Creative Mind Mapping - Learn Essential Mind Map Methods | Aisha Borel | Skillshare
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Creative Mind Mapping - Learn Essential Mind Map Methods

teacher avatar Aisha Borel, Instructional Designer | Mind Map Lover

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      What Is Mind Mapping

      4:07

    • 2.

      Class Project Mind Map

      0:41

    • 3.

      7 Principles of Mind Mapping

      8:07

    • 4.

      Mind Maps Quickly Explained

      2:28

    • 5.

      How to Draw a Mind Map from Scratch

      5:37

    • 6.

      QUICK START - Mind Map Challenge

      0:10

    • 7.

      Radiant Thinking and Mind Mapping

      3:15

    • 8.

      Radiant Thinking Game for Mind Mapping

      4:27

    • 9.

      Mind Maps in Action

      0:10

    • 10.

      Planning Events with Mind Maps

      7:00

    • 11.

      Organize Your Day Mind Map

      6:16

    • 12.

      Brainstorm Idea Generation EXERCISE

      5:44

    • 13.

      Brainstorm Mind Map

      9:32

    • 14.

      Note Taking Mind Map Overview

      4:19

    • 15.

      Note Taking Mind Map In Action

      18:12

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About This Class

Effective mind mapping doesn't have to be difficult. In fact, increasing note-taking skills, brainstorming new ideas, and captivating audience attention with storytelling methods can easily be achieved by learning how to increase your mind mapping skills. Learning specific mind mapping techniques — such as note-taking, brainstorming strategies, and how to get your message across with effective storytelling is not only possible but probable when you take this course and effectively apply the mind mapping methods inside of it.

In this mind mapping course, I teach you effective mind mapping tools you can quickly implement immediately into your life so that you can rapidly master the fine art of getting stuff done (aka. personal productivity). 

Mind mapping is for those who want to:

  1. Learn Effective Note Taking

  2. Quickly Brainstorm New Ideas

  3. Captivate Audience's Attention with Essential Storytelling Methods

  4. Increase Memory with mind mapping

  5. Take Your Note-Taking to a Whole New Level with mind mapping

  6. Shorten the Time  it Takes You to Learn New Topics with mind mapping

  7. Be a Better Communicator with mind mapping

  8. Improve your Productivity and Lessen the Learning Curve with mind mapping

  9. Learn Faster and Be More Productive at Work with mind mapping

  10. And Increase Creativity through Proven Brainstorming Techniques with mind mapping

This course is specifically designed to help you enjoy the many benefits of mind mapping: 

  1. Use Mind Mapping to Stay engaged

  2. Increase learning 

  3. Improve recall 

  4. Be more creative in your thinking

  5. And more! 

Each lecture will give you an in-depth, example-filled, highly instructional, comprehensive, immersive experience into the world of Mind Mapping so that you can immediately start reaping the benefits from this powerful tool known as mind mapping.

_______

“Mind mapping is a technique based on memory and creativity and comprehension and understanding, so when the student or a child uses the mind map, they are using their brain in the way their brain was designed to be used, and so the mind helps them in all learning and cognitive skills. It simply helps them in what the brain does naturally.” ~ TONY BUZAN / Inventor of Modern Mind Mapping

Meet Your Teacher

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Aisha Borel

Instructional Designer | Mind Map Lover

Teacher

Hi! My name is Aisha (pronounced EYE-sha).

On top of being a Mom to two super amazing tiny human beings (Jaida 9, John Arthur 3) I'm a graphic designer and instructional designer.

I went to school for graphic design and have been designing and creating all kinds of whatnots for well over 20 years. I love graphic design, but more importantly, I really LOVE that I get the weekly opportunity to bring my passion for design to the work I do AND earn a good living that helps support my family in the process.

It's fun and for that I am thankful.

Speaking of gratitude and things I love, about 12 years ago I was introduced into the world of mind mapping through a teacher at the time who I still to this day admire.

