Mind Maps Made Easy E-Book

Carla Gatti

• Herausgeber: HOW2 Edizioni
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The innovative MIND MAP METHOD will allow you to increase your PRACTICAL AND OPERATING INTELLIGENCE, getting the most out of STUDY, WORK and PRIVATE LIFE.

This guide, EASY AND OPERATING, is designed for you who have little time but want to get considerable and immediate results. This book, in fact, goes straight to the point, without getting lost in chitchat and theories not very functional to practice.

Thanks to this book you will learn what mind maps are, how their method works and how to apply it to immediately improve your life, your intelligence and your productivity.

After reading this book, within everyone's reach and FULL OF EXAMPLES AND IMAGES, you will be surprised by the results achieved and the incredible new potential of your mind.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

Students of every order and grade
Teachers and Trainers
Manager of each level
Workers of all kinds
Parents who want to better care for their children
Users for various personal purposes

WHY BUY THIS BOOK

To become smarter
To improve in your practice
To improve in work
To be more brilliant, lively and creative in general

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN WITH THIS BOOK

What are Mental Maps
How to apply the Mind Mapping method
How to create and use MM
How to Read Faster
How to improve Memory
How to Think Faster
How to be more Creative and Genius
How to Improve Writing
How to easily learn new languages
How to improve your Leadership
How to improve Problem Solving and Decision Making
How to improve Public Speaking
How to direct a Brainstorming with MMs
How to improve Project Management with MM
How to improve your Persuasion skills
How to improve your Seduction skills
How to avoid Conflicts
and much more!

Leseprobe

MIND MAPS

MADE EASY

Carla Gatti

ATTENTION: All right reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced by any mean without the written authorization of the Publisher. It is strictly forbidden to give this book to others, neither in paper format nor in digital format, neither for money nor free of charge. The strategies and advices in this book are the result of years of studying and personal specializations of the Author. The mere reading of this book should not be regarded as a guarantee of achievement of the same results in terms of personal or professional growth. The reader takes full responsibility for her or his choices, aware of the risks associated with every form of exercise. All information and advice in this book should be received with critical thinking. Therefore, the Publisher declines any responsibility towards the reader and third parties for any damage, to people or property, caused by actions following the reading of this book. The book has an exclusively educational intent and is no replacement for medical or psychological treatment. If you think or know you have physical or psychological problems or disorders, you should undergo appropriate medical treatment.

Copyright © 2022 HOW2 Edizioni

All rights reserved - Duplication prohibited

Summary

INTRODUCTION: Why this book will boost your intelligence

1. INTRODUCTION TO MIND MAPS

1.1. What are mind maps

1.2. The elements of mind maps: colors, shapes, lines, pictures, words

1.3. How to make them

1.4. How to use them

1.5. Other easy examples of mind maps

1.6. Exercise: draw your first complete mind map

The secrets unveiled in this chapter

2. IMPROVE YOUR STUDYING WITH MIND MAPS

2.1. How to take notes with mind maps

2.2. Speed reading and mind maps

2.3. Super memorization with mind maps

2.4. Super learning with mind maps

2.5. Speed thinking with mind maps

2.6. Improving your writing with mind maps

2.7. Learning a language with mind maps

The secrets unveiled in this chapter

3. IMPROVING YOUR WORK WITH MIND MAPS

3.1. The countless applications of mind maps in your work

3.2. Brainstorming with mind maps

3.3. Meetings and presentations with mind maps

3.4. Super job interview with mind maps

3.5. Improving public speaking with mind maps

3.6. Organizing work with mind maps

3.7. Project management and mind maps

3.8. Leadership, problem solving and decision-making with mind maps

3.9. Exercises

The secrets unveiled in this chapter

4. PERSONAL GROWTH WITH MIND MAPS

4.1. How to use mind maps in everyday life

4.2. Being successful in life with mind maps

4.3. Becoming a genius with mind maps

4.4. Everyday life with mind maps

4.5. Wizards of persuasion with mind maps

4.6. Wizards of seduction with mind maps

4.7. Avoid conflict with mind maps

4.8. Exercises

The secrets unveiled in this chapter

5. THE BEST MIND-MAPPING SOFTWARES

5.1. List of the most common and effective software for mind mapping

5.2. Pros and cons of using software

The secrets unveiled in this chapter

CONCLUSIONS

ATTACHMENTS

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION: Why this book will boost your intelligence

“Parole… Parole… Parole…”.Heard again in some TV ad, this refrain echoes in my mind, from the text of a song by the famous Italian singer Mina. We are certainly both very young to remember this song and to have lived in a time when it was popular and played in bars, concerts and on TV. I can quote as well Words, from American songwriter Neil Young: “Words… between the lines of age”.

