Basic Steps to Map Your Mind by Deborah Coates

An easy and effective tool to help you solve personal problems at home or in the workplace is to create a map of your situation, idea, or project. By putting down on paper what the specific challenge is, you will open up an awareness you hadn't thought of before.

By making a map of a concept, idea, or plan, with a sense of the relationship among the objects of thought, you will discover helpful insights and prevent road blocks in your endeavors.

Conception of an idea is like the fertilization of an egg. The embryo continues to grows in time. As you begin to map out your thoughts, you will begin to see a root structure form, containing all the interrelated thoughts stemming from the core idea.

"There are two ways to which the mind may bring into explicit consciousness the meaning of a word. It may translate it into an equivalent combination of other words, so as to reconstruct it by successive syntheses of its conceptional constituents, or it may call up a mental picture of the object named. We may call one the verbal, and the other the intuitional, explication of a concept." G.F.Stout

Today, there are many software tools available to help you map your thoughts; however, the quickest way to resolve the task at hand is to get it on to a sheet of paper.

Please visit: http://www.topicscape.com/mindmaps/ to view over 500 different maps from the mind.


Get paper and markers.

Find paper, the larger the better. Lay it lengthwise. The white rolls of paper used for newsprint work great for large projects. Get colored pencils, neon felt-tip markers or crayons if you prefer.

Choose a format.

You can create a tree diagram, which places your initial idea at the botttom. All of your related thoughts to this idea will form the roots or off-shoots. A spidergram looks like a spider or it can look like a spider web. Your idea is the body of the spider and each leg represents the related thoughts to your core idea. You can use bubbles, clouds, stars, interlocking wheels, anything you want to use, to make your map.

Use images, symbols and color.

If an image comes to mind which is representative of your idea, draw it. Cut pictures out of a magazine if you want to. Have a symbol for the concept? Doodle it. Want it in color? Color it. Make it fun. Make it play time. Your initial map is to be done as a free-form exercise. Relax, enjoy it and as you progress you will see the big picture.

Write down your central idea, problem or project.

Place your key word, picture or symbol anywhere on the page, as long as you have enough room to branch out. You are recording a train of thought that will switch tracks as your intuition guides you during the process.

The more questions you ask, the better the end results.

By placing your ideas under a microscope and expanding on the Who, What, Where, When, How and Why's of your idea, the more you will glean in the process. What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your idea?

Creating a map of your mind will help you in personal study, as well as, the workplace to brainstorm new projects. Begin right now. Go ahead – I Dare YOU to Succeed!