What I learned in her classes ex... See full profile

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Transcripts

1. What Is Mind Mapping: Hello, my name is Aisha and welcome to my course. In this course we're going to be diving into the nitty-gritty of mind-mapping. How do you use it? I think using mindmaps for a while now for maybe 15 plus years, I have found them to be incredibly useful. Anyone who knows me knows that I love mind-mapping. And it's something that I enjoy sharing and teaching with others just because I find it so beneficial. So in this course you're gonna learn all kinds of things. We're gonna cover mindmaps, what they mean, exactly what they even are, how to use them. And how you can basically take mind-mapping and do all kinds of things. The best way to show you mind-mapping is through an actual mind-map. So let's take a look at this right here, which might be a little complicated as far as looking at it. If it's the first time you've ever even looked at a mind-map, then it might be a little odd at first, which is perfectly fine because like I said, I love teaching about my geeking out on this stuff. So this is what we're going to be diving into in this course. For example, this mind map right here. We're going to be learning different concepts and notes like how to take better notes, how to have greater solutions. And I would say even ideas and easy. So things such as brainstorming with mind-map, I think is amazing. I took some people through a brainstorming session the other day. And it was pretty phenomenal. I'll just say they were all, I think they're all going to start using my maps in the future. That's a plus. They allow you to organize your thinking and thoughts. Also problem-solving. Like me, I am very, very visual in regards to the way that I think. And it's not something that everyone else does. So me being a graphic designer, Instructional Designer, and doing all these things that are super creative. Sometimes it's difficult to basically get my ideas across to others because I'm so visual and I'm great at thinking several steps ahead that I often lose my viewer or my audience, or my client, or the person that's in front of me. So I am learning all about infection control for body artists. And instead of it just being all this new information in my head, it's like, all right, let me use my maps. That's kind of how I think. And that's like a real broad picture and idea of what you'll be learning in this course. But if you step inside with me, I think that you'll at least get entertained. If nothing else. I think that you'll enjoy mind-mapping. And maybe even my goal is to basically walk you into my world of mind-mapping and why I think it's so great and how I've used it and, um, how I believe that it can help you too. If that sounds like something you're interested in without a bunch of marketing bells and whistles and stuff. But if you're interested in learning those things from someone who is naturally passionate about mind-mapping, then this course might just be for you. I hope to see you on the inside. Take care. 2. Class Project Mind Map: So for your class project, what I'd like you to do is pick any mind-map topic. It could be planted event, brainstorm ideas, outline a lecture, or even choose your own adventure. The next step is to upload your mind-map to the project section of the class. You'll just click the Create Project button. You'll go from there and upload it to the course. The third thing is to receive insight, applause, feedback from myself and fellow classmates regarding your class project. I can't wait to see what you upload. 3. 7 Principles of Mind Mapping: Mindmaps can look as simple as this, as complicated as this, even as creative as this. Regardless of how your mind-map looks in the end, whether you're using an app or you're actually hand drawing your mind-map, it doesn't really matter. More than likely, you're going to be using one of these seven principles. So what are those principles? The first principle that you want to use is the ability to create a central image. Central images are drawn in the center of your mind-map. They're based on his central theme or topic that your minds centers around. Central images are drawn in the center of your mind-map and represent exactly what the idea or topic is for your mind-map. Central images are the most important, and I see images, but it can just be a word or a thought. But their most important because everything that stems outward is going to be associated in related to the main central thought or idea that's in the center. The second rule requires main branches and using those. So here we've got a main branch and we'll just highlight it in color. And this has to do with brainstorming an idea. We'll add this color over here, and we'll look at this. We've got brainstorm and won't even doodle out some like a brain. This is a little brain doodle in someone's head. And we're brainstorming ideas. We've got different types of ideas and thoughts radiating outward. Each main branch, you using your mind-map, connects the central image with each associated ideas, thoughts, and doodles radiating out from the center. The third rule involves using color. You don't have to use color at all. A lot of my mind-map skip that part just because it's not feasible for me to carry around a set of markers or always be looking for some color and so forth just to create a mind map. Other times I'm out in public