Review of “Mind Mapping” by Kam Knight
I heard about mind mapping probably a few decades ago but never took the time to really look into it. It turns out there’s not much to it. In a nutshell, you just:
- Place your main topic in the center of the mind map.
- Place subtopics around the main topic.
- Drill down further into each sub-topic with additional details.
There are a few things you can do to help distinguish the hierarchy of items on a mind map:
- Size
- Color
- Shape
- Placement
In addition to just explaining how to create a mind map, the book goes into detail about the various applications for using mind mapping. Some of the applications the author describes included:
- Taking Notes from Lectures or Presentations
- Research
- Brainstorming
- Writing
- Planning
- Creating Lists
- Setting Goals
I agree with most of the applications except for using mind mapping for taking notes from a live lecture or presentation. I can't entirely agree with this application because mind mapping works best for a topic where you know all the details before making the mind map. With a live presentation, you most likely won’t know all the details until the end of the presentation. You could create a mind map from your notes after the presentation, but it would be difficult to create during a presentation.
Mind mapping takes a bit of time to get used to, but it’s an excellent tool for organizing your thoughts. To try it out, I made a mind map in Microsoft Visio to create a brief outline of the main content of the Mind Mapping book:
I really liked learning about creating mind maps and will use them for various tasks in the future. Let me know if you try it out and if it helped you in any way.