Do not get me wrong! I do not mean here to tell you about music… but of parole, of words. Words and sentences, long paragraphs and texts…

Why, after reading a book or listening to monologues, at a seminar or during lectures in school, it is so hard to keep everything in mind?

Or better yet, while we may be able to retain a lot of concepts in the short term, in time they fade all too fast.

Not everyone has a good memory, but even those who have a brain that usually works well, with time, forget.

Are we perhaps limited? Must we necessarily envy our computer?

Probably (it would certainly be presumptuous to aspire to such heights) we will never reach the perfection and the performances of a robot or a machine, but do not get discouraged because in a sense that is for the best! A robot or a machine perform tasks they were designed for, but cannot go beyond that, despite the updates. We, on the other hand, possess in our brilliant biological machine known as brain a countless set of programs and endless possibilities to update said programs. In order to successfully access all these functions, we need an effective method. If I want and must remember everything the lecturer said, for example, it is not useful to transform myself into a living recorder.

On the contrary, I will need to repeat the whole speech two hundred times to remember it, and in a short time I will still remember it only in broad terms, until I forget it.

What should I do to retain all the information in the long run?

To access such a high level of cognitive ability and memory, I simply have to allow both of my cerebral hemispheres to work as one.

Elaborating. We know the left hemisphere is the home to rationality and logic. Do you think that is enough? Unfortunately not. I know it can sound counterintuitive, but creativity and imagination, which are found in the right hemisphere, must also be stimulated.

It is scientifically proven. Children have memories like elephants, are more receptive and faster in learning. True, their brain is also younger.

The younger ones, however, how do they learn? How do they remember?

Through pictures! And colors! The feelings these provoke!

Getting older, we make less use of imagination and creativity. This unfortunately matches, in practical terms, with a poor memory in the long term. Is it possible that we become less smart?

This begs the question… is this really all there is? No, of course it is not.

The right tools are needed to also access the functions of the right hemisphere. The union of the two will create an eruption of cleverness and creativity, just like when you were a child.

The tool to regain that primitive and deep consciousness is the mind maps.

I still remember the first time I heard about them. In the courses of marketing and of communication, of team building and of management, many use them to achieve certain performances in a short time.

The method was discovered and popularized by the famous Tony Buzan, a British psychologist who introduced the whole world to his method of learning and memorization. Like all of us, he reached a point in his life where he found himself wondering why it is so hard to retain certain ideas for long.

He went back to the very basics, that is, to our brain. How this incredibly efficient system works and what it is made of. His attention focused precisely on the fact that in the course of our life we lose our creativity, which made us super intelligent when we were kids.

At the cerebral level, information travels through extremely special and complex structures, the neurons. Man. I remember that the nervous system was my favorite out of the whole physiology course. So complex and fascinating. Travelling electrical impulses.

Do we all remember the structure of a neuron? No?

Here it is.

Let us observe its central body and its branching.

Let us try and think: what if the key to use our brain to its full potential was… to see information as a neuron, as a huge giant neuron? We use the same structure our brain uses to communicate, and nothing else.

We learn to decode its machine language.

Worry not, there will be no need for any futuristic device.

Let us try to put on a sheet of paper the information we receive, picturing them as… a neuron and its dendrites.

In this way, we will create a mind map. Through this tool, you will be able to store in your long-term memory every information you want.

Clearly, as any system, mind maps have rules. The rules have been made according to the entity of their benefit. If the memory improves and the cleverness returns “super” like that of a child, it means the system works. I can assure you that, following some tricks, you will too discover how effective it is,

I will not waste a lot of time on technicalities in this manual, rather I will give practical advice. This must be regarded as the typical for dummies manual.