and I am at work or something, and I'm needing a quick way to just capture my ideas and thoughts. Which means that I'll be using black and white markers or pens or whatever I have on hand using colored markers, pencils are lines in your my-map allows you to quickly distinguish information contained within your mind-map, making them easier to remember and understand. The fourth principle, a mind-mapping centers all around keywords. Basically, you can't create a mindmap without using keywords. For example, everything listed here on this mind-map. Everything here, such as brainstorm, information, knowledge, notes, easy ideas, solution. Every single word listed on this mind-map is a keyword. Keywords are the linchpin of mind-mapping because they sum up an entire idea, sentence or phrase into one or two essential words. In this course, we'll be deep diving into keywords and I'll be showing you ways for drilling down lots of information into basically, essentially just one or two words that represent an entire phrase or idea. So we'll be diving way deep into that and the rest of this course. But for now, know that keywords are incredibly important when it comes to mindmapping. The fifth principle of mind-mapping is all about sub branches. Sub-branches allow you to connect even more associated words to already existing main branches. These additional connections enabled further exploration and expansion of each new topic or idea. We have the main branch and then we have the supporting additional branches, which is everything else or all the additional keywords that pop off of the main supporting branch. So this right here, communication, this would be the main branch. While all these additional elements would be sub-branches. Number six, the sixth principle or rule to mind-mapping is all about additional branches. Yes. If you thank you. Haven't had enough branches already added to your mind-map. Adding even more additional branches can really help you deep dive into certain key areas and focuses that you might want to just basically dive deeper into. For example, revising. In problem-solving. We might want to add additional branches to these, such as revising the format ideas. And I have ideas listed a lot here. And I'll also be going into how to connect those and how to basically just work with multiple things that might be listed a few times on your mind-map. We have revising, we have clarifying will put ideas up here. This right here. These would be additional branches that are added. I could even go through the mind-map and dig, deep dive even further and further into specific areas of the mind-map. For some topics, it's essential to dig deep and not be afraid to keep adding additional branches within branches within your mind-map. For every new ideas section or thought you have. Feel free to add a new branch. When it comes to mindmapping, the possibilities are endless, so don't limit yourself. The seventh principle of mind-mapping is all about images or what I like to call doodles. Images make your mindmaps more awesome simply by using them. When you take the time to draw pictures, symbols, and icons on your mind-map, something happens within your brain that unlocks your creative thinking and your ability to recall it. Remember all the details within your mind-map. 4. Mind Maps Quickly Explained: All right, So what do you think? Do you think you understand what a mind map is right now? Alright, let's go ahead and take a pop quiz. Yes. Pop quizzes are fun. So we've been looking at this mind-map quite a bit today. So we'll just put this off to the side and alright, we've got this right here. Let's bring it up. Alright, so according to Wikipedia, a mind map is a visual diagram. With that said, let me ask you this. Would this be a mind-map? It's definitely a visual diagram. What do you think? Yes, no. Or because I was that kid in school, maybe. Alright. So if you answered and let's get a different color marker. If you answered no, then you are correct. This this is not a mindmap. This is a visual diagram because what it represents is just basic information. All right, before we go too far, Let's take a look at the next pop quiz. Is this, is this a mind map? With this be a mindmap. If you answered yes, then you are correct. All right, so let's take a look at these two differences between visual diagrams. So this is not a my-map because there is sure a central image that's in the center of the page. However, there is no information that is radiating outward from there. This right here, however, is a mind map because it has a central image, which is this right here. And there's information, different thoughts and associated information related to the central topic, which is family. So family restrooms, food, kids, see how it can stimulate and go anywhere out from year. Whereas with this right here is just information based. 