Most Mind Maps are Brain Maps

When I was introduced to Mind Mapping about ten years ago, I discovered a tool that increased my creativity and productivity by leaps and bounds.

Like many people, I just started using what I thought was mind mapping software without even looking at the manual. A course I attended with Andrew Wilcox on Mind Jet’s Mind Manager opened my eyes incredibly.

Mind Mapping had so many applications. Not only could it be used to sort your To Do lists but there are a plethora of business applications like taking meeting minutes, project planning, Six Sigma and even writing a whole book or building a web site.

While this course opened my eyes it was only when I trained with Tony Buzan and became an iMindmap Licensed Instructor that my mind was opened. I learned about the power of freely associative Mind Mapping and how to really use them in the creative process. I discovered how they get the left and right brain working on the same task in harmony – I learned the power of Whole Brain Thinking.

I also learned the power of a good map using just pencil and paper and how to use them to great effect in my creative writing courses and one to one mentoring with authors.

I started then to research the psychology of Mind Mapping and how they trigger our neurology and get stored in it. Along the way though working with my clients removing creative blocks, I discovered something remarkable.

As amazing as Mind Maps are, nearly all the software tools and training programmes out there seem to promote the mapping of the brain only. That is, they help map the conscious mind processes in the outer cortex of our two brain hemispheres.

They take no account of the other active mind centres in our body like the gut and heart minds, now recognised by some more open minded neuroscientists as active centres of consciousness. No account either was made for the collective mind ’outside’ our bodies.

“Most so-called Mind Maps are merely ‘Brain Maps’!! They miss huge amounts of data from the whole gamut of our sensory inputs.”

Living Timefully

Start Living Timefully to find more resources and templates for Whole Mind Mapping and loads of other mind transforming tools

You Thought You Had 5 Seconds

When people repeat the same thing often enough it can enter the common psyche and be assumed to be true.

A good example might be an urban myth like the lemmings jumping off a cliff. It’s now equally well known (or thought as such) that this was a staged scene in a Walt Disney friendly critters-type movie. Perhaps this is just an urban myth derived from an urban myth.

It’s also become a bit of a myth that people spend 5 to 10 seconds on a web page before they decide if they like it or not.

The reality is that, in our increasingly connected world, we make our minds up about a web page in less than a second. If you are still reading this, that’s a testament to this in action. If you aren’t then this of course means I have not succeeded in my intention.

What’s worse still than my failure to get people to read this far is that before you came to this page, the title will have grabbed you or not. You may have seen a tweet or clicked a link in a newsletter.

If you did click the link and you have read this far, it’s worth pondering why and worth noting that there’s both an art and science to engaging with readers and getting their eyes to follow your copy down the page.

This is of course very important for authors seeking to entrance their readers with a page turner and, in this day and age, increasingly so for blogger and micro-bloggers.

It’s of course nothing new – consider these book titles which all became both best sellers and were subsequently made into successful films:

  • Trimalcio in West Egg
  • A Jewish Patient Begins His Analysis
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Would you have gone to see the film based on these titles or perhaps been more enamoured by their eventual titles of?

  • The Great Gatsby
  • Portnoy’s Complaint
  • Blade Runner

When I work with writers, I spend quite some time getting that perfect title which also includes some due diligence and market research. Sometimes the title is just something that gets the author going and sometimes it sees itself on the front cover of the book.

When you get it right, you’re on to a winner in many more ways than one!!

These themes and more are the subject of a new series of 1/2 day workshops I’m running with Nicky Kriel from the 1st November this year.

For more details, you now only have 1 second to decide to click this link …. or not