Do keep in mind, however, that if the topic excites your interest (I am sure that after my presentation, this will most certainly be the case!) you will also be able to attend courses. In Italy we have the only instructor in Europe certified by Tony Buzan, Matteo Salvo, who holds courses (for groups and companies). Furthermore, in the last chapter, I have included a rich bibliography which you can draw from for the valuable advice of other experts, aside from the texts by the great psychologist himself.

I will share with you my experience and my progress thanks to mind maps. Also, I will explain to you how to make a mind map.

All you need to know is that to write this book I used a mind map. I did the same for other texts. You will see them later on, when you will know how to make them. Seeing them now would be useless. First, you must understand the method.

Now close your eyes and imagine you are in a room. Concentrate, trying to visualize a bicolor lamp and another one with a thousand colors. Look at them, get closer. The more colorful one represents creativity, the other rationality. Imagine a combination of the two. What comes out depends on your mind. You will see a multitude of colors. If I were to do the same, I would see as many. Imagine that the two lamps represent the hemispheres of our brain.

I will explain how to build mind maps and you will exercise, but except for some very simple rules that you must keep in mind (once gained, they will become a habit), the result, the ideas and images contained in a mind map are exclusively subjective. You are communicating with your own mind, therefore what will come out of it will be its representation of a given topic or idea. In this area, obviously, there can be rules.

The only way to improve is to allow both hemispheres of our brain to work. From a strictly logical standpoint, not doing it would be a half-finished job.

Step by step you will get to a full grasp of the topic, we will get there by stages, with ease and doing a lot of exercise.

My aim is not to make you into an artist like Michelangelo or Leonardo (though later on in the book these characters will be useful to make you understand some concepts).

Nor do I want to make you into a mind mapping guru, I just want you to learn to use them for your everyday needs, and most of all I want them to become useful to memorize what is needed to best organize your activities.

Without further ado, let us begin our journey together.

We will rendezvous at the end of each chapter to highlight the essential points, and we will take leave in the conclusions.

While reading, you will find several points where I advise you to exercise. I will not be there to check on you, but I deem it needless to say it is best to carry them out. You may also read the whole manual to apply yourself later, when freer and more concentrated. It is also not forbidden to move forward step by step, first with an understanding of the basics and then with further exploration.

Have fun with mind maps!

1. INTRODUCTION TO MIND MAPS

1.1. What are mind maps

I guess you already read the index. Very well.

How do you think that jumble of words can best be reproduced in order to best memorize it?

We will get to that.

First of all, as I am sure you understand, we will need several maps.

Why do you think?

Do you remember the song from the beginning? “Parole… Parole… Parole…”. Words… words…. words…

A lot of ideas explained all together can cause confusion and difficulty in memorization.

Therefore, we will first create one map enclosing all areas of the main topics and then a few sub-maps for the paragraphs. These will be expressed by means of key words or concepts.

Let us proceed with examples, it will all be clearer.

Here is a mind map of our index with the Google MindMap software (we will talk about available options in the last chapter).

How does this representation make you feel?

First of all, let me say it is a good software (what is more, it is free). I represented things like this on purpose to make you understand a few things.

The key points are all there and are even distinguished by different colors. The image of the scroll representing the concept that is to be developed is undoubtedly too big for the font.

It is true that the concepts to be remembered are so few that even with such a rough representation it may not be too hard to memorize. Still, something is amiss.

What? How can I remember everything better?

Associating to pictures!

Let us take that map and put images in it. I chose some, but you might have chosen different ones. The premise reminds me of a crystal ball showing in broad terms what is inside the book; in the introduction, tools and equipment to learn the tricks of the trade, and so on.

You may notice that the pictures by themselves are clearer than the words (which are in the background, and this is why I chose a barely readable font size); furthermore, that representation is far more interesting and certainly more involving, it raises questions in us.

What does our wizard see in the crystal ball? How can I become better at studying, or at work? It intrigues us, drawing our attention.

Now take markers, gel pens and blank paper, both A3 and A4, and a sketchbook.

Try to draw those lines reproducing exactly what the program did; instead of the pictures I chose, let your imagination run free and insert your own. Do not worry if the drawings will not be great, they can also be sketches. The important thing is that the pictures you chose somehow stimulate your imagination, your sensibility. In the premise, for instance, you may also draw an opening door.