5. How to Draw a Mind Map from Scratch: Okay, So we've talked a lot about my maps and we had a nice little pop quiz. So let's go ahead and draw our first mind-map together. So go ahead and get as far as like tools that you need to get started. You can use a number of different things. If you have some markers on hand, use those. If you have some pens and crayons or pencils, you can use any kind of things that you're wanting. Just go ahead and grab some stuff and meet me back here o in, grab some paper, you'll want that as well. So now that I have my central image, what I'm going to do next is not focused on color, but instead focus on words and keywords. I think that with my mapping, a lot of times the interest gets caught on color. Whereas what needs to be focused on, especially in the beginning, is all about the actual items that need to be created or need to be gotten. So I'm going to go ahead and visually start to walk through my favorite grocery store and decide what it is that I need. So first up is produce, and then we've got bread. And what I'm doing is just walking through the store and getting different departments down here. Because that'll help me to organize my thoughts and organize my thinking. Either that or I could just basically be like, okay, here's a list of groceries that I need 12345 and have the traditional list that right there is not a mind map. Instead, what we want to use is something a little bit more organized. We have produce section and the bread section. We've got meat, dairy, frozen section. And we'll also put on there what else? And of course we got to have snacks. All right. I think this is a good start, of course, if I think of more, I can go ahead and fill it in as I go. But at least this gives me different little areas to try to think of that. Okay, what do I need in regards to dairy? What do I need in regards to meet? And this is ways to get me my brain stimulated, immediate keep thinking. So in regards to meet, I think I definitely need chicken. Think about the kids. They're always in need of something. So let's say chicken nuggets. And this also allows me to jump around as well. So bread, English muffins, that makes me think as far as bread always a need a butter. And then let's put down here to miscellaneous items that don't necessarily go into a category. So when I thought of bread in English muffins, I couldn't help but think about like blueberry preserves and so forth. I'm going to put that over here. It looks like I put butter over here when it's actually a dairy. So I will just switch this and put it over here. So if you mess up your mind map, It's perfectly okay. What you wanna do is focus on just getting your ideas down and not making your mind-map. Super pretty or being really precious with your mind-map. Instead, focus on the ideas and getting everything down. So we'll put butter over here. And if you spell something wrong, that's alright too. Next, start to fill in your mind map with doodles and so forth. Doodles will help you to be able to really see are in your mind-map and being able to like, start to remember it and recall information that way when you're walking through the grocery store, when you start at the beginning, say it's the first dial is produce, then you can start to think of, all right, what is it that I actually drew? Did I draw a picture of an apple? Orange? Actually do need more apples. In that way, your mind map starts to really take hold and mean something have some actual meaning to you and what it is that you're doing. All right, I think that's good. Let's take a look at the mind-map. Now, all this mind map needs is a little bit of color. If you've got the time. Hello. 6. QUICK START - Mind Map Challenge: Creating a basic mind-map is as simple as that. Now it's your turn to share your mind-map with myself and the class. 7. Radiant Thinking and Mind Mapping: So let's talk about radiant thinking for a moment. Now what radiant thinking is and what it has to do with mind-mapping is quite a bit. But before we get into what radiant thinking is, let's first play a little bit of the gate. Alright, so what I want you to do is to think of Apple. Just take a moment and think of Apple. Do you have an image in mind? All right, so what did you see? Did you see a red apple, green apple sliced apples? Applesauce have an Apple iPad, an iPhone. Apple iPhone. Did you see apple as in Steve Jobs, the originator of Apple? There's all kinds of things when you can think of a word. Maybe even some of you saw the letters AAPL, apple. It doesn't matter what matters is that your brain automatically starts thinking of different ideas and associated thoughts, which is exactly what mind-mapping allows you to do. Mind-mapping allows you to start with one idea right in the center, as in your central image, and then have bridges or radiating thoughts that move outward from there. So much like a, Let's use some workers. So much like a light bulb radiates out from the center. So much like a light bulb where the energy starts in the center once it's turned on, and then just radiates outward and fills up the entire space. Our brain does the same thing. However, with our brain, we think of words and ideas, and thoughts and actions and different things that have to do with one thought after another, such as bread. You might think of the word bread and think of butter or think of jam. They've got preserves. Think about what you have to do with grocery shopping. In speaking of grocery shopping, let's take a look at this mind map once again. All right. So with this mind map, this mind-map is all about radiating thoughts and different images and different ideas in a very creative yet structured type of way. So later on in this course we'll be talking about brainstorming. But for now, just know that my mapping in radiating thoughts work hand in hand with the brain and how the brain naturally think. 