Let’s assume you know nothing about mind maps. First, you want to ask yourself…
- What is a mindmap?
- Why should I be interested in mind mapping?
- How will mind maps benefit me?
- Where do I start?
You will find brief answers here with links to recommended sites to look deeper into the topic.
A mind map can have many uses. To start, let’s consider a mind map for the purpose of making a to-do list.
You can see there is a central topic with each branch representing a specific to-do item. You read the branches in a clockwise direction starting at 1 o’clock. Some branches have sub-branches. One benefit of organizing information in this manner shows each topic having a direct relationship to the central topic instead of using a linear list of bullet items.
You may be thinking, “I can manage this information just fine with a bullet item list”. True. A more important aspect of a mind map is how you arrived at this end result. Editing the mind map for better organization of content is the most important difference between traditional bullet item lists and a mind map. In the example above I also included the list of Responses as its own branch. I chose to use this map to contain all the information in a single location and dynamically update it as to-do items are completed.