a creative, brain- friendly way of taking notes. It uses both the left (logical) side and the right (creative) side of the brain. This technique of note taking was fi rst developed in the early 1970s by Tony Buzan and is based on research on how your brain actually works.

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Follow the simple steps to make your first mind map.

Step One
First, close your eyes and see the TV screen of your mind. What shape is it? Lengthways (portrait) or sideways (landscape)? Yes,  it’s landscape. Take a piece of blank A4 paper and turn it sideways. The paper is now imitating or copying the way your mind works. Even if you take your notes in the traditional way in class, it’s more brain- friendly to use blank paper and turn it sideways than to take notes on ordinary lined refill.

Step Two
Close your eyes again. Picture a red car on your TV screen. Where have you put it? Picture an ice cream. Where does it feature on the page? Most people will put these images in the centre which is where your brain naturally starts. This is where you start your mind map. Using three colours, start with a picture or visual image that takes up about 2 cm in the centre of your page.

Step Three
Add the main themes like chapter headings in a book. These are printed on branches out from the central image. All the branches are always curved. All the lines on mind maps are curved because there are no straight lines in nature, so this is more ‘organic’ or ‘brain friendly’. The theme branches are thick at the start and get thinner so the eye
naturally follows the branch. Write these key words clearly in capital letters so that they stand out. Place the words on top of lines that are the same length as the word. (See diagram below and imitate the shape.) This shape mirrors the shape of a brain cell. Write each separate branch in the same colour so that the theme and the words are all one colour. Make the lines the same colour as the words.

Step Four
Add a second level of thought like subheadings in a book. These words should link to the main branch that trigger them. Avoid using sentences. Mind maps are about using key words that will act as triggers for more information when you recall your map.

Step Five
Keep adding information. Use pictures and images where you can. Allow your thoughts to come freely so that you hop between ideas and themes

Step Six
Add dimension to your map. Highlight words, use arrows, codes and pictures. Make your mind map beautiful, colourful, artistic and imaginative. One of the benefits to using mind maps is that you can add to them at any time. Unlike taking normal notes, you can add in extra bits and pieces of information if and where you want.

Did you know? Using mind maps you can take your notes into an exam without cheating.

How in the world do you do this? It’s as easy as a mind map! When you’re studying, make mind maps for as many of your topics as possible. Practice reproducing your mind map as part of your studying. Using just one colour because it’s quicker, reproduce your mind map as quickly as possible, within about two minutes. This process shouldn’t be a neat and tidy process, it should be fast and messy. As long as you can read and understand the information, that is all that matters. Then check it against your original map. Using a different coloured pen, write in all the information you missed, which is the information you need to learn. Then practice reproducing the mind map again from your memory. It should only take you three or four times to be able to repeat your whole mind map from memory. Sometimes you only have to write one word and you’ll remember the whole branch. When you go into the exam and the examiner says you can start, you turn over your paper and as quickly as possible reproduce your mind map. All of your notes are then in your exam and you haven’t cheated. It’s very, very simple.

Recently I met up with one of the students who had been through my study workshop. He had completed Spectrum’s two-day workshop about three months earlier and he said, “You know that mind mapping stuff? I mind mapped my chemistry and I got 93% in my test.” His teachers couldn’t believe it. All he did was mind map everything, learn the mind map and then in the exam, he wrote his mind map over the back of his exam paper. Bingo, all the information was there.

Mind mapping does take practice. Just when you learned to ride a bike, you fell off, you cried, maybe you even said I’m not going to do that for a while. Eventually you got back on. Likewise, mind mapping takes practice, and the more you do, the easier it gets. I find I’m now thinking in mind maps, rather than lists. This is called mental mind mapping which is the next step. One good way to practice mind mapping is while you are on the phone. Turn your doodling into a mind map of what the other person is saying. Have you ever hung up the phone and when asked, “What was their news? What did they have to say?”, you can’t remember any of the conversation? Doing a very quick mind map while you’re talking is a fast easy way to practice this skill.

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Karen