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.”
Start Living Timefully to find more resources and templates for Whole Mind Mapping and loads of other mind transforming tools
The normal human mind can only have one thought at a time.
Just think about what you are thinking about and the thing you are thinking about gets replaced with the thought you are having about that thought.
Just read the above sentence again, pause from reading this article and just check the validity of this notion.
So armed with this new knowledge about the way we think, this gives us the most amazing insight when it comes to our time management.
“If we are focused on anything else other than the task in hand, time will slip away from us.”
So just think about this for a few seconds, these are the Five Bandits of Time …
Switching away from the current task
Being diverted away from the current task
Fretting over the past
Worrying about the future
Thinking about something too much
If you read conventional time management books, they will be awash with tips and techniques on how to priortise better and how to stop interruptions. I recommend Time Management for Dummies, by Clare “no relation” Evans, to help with these first two Time Bandits.
There is nothing much out there that deals with the last three Time Bandits though – until now that is !!!!
Change the way you think and add hours to your days
Many time management systems teach you how to better prioritise and how to beat procrastination. This system is fundamentally different – it shows you how to change the speed of your thoughts, using meditative and mindfullness techniques, so you change the subjective passage of time.
Learn how to control your own Personal Time Machine – your Mind.
This ecourse contains over four hours of mind altering exercises and visualisations to take you into altered and heightened states of consciousness. The programme is simple to follow, completely safe and also very, very relaxing.
Take some Time Out to give yourself more Me-Time and you will get your investment back in this revolutionary time management programme in no time at all.
We know when we are in the zone and we know when we are out of the zone.
What we are not often sure of is where the zone actually is.
So I have set out on a bit of a mission this year and that’s to explore The Zone, to find out where it is and to draw up a map for others to follow and explore themselves.
Big Thanks to Lea Woodward and Jackie Walker for pointing me earlier this year at the most fabulous animation tool called Powtoon.
It allows ‘numpties’ like me to put together pretty amazing trailers for product and book promotions – there’s just a few examples below of what you can do with it.
And even better still, they have invited me to do a animation series on how best to communicate a message in Just a Minute … watch the trailer here
Powtoon Application #001 : Product Promotion
I prepared this short trailer to promote my Bending Time ecourse
Powtoon Application #002 : Web Site Landing Page
Here’s a trailer for a new web site for the marvellously talented Sue Warwick
I even used Powtoon to build a whole Udemy training course based on an earlier book called Flavours of Thought. This animation is just one of 30 in the course which comprise over 160 minutes of animated content – phew !!
From where I am sitting and where you are reading this blog, we are completely unaware of this twice yearly event – and why should we be? In our modern day world where we are totally in control, nothing as trivial as the orientation of the Earth could possibly have any effect on us … surely?
When viewed from space however, a different perspective emerges. We can see clearly that half the world is in darkness and half in light. Well there is nothing new there as it is like that every day of the year. The difference is that the cusp between light and dark is lined up with the rotational axis of the planet.
This means that every person on the planet experiences approximately the same amount of daylight and darkness, apart from those standing right on the Poles … and of course miners and submariners.
The exact time and day of the equinox, however, is not strictly that important. What is significant is that we should use it as a time for reflection. Too often our years just bleed into each other with each one following the pattern of the last. The fact that the Earth goes around in circles doesn’t mean we have to.
It doesn’t matter so much if there is any astrological or cosmological significance to the Equinox, just that every so often we should take stock and do some forward planning and, once we’ve done that, we should take action.
Spring is a great time to start a new project – for example, I’ve written all my books in Spring – something I only realised after I’d published the fourth book !
So for the last two months I have been planning and Mind Mapping my next book – today I start to write it in earnest !!
So, whether you are planning to write a book, or not, take some time out today to Spring Forward and so the seeds of what you are going to grow over the next 12 months.
Note, although the word equinox is often understood to mean “equal [day and] night”, this is not strictly true. For most locations on Earth, there are two distinct identifiable days per year when the length of day and night are closest to being equal; those days are referred to as the “equiluxes” to distinguish them from the equinoxes. Equinoxes are points in time when the Sun is right over the equator. Equiluxes are days which can be a couple of weeks either side and can vary depending where we are on the planet.
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.
I am really thrilled that my new book, This We Know is seeding new thoughts and forming a new movement.
