Buzan Tony - Mind map mastery: the complete guide to learning and using the most powerful thinking tool in the universe

Mind Map Mastery

Tony Buzan

First published in the UK and USA in 2018 by

Watkins, an imprint of Watkins Media Limited

19 Cecil Court

London WC2N 4EZ

enquiries@watkinspublishing.com

Design and typography copyright Watkins Media Limited 2018

Text copyright Tony Buzan 2018

Artwork on pages
copyright Watkins Media Limited 2018

For copyright of other artwork and photographs see which is to be regarded as an extension of this copyright

The right of Tony Buzan to be identified as the Author of this text has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Commissioning Editor: Chris Wold

Managing Editor: Fiona Robertson

Text Consultant and Editor: Sue Lascelles

Head of Design: Glen Wilkins

Designer: Clare Thorpe

Production: Uzma Taj

Commissioned Artwork: Joy Gosney

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78678-141-3

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Typeset in Helvetica Neue

Colour reproduction by XY Digital

Printed in China

www.watkinspublishing.com

Contents

Foreword

I have been using Mind Mapping for many years. Today, I travel the world, teaching business professionals, public figures and entire audiences to improve their memory and cognitive ability in their personal and professional lives. However, as a child I was diagnosed with dyslexia and I believe I had challenges and still do to some degree with attention. I have found that Mind Mapping is a great force to ward off the distraction of Attention Deficit Disorder. In short, it helps me stay on track.

Mind Maps are powerful tools for focusing and processing information, formulating a plan of action and getting started on new projects. In fact, Mind Mapping is a huge guiding hand in every aspect of life and I cant recommend it highly enough!

As well as giving readers the means to transform their own lives, Tonys new book, Mind Map Mastery, will welcome them into a lively global community. The stories and examples show how Mind Mapping is a worldwide phenomenon that is practised by all types of people. The one thing they have in common is that they are passionate about the benefits of this thinking tool and go on to share it with others.

I remain immensely grateful to Tony for inventing the Mind Map, and would recommend his new book to anybody who wants to improve their thinking and achieve Mind Map mastery themselves.

Dominic OBrien,
eight-time World Memory Champion and bestselling author

Preface

Im looking for books about using the brain.

Try over there, the librarian said, gesturing toward a shelf of books, in the medical section.

No, I replied, Ive already gone through those titles and Ive no desire to operate on my brain; I just want to learn how to use it.

The librarian looked at me blankly. Im afraid there arent any books about that topic, she said. Only the textbooks we have here.

I walked away feeling frustrated and astonished. In my second year at university, I was searching for new ways to cope with an increased academic workload, as my study methods simply werent yielding the results I was after. In fact, the more notes I took, the worse I seemed to do. While I had yet to appreciate the true limits of linear thinking, that day I realized my so-called problem in fact represented an incredible opportunity. If there were no books about how to use the brain, then here was an area with extraordinary potential for research.

Over the years that followed, I studied psychology and the general sciences, neurophysiology, neurolinguistics and semantics, information theory, memory and mnemonic techniques, perception and creative thinking. I came to understand the workings of the human brain and the conditions that allow it to perform at its best.

Ironically, my research also highlighted the flaws in my own study methods, as it gradually dawned on me that my lecture notes were word-based, monotonic and boring; if anything, their linear format offered an incredibly effective way of training myself to be stupid! Practice makes perfect: if you practise perfectly, your practice makes you perfect. However, if you practise badly, practice makes you perfectly bad. When I began to practise more and more linear, monotonic note-taking, I became more and more perfectly stupid! I urgently needed to change both my thinking and my actions.

By studying the structure of the brain, I found the breakthrough I was searching for. The fact that we possess a minimum of 100 billion brain cells, each one of which contributes to our thinking, inspired me. I found it enthralling that each of these neurons has tentacles radiating out from the cells centre like the branches of a tree, and I realized that I could make use of this model diagrammatically to create the ultimate thinking tool.

This proved to be a major contribution to the development of Radiant Thinking (see ), which in turn helped lead to the birth of the Mind Map.

At its simplest, a Mind Map is an intricate diagram that mirrors the structure of a brain cell with branches reaching out from its centre, evolving through patterns of association. However, since its inception in the mid-1960s, the Mind Map has proved to be much more than an excellent means of notetaking: it is an efficient and profoundly inspiring way to feed our starving minds, intellects and spirits. It has developed exponentially and, as you will see in this book, can be applied in many ways from nurturing creativity and strengthening memory to helping fight dementia.

Over the years, the Mind Map has been misunderstood by some and misrepresented by others, yet my vision persists of a world in which every child and adult understands what a Mind Map is, how it works, and how it can be applied to all aspects of life.

This book aims to show you how a good Mind Map can feed you as an individual, and how the Mind Map itself continues to grow, expand and evolve in order to tackle the new challenges we all face on this planet.

And now, as we advance into the 21st century, the Mind Map can be accessed and utilized in new forms that mirror our burgeoning new technical possibilities. Mind Maps can still be hand drawn, of course, but they can also be generated by computer program, they are available online, they have been traced in the Arctic snow, they have adorned the sides of mountains and they can even be etched by drones in the sky.

Join me in this great adventure and prepare to radiate your mental power far beyond anything you have ever experienced before!

TONY BUZAN

Introduction

Why Is This Book Needed?

A Mind Map is a revolutionary thinking tool that, when mastered, will transform your life. It will help you process information, come up with new ideas, strengthen your memory, get the most out of your leisure time and improve the way you work.

I devised the Mind Map initially as an innovative form of note-taking that can be used in any situation where linear notes would normally be taken, such as attending lectures, listening to telephone calls, during business meetings, carrying out research and studying. However, it quickly became clear that Mind Maps can also be used for ground-breaking design and planning; for providing an incisive overview of a subject; for inspiring new projects; for uncovering solutions and breaking free from unproductive ways of thinking, among many other things. In this book, you will come across innumerable exciting applications for Mind Maps. They can even be used as an exercise in their own right to give your brain a workout and boost your powers of creative thinking.