8. Radiant Thinking Game for Mind Mapping: Alright, Guess what time it is. It is time to play a radiant thinking gain. All right, so the first thing I want you to do is grab some materials. I've got standard 8.5 by 11 paper here, and it's just basic printer paper. And I've got some markers and some pens. So go ahead and grab your materials. Meet me back here. And oh, one more thing. Is that the first thing I want you to do? Also, once you grab your materials, is to grab any kind of random object, anything that is close to you. So I've got like a fidget spinner here. I've got a water bottle pins, like a lens cap, stuff like that. I'm going to go with a water bottle. So grab your items, grabs something randomly, and then come back here. Okay, so now what I want you to do is take that item and draw in the center of your mind-map. You want to draw it small enough to where you can still have plenty of space and room for all the different things that are going to be surrounding the central image. I didn't write anything. No, right under here, water bottle. Spell. Now, don't worry if you don't spell something, right. I do that all the time. I've a little bit dyslexic, so I'll just I'll just write things incorrectly. So if you do that, just keep moving on. The next thing we're going to do is now that we've got our central image drawn in the center of our mind-map. Now the goal of this radiant thinking exercise is to be able to strengthen our ability to think radiant Lee. And what that means is taking one item, putting it in the center, and then drawing or writing associated thoughts and ideas outward. So let's see, water bottle makes me immediately think of hydration and self-care. So the next rule is to use one key word per line. Make as many related, associated and thoughts stimulate or stemming out from there. So one key word per line, so I've got hydration here. I also have self-care, and that is one word since it has a hyphen in the middle. But we'll go ahead and just take as many different types of thoughts and ideas and capture them. And if you want, you can also, you don't have to stay in one center. Instead, you can grab as many colors in different types of associations from there based on the branches. All right, So what do you think? How did your mind-map end up looking? Do you see how different types of thoughts and starting with one idea, putting in the center, in this case a water bottle. But I'm putting that in the center and then writing things down such as plants and how plants lead to Window and sun. And thinking about the sun and everything led me to thinking about my kids and the beach and nourishment. And, and that's the power of mind-mapping. Speed of kids, my little one my five-year-old's calling with right now, so all right. See you in the next lesson. 9. Mind Maps in Action: Alright, so now that we know what a my-map is and how to generate them from scratch. In the next few lessons, Let's dive into mindmaps in action. 10. Planning Events with Mind Maps: Alright, so my maps are also really great at helping you to plan for various events and things going on. A couple of the items, a couple of the topics that I chose are planning a garden, planning for a vacation, and also planning for accompany event. I'm going to choose planning a vacation because I could totally use vacation right now. I want you to grab your materials, pens, whatever you might need, some paper, and let's get started. Now remember when creating your mind-map, you want to have your paper at landscape mode, you'll also want to draw your central image, which helps anchor your mind-map and keeps you on topic in the center. So what I'm gonna do is if you haven't figured it out already, I am really wanting to go to a beach as a vacation. Since I have my central image in the center of my mind-map going to title this beach vacation. Then the next thing I'm gonna do is go ahead and grab my pens and start drawing branches and so forth. I'm gonna be focusing on words again, I like to add the colors at the end. One of the things I first have to do is I have to decide where do I want my beach vacation? There's Florida, of course. Now you'll notice that a couple of things that I'm doing is I am sticking to one key word, poor line, or one keyword per line. That's one of the rules of mind-mapping, is to use one key word per line. This helps you to be able to draw associated thoughts and ideas. Basically from anything to where if I wanted to, I could go in and go to June and pick. These are a few of the things that are going on in June or even jump off into birthdays or whatever associated radiating a thought comes out from there. This also reminds me going through here as far as packing. That course, packing close, close led to this one, suits, kids be definitely New swimsuits. Maybe even to swimsuits each. If we're going to a beach and swimming all the time. Even looking at the word drive, that definitely makes me start to think about how many days is it going to get down there and thinking about different days? Are we going to spend one day on the beach, two days on the beach. How many days total do we have? That makes me even think of time-frame. Also looking at the word beach vacation, I'm going to start to highlight that in even think of, right, a couple of things down here. As far as questions that I might have as far as working out dates, certainly have to consider school. I think I have a really good mind-map going, as you can see here. Now the next thing I'm gonna do is come back with some color. I'll put maybe some doodles in here and call