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Organizing A Brain Dump
- 1. Using Mind Mapping to Organize Your Life
- 8. Along with connections of millions of mind maps, the synapses connect and pass chemicals that help you think.
- 9. Your thought process is similar to mind maps because thinking is associative. Mapping helps organize random thoughts and create actionable knowledge.
- 10. Similar to the brain cell, the topic is the nucleus. Add associated sub-topics to evolve the map. Keep related subjects together. When a change of thought occurs, create a new sub-topic and then expand that thought.
- 18. Main Topic (Project Name) Sub sub… Sub-Topic
- 19. Resources Main Topic (scope project) Sub sub… Sub-Topic
- 20. Web space CBT Resources Main Topic (scope project) Sub sub… Sub-Topic Documentation
- 21. Main Topic (scope project) Resources Documentation Sub sub… Sub-Topic Training IT Support Web space CBT Possible link
- 29. Collaborate with others as you generate ideas and organize information
- 33. Map is inserted at top, TOC and text contains all comments, in outline format.
- 36. Dr. Stanley of Boeing Aircraft condensed an aircraft engineering manual into a 25 ft. map. It helped aeronautical engineers to learn in a few weeks what previously took years. Saved $11 Million.
- 37. My Map for this seminar
Editor's Notes
- We may consider the method of trial webs, or mind mapping to be analogous now, this presentation will give you good examples of many ways to use it, and also most importantly, the reason you are here, how to use it in business and as a project manager.
- This is our agenda, and also at the end, if there is time, I will show you actual applications and demonstrate some of the features. I will also give you links to s/w applications where you can download a 30 day trial and be able to shop around for the application that best suits your needs or what you feel most comfortable using. They are all similar but maybe some are more feature rich and some are more intuitive.
- Tony Buzan is recognized as the inventor of Mind Mapping and has brought the methodology forward by writing numerous books, organized a company that develops application software and in fact has formed an International Mind Mapping Society. In the book, “Writing the Natural Way,” (1987) Gabriele Lusser Rico based her creative writing how to book on clustering, or what she called “the Trial Web.” When we talk about a stream of consciousness or paradigm shift in this presentation, she referred to it as the Trial Web Shift. While at Stanford in 1973 she stumbled across the exciting frontier of recent brain research through an article written by a Dr. Joseph Bogen on hemispheric specialization and creativity. The more she read about the two different modes of knowing available to us through the specialized hemispheres of the brain, the more convinced she was that this way of looking at how the mind works had much to tell her about what was wrong with the way writing was taught. She believed that what she termed natural writing begins with wholeness, specifically with the innate human drive to shape personally meaningful, coherent wholes. What was likely to be missing from the traditional teaching of wiring was the deliberate right-hemisphere involvement in this complex symbolic activity.
- At the same time she read a book by a psychiatrist named Anton Ehrenzweig, entitled The Hidden Order of Art, which showed a complex diagram that looked like a road map. It was what he believed happened during creative thought. She experimented with what a creative search might look like and developed the map and clustered, electrified by the connections in her head that spilled and radiated outward from the center. As she continued to cluster, she experienced a shift from a sense of randomness to a sense of direction in all this welter, and she began to write. The results was a nonlinear brainstorming process of clustering. In 1976 she discovered that, a continent away, someone else had developed a process akin to clustering. That was Tony Buzan, whose book, “Use Both Sides of the Brain” was published in 1976. He called the process: Mapping. She believed that clustering and mapping were put to different uses but two people an ocean apart had arrived independently at the same idea.
- This is an example of the Tony Buzan method of mind mapping. He believe using color and one word topics, is the best way to begin the process and that this engages all the functions of your brain. Mind Mapping is a cortical skill.
- I think if we talk about the brain a bit, you will see how mind mapping relates to the way you think and the way the brain functions. The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons, each of which forms about 1000 million synapses. Neurons are similar to other cells in having common molecular machinery for cellular function, but they have the unique ability to communicate rapidly with one another over great distances and with great precision. The Neuron has a cell, dendrites extend upward, which are the receivers, and an axon that extends downward, which contain the synaptic transmitters that attach to the dendrite synaptic receivers.
- Neurotransmitters: Chemicals released through neurons – Dopamine, glutamine, serotonin, – become excited and create pleasurable feelings. Neuropeptides – self deprecating thoughts, the brain produces chemicals that make your body respond negatively. Think the way you feel. Thinking creates feelings and then feelings create thinking in a continuous cycle. You are what you feel.
- These connections help you get through your day. At different times of the day, different chemicals pass through the synapses, such al melatonin at night to help you sleep, serotonin in the morning to stop the flow of melatonin and make you more active.
- Associative thinking means, one thought can make you think of another associative thought, and one thought makes you think of another. A cortical skill relates to the cortex. It relates to the way the brain works, which resembles the thought process of the brain. Mind mapping uses the full range of cortical skills. You do not think in hierarchy or linear ways. The mind fires random thoughts and mind mapping helps you capture those thoughts and put them in order. As we go through the slides we will see how using this process of mind mapping, we can find our own fecundity, which is the intellectual fruitfulness of our creative imaginations.
