Mind Mapping
Improve your note-taking and creativity

Right now tens of thousands of students around the world are taking lecture notes in a completely inefficient way: writing them down line by line; or, in some languages, column by column.

But the brain does not work that way. It does not store information in neat lines or columns.

It stores information like branches on a tree – on branches called dendrites.

It also stores information by patterns and associations. And to store information the way your brain does – British psychologist Tony Buzan has invented Mind Mapping.

So don't take notes, make Mind Maps. And make them with trees, with pictures, with colors, with symbols, with patterns and associations.

Buzan himself, American writer Nancy Margulies (Mapping Inner Space; Yes, You Can Draw), Swedish publisher Ingemar Svantesson (Mind Mapping and Memory), and Singapore-based engineer (Supervain) have written excellent books on the subject, complete with detailed instructions.

But the main principles are summarized very simply in the world's biggest-selling nonfiction book of 1999, The Learning Revolution:

• Imagine your brain cells are like trees, with each one storing related information on its branches.
• Now try arranging the key points of any topic on a sheet of white paper in the same treelike format.
• Start with the central topic – preferably with a symbol – in the center of the page, then draw branches spreading out from it.
• Generally record only one word and/or symbol for each point you want to recall – one main theme for each branch.
• Put related points on the same main branches, each one shooting off like a new subbranch.
• Use different colored pencils or markets for related topics.
• Draw as many pictures and symbols as you can.