Day 8 -Mind Mapping

Let me start be mentioning these two amazing resources for learning about mind mapping:


I started mind mapping seriously at the beginning of 2020 using the fantastic MindMeister tool. I now use it for two main purposes:

  1. Making skill trees (see module 9); and

  2. Summarizing/encapsulating concepts and articles.


Here’s a simplified skill tree for the skill of Charisma:


Here’s a summary of a great article by Michael Thompson:



I now mind map all the time. The most important thing I found when mind mapping is defining a proper structure that’s both accurate and easy to understand for you. 


Let me first start with important pitfalls of mind-mapping for skill learning:

  1. If you’re studying a mind-map you’ve created  when you were first learning, you might be studying content that’s not accurate.

  2. Using only one resource to create a mind map only gives you one perspective, which may or may not be accurate.


Accuracy is so important because without it, you’re creating connections in your brain you shouldn’t be making. If I read in one source that pigs are blue and I’ve never seen a pig before, I’ll add it to the mind map, study it, and truly believe that pigs are blue.


Now that you know the pitfalls, here are some strategies for using mind-mapping for your learning:


Brain dump


The first thing I like to do is to Google a topic or skill and simply note all the concepts I can find. I don’t limit myself to one resource per topic. I want to know everything, so I take 8–10 resources that talk about the same topic and note all the concepts. 


As I go through them, I take a mental note on similarities. Are some concepts common in many of the articles? Do they have a coherent denominator? If there’s a clear pattern, I move the concepts into the same denominator. 


We’ll see an example about Riding a Bike with Skill Trees below in module 9, but for now, here’s what I mean:



As you read more and more articles (or watch videos) about riding a bicycle, you come across concepts that relate to riding conditions and equipment, for example.


At the brain dump stage, I rarely go more than two layers deep, which means finding some categories (the common denominators) and some sub-categories. 


Hierarchy


I don’t like my maps to be overcrowded with layers and deciphering the path. I tend to limit to 3–4 layers. We’ve explored the first two layers above: categories and sub-categories. The other layers deal with answering the following questions:

  • What exactly is this concept (in about 7 words)

  • Why should I care about this concept (again, in about 7 words)

  • How do I learn this concept? (about 7 sub-points of about 7 words)


That’s pretty much it. If you want to dig deeper on the above, you can create another layer with the details for what/why/how, in more words than previously. I usually find that too crowded and get lost. 


If you do that using a tool like MindMeister, I strongly suggest you collapse these nodes and only expand as needed.


Visuals


There are two types of visual components in your mind map: 

  1. Structural: icon or image that specifies what the node is about.

  2. Informational: image that helps complement the text of the node.

If you look at the map from Mike’s articles from above, you’ll see what I mean for structural visuals:



  • Pros are marked with yellow background and a thumbs up icon.

  • Cons are marked with a orange-gray background and a thumbs down icon.

  • Actions are marked with a green background and a checkmark.

  • Questions are marked with a white background and a question mark icon.

These are only ideas. I have a style guide that I use for most mind maps I do. This allows me to see at a glance what the map is about and what the structure looks like. 


For informational visuals, it looks like this:

They say an image is worth a thousand words. How much more would you retain something if you could clearly picture the concept? When you combine visual metaphors (see module 10) with mind-mapping, results can be very effective.


Reviewing


Remember the pitfalls from above? You can avoid them by regularly reviewing your mind maps as you keep working on learning about the topic or skill. When you do that, you’ll realize you didn’t categorize things properly. Some concepts you thought were useful were not, and vice-versa. You’ll realize you missed some things.


But even better than self-reviewing, ask a few experts to review your mind map. They might find things that are incorrect and help you correct them.