- The nucleus of this map is Situation Analysis. New thoughts begin new topics and sub-topics that relate to the topic, which is a branch. When you change a topic (or thought), create a new branch and topic and continue to expand that thought.
- The nucleus, or main thought of this map, is too much on my mind and the branches categorize the related, or associated thoughts, i.e., things to do, plans to make. When you have exhausted the sub-topics for a thought, move on to the next.
- How many times are we awake at night with our mind wandering and we can’t seem to turn it off. One thought creates another thought. The brain does not sleep and it is then that the brain grooms itself and keeps on working. Especially now with the economical problems we are experiencing, I think a lot of us are losing sleep. Those random thoughts are radiant thinking. This map is what I call Mental Quagmire. We worry about our jobs, our finances, our dwindling equity, the work we have to do at home and our never ending to do lists. If you get out of bed and begin to map your random thoughts, it might look something like this. In the middle is the mental quagmire nucleus. Now we categorize the topics, Finances, things to do, vacation plans, etc. As you establish the categories, which are topics, continue with the entire thought on new branches until you have exhausted it. Once you think you have captured all you can about that topic, move on to the next. When you begin this process, you may see there is a link, which is shown with the red lines. This becomes important later on when we begin to scope out a project – we see where we can link things, maybe stream line a task, or a resource. As we go further with this, you will see for your self how this will relate to your work, by the time we actually get to the point of mapping a project.
- As you continue with a thought, you will find certain memories may surface, or ideas that you never thought about before, which takes you into a new direction. This is your stream of consciousness. It happens because you are focused and your thinking process becomes associative. As you can see, this is a very good tool for a writer, and we are all writers at some time or another, be it a book, a business plan, a white paper, or your status report to your manager.
- Some important writers let their stories just unfold in their stream of consciousness, such a Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road.” The story seems to just ramble on with a sequence of events that just began to unfold. He actually wrote the story in a matter of days on one long strip of butcher paper. You will find that if you can focus on a subject and just let your mind carry you forward, your stream of consciousness will begin to take over, and this is what you may have heard writers say when they say, the book wrote itself.
- As you do this, you may see that you have taken on a completely new direction or train of thought. “ I thought finally I had a good train of thought, the suddenly I lost my train of thought.”
- You may even find your own style. This can be done by simply drawing your map with a paper and pencil, or with s/w applications. These applications include different templates and you will find your preferences (e.g., straight lines radiating, curved lines, etc.).
- For a significant emotional experience, the memory is always there. For instance, 9/11, or President Kennedy’s death. You will always remember where you were at the moment you heard of this. A few experiences are so striking that they alter the structure of the brain by forging new connections between neurons. These changes make it possible for the neural activity that generated the initial experience to be reconstructed, or “recalled” at a later date. Each component of a memory is stored in different parts of the brain (i.e., smells, images, places, music/sounds, etc.). The simultaneous firing of all these groups construct the memory in its entirety. The hippocampus pulls them together. Only experiences giving rise to unusually prolonged and/or intense neural activity become encoded as memories. It is a long process to consolidate the changes that create a long term memory but once encoded, that memory may remain available for life. Attention causes the neurons that register the event to fire more frequently. Such activity makes the experience more intense. The more a neuron fires the stronger connection it makes with other brain cells. Zooming in on an event helps capture it as a memory like a camera taking a snapshot. Attention helps us memorize events by intensifying our experience of them (mapping helps this happen). Learning involves making new connections between clusters of neurons in different parts of the brain. The more connections you create, the better you can use what you learn and the longer it takes you to forget it. Potentiation: Memory and learning generate new circuits. The brain can repair itself and continue to grow and develop throughout life (e.g., stroke – neurogenesis, also repetition). Attention must be paid…. William James (1899- psychologist. Work on attention).
- Begin with a simple idea or thought, as the nucleus of the map. Bring your team together to help build this map and brainstorm the process you are mapping, e.g., implementing a new computer application.
- You know that one of the first things you need is to put a team together, and maybe you need to define the type of resources, both people and equipment wise.
- We know we need documentation, and perhaps it will be online, so we need to get tools and also reserve space on the intranet. We might also want to develop computer based training.
- We need training and IT support. We see that there may be a link now between training and documentation – either one resource can develop this, or the two resources can work together, so we see a link. This will allow us to come back to later to decide how best to handle the training.
- Here is your map while done in an application and a little bit more detail to it. A radiant map is formed in a clockwise direction. We see our resources with branches for the documentation and training and the possible links in tasks and also the support topic shows a link, which might be the beginning of developing a process here – the incident analyst needs to escalate an incident. Who and how becomes the process. There is a brainstorming mode so you can project the map and have your staff brainstorm the topics. A radiant map always goes in a clock position. You can choose templates that let you create maps with various looks as far as branch extensions (e.g., all to the left, right, org chart, decision making, etc.)
- Here is the map within the application with the menus and tasks visible. We see on the right that we can assign resources as well as time frames. You can also use this as a status for your future meetings and you can enter the completion percentage for each assigned task. Notice too, the window below shows notes, which explain the task, or action items. You can export this map to MS Project, and Excel spreadsheet or other applications. I used this for meeting notes and before the members got back to their desks, I had exported this to Word and the meeting minutes were waiting in their inboxes.