it a day. All right. There we go. The my-map all about the beach vacation. I totally want to go on. But you can see that as far as going from black and white to color, you get to see those distinguishing pups. And I can also add in here all kinds of different things as far as going in with a ballpoint pen and getting those details such as being able to research exactly like what days and get into the logistics. But at least this gives me an idea of what needs to occur next. 11. Organize Your Day Mind Map: Alright, let's talk about organizing your day for a minute. When it comes to mindmaps and organization, mind maps are great because they allow you to really structure your day and structure your thinking. What I mean by that is that let's go ahead and grab a pen. We've got your day here. You can organize your day, all kinds of different ways. You can organize your day. We'll just create rural simple mind-map. You can organize your day by morning, afternoon, and evening. Then you can go through and you can decide, alright, what is it that I need to do this morning? What do I need to do in the afternoon? What do I need to do for the evening? For the morning, it might be in regards to work, and it might also be in regards to personal things that you need to take care of, such as errands and all kinds of different stuff that you might have to do in the morning. You could also save your errands for the evening or have different errands that you need to one during the day, such as during the day if you're at work air and you might need to take care of our doctor's appointments. Going to the grocery store. It's always about the grocery store up going to the grocery store, doing something such as that evening errands could of course, be things that you do in the evening for me picking up my kids from school depending on what day it is. Afternoon might be, you know, meal prep or something depending on how your day is structured. So that's how you go about organizing your day real quickly by creating structure of your mind-map. This is by evening or morning, afternoon, or evening. You could also take your mind-map and create something. I'll just drop that on the floor switch to a different color. Let's do purple. Purple. You could also take your day and at the same time, organize your day by events. With mind-mapping, you'd aren't limited to a particular way of doing something. Which is why, well, one of the mini, multiple reasons why I love mind-mapping is that you're not, the structure is dependent on the need. What is it that you're meeting to do? Such as if I look at my day, I might think of it in regards to an errands only type of day where I'm thinking, Okay. I've got a lot to get done today such as yesterday I had a ton to do. I just took a post-it note. I wrote down all kinds of different things. Let's see if we can get this in focus. But I wrote down all kinds of different things that I needed to be able to take care of. And I chunked it into stores. I need it to go to like such as, Alright, I have a, I need to go to the UPS Store because I have an Amazon return. I love shopping on Amazon and I love returning things on it. I do, which it's part of the benefit. I think about returns, I might think about, all right, what do I need? I need that barcode or the QR code that they give you so that I can do my return. I need to make sure that I get the printed receipt. That's how mind-map start to trigger instructor and then I can go. All right, what else do I need to take care of? Well, of course there's always a food. I'm always running out of food because I prefer to just buy it as needed instead of throwing stuff away constantly. Food, snacks, etc. I might even go okay, food. I'm going to be at a particular stores such as Myer or something like that. I might structure my day. This is going to get messy, but you get the idea of what I mean as far as taking your day and looking at it in a different type of whale, me grab this as well. But that way you get an idea of your day can be structured however you want. You could also take your day and decide, okay, today is all about work and productivity. I need to get stuff done, which are the moods I'll get in as well. So I might focus on my day being split up by work. Only. I might be thinking about projects, certifications. I need to be able to create videos. I might have to do a voiceover. I might have to email someone, such as subject matter expert and get information from them. I might have to do a little bit of writing. So I start thinking about my day as far as work in a completely different way. So that's how you can start to use mind-mapping in a way that is beneficial for you, The Mind Mapper, when you create something such as this, don't be limited to, I have to do everything in a specific set kind of way. Let your mindmaps get messy. Lit only use one marker or pen. Focus on the details and what it is that you're doing instead of all the rules and everything that we've been talking about. So for me, that's how I use mind-mapping to structure my day. And it works great. 