The Mind Maps are diagrams, drawing with hierarchies, created from a central idea or concept.
At the center of a paper sheet or blackboard, you write the concept or problem you want to work with, then you start breaking down the idea with related concepts as if they were branches coming out of that central idea. The branches can be as many as you need and also can have several levels of branches, as far as you want, or you can find.
Divide et Impera
That means, divide and conquer. Precisely, this is what you are doing, dividing your problem or concept into parts, and the more you divide the better you can have a global idea of everything involved and how it is connected to other ideas.
This technique allows you to organize and visualize the thoughts. You can see the whole set or see the smallest detail.
As you can see, this is not exactly a brainstorming in which thoughts come out without any order. In each connection, you have the opportunity of a new idea and after some levels, you may realize you can make relationships of concepts and ideas that initially you had not seen.
But as Brainstorming, you have to let ideas flow without limiting them, just be careful not to get out of the goal you are looking for.
You can do it individually, however, in a group you can have other points of view that you might let pass.
A quick extra tip. A Mind Map can also help you to study and understand a topic, especially useful when you are studying for a test.
You can draw a Mind Map by hand or also you can use specialized software. Personally, I like Mindmeister, the free version is enough for most of us.
In this five minutes video, Tony Buzan, an authority in Mind Maps, provides some extra tips when you are doing your Mind Maps.
I hope you found this article useful, this is the second technique I am talking about in the article on The best way to have a good idea.
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