- As we begin to refine the project plan, we see we can create dependencies. One task cannot begin until a previous task is complete. Between Testing/Beta and Installation, see the red line with the icon on it – this shows there is a dependency. Also, we could create another dependency here with the installation phases. We can’t go to Phase 2 until Phase 1 is complete.
- Here is your complete plan. You can always go in an change everything, including resources, dates and times. We created additional dependencies here between Installation and training, and also our READY stage – and GO LIVE. A picture is worth a thousand words…. Imagine if this was all written text – it wouldn’t be as understandable. Now you can export this to MS Project, if you wish.
- See the template list in the lower right side. This is an example of a meeting template. You can use this for everything, including your agenda and notes.
- This was a brainstorming session I had with a client, scoping out the documents they needed and creating a suite – when we talked about them we put them into categories. We see that there are boxes around some topics – those would be all the policies that would be created that had to do with Risk Management and Security, such as network policies, backup procedures, and other types of policies and standards.
- This particular option works very nicely with MindMapper by Mind Jet. They provide online space for webex type meetings where you and other members of your team can log in and work. Or use it to exchange or distribute maps, or to store mapped projects.
- Brainstorming mode shows relevant menu items. It allows you to create ideas, then create groups (branches) and then it puts it into a map. There is a timer if you wanted to use general brainstorming rules.
- On some applications you can attach the document relating to a topic and then click the icon to launch that application. So if this was a book, you could attach the chapters. The nice thing about mapping out a book or a process is the option to move things around. Maybe you see a sub topic that would fit better in another place. Then you just drag that topic to another place.
- This is a map for a reference guide for a large system. The guide had to be structured, with categories, or chapters that made sense when presenting the information, and in the proper sequence. The visual map allows you to see the content for each chapter, and section. You may see redundant information that can be linked rather than repeated, if you are writing an online document or file. It also lets you drag and drop a topic to another section. Each topic has a note, so when you export the map to Word, all the comments and notes go with it, so this outline is the skeleton of the book and also the beginning of your writing. In this case, many of the system drawings or figures can be placed in the appendix and then links can be put in your document so you don’t repeat the information and thus, keep the size of the file down to a manageable size.
- The applications all let you export the file to another application. So if we create a map for a book and we enter notes on the topics and sub-topics, when we port it out to Word, it brings it in as an outline document. You can select options such as, putting a gif of the map at the top, including a table of contents, which it takes from the topics and sub topics, as heading 1 and heading 2, and as many levels as you want. This works well for meeting minutes.
- This particular application includes a Gantt chart that will allow you to set the beginning and end dates for tasks, as well as assign resources to the tasks. See the note box in the lower corner. You can convert this to Project.
- Here is the menu for exporting a map to other applications.
- Another suggestion for mapping is to map a book you are reading, or a reference guide, either by chapter, or topic. It is more usable and helps put more order into the content by using some sort of category for the notes. I find that mapping a book I am reading, which basically amounts to putting notes in a map, is a good way to remember part of the book and also can be used as a reference later. It lets you highlight the important parts that you put into the map.
- This is a map I did by hand for the content of this session. My first “brainstorming” attempt allowed me to set some sort of idea order, which I then took to an application and did it again, with more detail.
- This is a map of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism. Sometimes you might find yourself a bit challenged when trying to wrap your mind around something. I find that if I map it and see a visual explanation, it is much easier to understand. This map is shown in presentation mode. Notice the functions at the bottom. If you were looking at it in the application mode, the plus marks could be expanded to show more branches. In this mode, it does show the notes associated with the main topics.
- Here is the theory shown in the application, with all the branches extended and the notes visible on the side panel. The map helps give order to knowledge, rather than just reading a jumbled explanation from a page. It is visual language.
- This is an example of one company’s map for risk management. This map includes roles and responsibilities, as well as policies that need to be put in place, and the types of artifacts that need to be developed. It explains the entire company program and the pieces that need to be put into place to establish this program.
- Information taken from a SME who described one of his work processes and how he at times had to interact with other areas to escalate an incident. Nothing had ever been documented before about his process. So from this, I had to develop work flows and stepped procedures describing his work and at what time or circumstance he has to escalate the problem to another area.
- Here is another map for a book that was just an idea. Each chapter shows some detail about what will happen in that chapter, and at some points are questions about a twist the story can take at that point. It is a good visual display of an idea that up until this map, could be just random thoughts in our head.
- If you write fiction you can also map your characters. Each branch provides more detail about the characters and describes them, as far as how they look, their character, what they think and what part they play in the story.
- The theory of radiated visualization is used in many applications. If this worked in just a linear list, it wouldn’t be at all as effective because you would have to scan down the list. This way, you see it all at once. I will display this…
- The Brain – allows you to create the hierarchy of how you want to access information and displays it in a radiant order, which makes most sense to you. This one is my own hierarchy with nodes for personal topics, creative writing, and business writing. You can attach an icon for an URL, or a document, or photo on each topic.