12. Brainstorm Idea Generation EXERCISE: Next up is brainstorming. However, before we dive into the nitty-gritty of brainstorming, I think it's best to do a warm up brainstorming exercise. What I found super-helpful is thinking of brainstorming as in warming up the mind. Just like you wouldn't go outside on a cold day if you're used to living anywhere that gets below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, you might have to go outside just like today and warm up your car first before you actually drive away. So what we're doing is we are warming up our brain by doing this idea generation exercise. And then we'll get into brainstorming in the next module or lesson for here, for this, what we're going to do is I want you to grab your phone or hop on the Internet and you can go to whatever website best suits your needs. However, the one that I'm on is random word generator. Let's see if I can get this popped up. You can see that the word that I have here is Pioneer. Just got a random word generator.com or whatever website you find best. You can just go there and type in. I've gotten number of words which is one. Then also I've got it generated the word pioneer. That's what I'm going to write in the center of my mind-map. Don't get caught on color or anything, Larry, right now, I want you to just take a black pen because we're just going to generate as many words as possible using radiant thinking, what we've learned from radiant thinking. I'm going to correctly spell pioneer. Write it in the middle. Then just put a simple circle around it. The rules of this game are such. First of all, I want you to be able to move fast. Do not. This is not an exercise that is done slowly. It should be done five minutes or less. If you need to go ahead and set a timer and get going. However, the next rule is deferred judgment. I want you to not think about spelling, even though that's something I do think about, but I want you to defer judgment if you spell Baddeley, that's fine. If you are like This isn't a good idea. Does this even match? Just get it close enough because again, move fast, defer judgment, and then move on to the third one, which is build on each rule. Also encourage ideas wild and stupid. And let's see, keep the goal focus. So keep focused on the goal. The goal of this exercise is just a random word place in the middle that is not generated by you, something that is. And you'll want to also do a 100 branches or a 100 keywords. Pioneer, we're gonna go ahead and start the time. Go, Oklahoma, real, the Oregon Trail. Definitely a rub makes me think of a back rub in a massage. Also, old places and discovering old places such as I've never been there. Let me discover this old place that so many people know. Next once you're done with that, whether you reach of five-minutes or a 100 branches, what I want you to do is when you get to the point of RA, this is a little bit, you've got a good flow. Just go in and start counting how many branches you have. All right, so I've got 56 words degenerated. I need 44 more. This is where you can see, wow, this is definitely going to take a little bit of time as far as being able to generate different types of ideas. And for me, I'm used to brainstorming and using mind maps for brainstorming. But if the goal is 100 branches and we'll just write it here, then I need to start thinking more radiatively as far as being able to go in and have different kinds of thoughts, I'm going to switch pens because I want to know where was my where did I drop off as far as width this so I dropped off at 56. So I need 44 more and I'm gonna keep going. Now this is where I start getting light, more particular and more detailed about my different types of branches. Because right now I'm basically going for numbers only today time place. And there we have it 100 branches created, all starting with Pioneer and then generating outward from there. Radiating outward by associations and different thoughts and triggers and one thought leads to another and everything. Again, this is a great exercise for just warming up the brain in getting you in that brainstorming. Which is what we're going to dive into in the next lesson. 13. Brainstorm Mind Map: Alright, so now that our brains are all warmed up, what happens next? Well, the next stage is to take those warmed up brains and get them ready for problem solution, all kinds of things. So what we're gonna do is keep your materials out. You'll need that black pen still. What we will end up doing next is taking, making a mindmap and putting a question in the center. So we'll start off with a really basic question. B, any question, then we are going to create solutions around that. This is the kind of myMap that will be creating next. However, this right here is really basic. Of course. There's so much more that goes into than just being like, oh, you just put your question and then you start to come up with ideas. Because if you've ever brainstorm before, some things, sometimes things just aren't that cut and dry. So I want you to think of any question you could go ahead and put your question in the middle of your mind-map and then start generating solutions from there. Or you could do this exercise with me. And that is, what you want to do is think about your problem. Or think about the question that you have at hand. Such as, how can I increase sales in my business? Or you could just write how to increase sales and then put a question mark there. Just put a basic circle around this. And you can start to think, okay, let's see, I could increase sales through e-mail and different types of email marketing and will leave email marketing as one word. You could also write, oh, I wanted to do podcasting or something like that to increase sales. If you're thinking about this as a business, I want to increase sales within my business and everything. If you think about all kinds of different stuff such as I could do funnels, which a lot of times have to do with e-mail marketing. I could do social media. You can come up with all different types of things from there. What kind of social media you could do, YouTube, YouTube, Facebook, etc. And podcasting like, oh, you might have to learn about podcasting. You might have to get a microphone, email marketing, campaigns, and so on and so forth. Those are great for really basic types of brainstorming. This will definitely take you really far, especially if you are a new employee or if you're starting a new business, you're an entrepreneur and you're just looking for basic things like, how do I increase sales? Oh, I need to do more social media, I need to do more email campaigns and stuff. However, when you're in like say if you're a businessperson, your company is wanting to do a brainstorm session. They might have a question. Well, more than likely they're gonna have a question that is very specific and very smart because they know that smart goals are the way to go. They might go, your boss, you might get an email that says, we need to come up with a brainstorm of how to increase sales by 25%. Then you go and you write down increase sales twenty-five percent. Then a couple of days later before you're brainstorming session or a little while later, someone's like, why don't we just do an e-mail campaign? And so we're like, Okay, increase sales twenty-five percent with e-mail marketing or campaign. You write that down in the center, you maybe give it a little thought bubble or a little cloud around. The only thing that's wrong with this is that it is way too solution based. You do not want your mind-map and you're brainstorming mindmaps to be solution-based. In this center. What I mean by that is increased sales is perfect, That's good. However, twenty-five percent. Then email marketing. Those are very specific. Almost in dare I say too specific because right now what we have, let me grab another pen. Actually, we'll grab him workers. But what we have right now is Twenty-five percent might be great. However, maybe the question needs to be, how do we double our marketing? How do we double our sales? How do we do 200%? What would work to do? Can we triple our sales? This is what you need to be thinking about, whereas May 25% be very limiting. Maybe the best you can do with email marketing is just have people open up your emails. And so that's where you start to go. Well, that's where you look at the other item. Such as email marketing. Again, this is a solution-based, like it's really, it's too specific when you think about brainstorming. A lot of times executives and so forth and people you might work with, they want to make sure that brainstorming sessions are actually helpful in don't limit people or they want to they want to limit the conversation. They definitely don't aren't looking for wild ideas. Wild ideas are bad. Saying something stupid is definitely like if you've ever heard anyone say in a meeting, oh, there's no such thing as a wrong answer. There are There's totally such things as a wrong answer. And the thing with this is that focusing your campaign or your mind-map or your brainstorming session to be email marketing based only. That might be not be the right way to go. The right way to go might be maybe we shouldn't do email at all. Maybe the problem is that people aren't opening their email campaign, campaigns from us. You should be able to have specific numbers and stuff if you're looking for growth such as that to be like, what are open rates right now? Maybe they're only 10%, which is actually really good. Maybe they're less, then one-percent, not good. So therefore, directing people to an email marketing campaign might not be what your customer wants. Instead, the better question is, how can we just increase sales? How can we maybe email marketing? It's the way to go. Maybe social media is better. Maybe we have a younger audience and they don't look at email. What they look at is our videos and everything. You might want to go, well, actually videos would be much rat, better for our audience and stuff. And that's where you get into the specifics and the nitty-gritties and you really start to drill down the brainstorming session. But one of the things are a couple of the things that you'll want to steer clear of when brainstorming are. One cognitive bias. Cognitive bias is when you tend to favor information that reinforces things that you already believe, such as email marketing is the way to go. And that's all our customer is interested in. Things have changed and customers change their buying patterns change. If you come in with e-mail marketing and this is what works. Or even someone suggest, well maybe we should have an email marketing campaign. You're like, Nope, it'll never work. You don't want to be that person either. That's just like, Nope, This doesn't work. Oh, we've tried to podcasts before in the past, didn't work of funnel air. The guy who used to do our funnels will use college dropout or whatever. I don't know, but I've heard all kinds of things during meetings to where it's just like it becomes more of a someone's throwing an idea out there and someone else coming along and be like, Nope, won't work, then you're like, Okay, so you've shot down all the ideas and now we have nothing. That's where bosses and everything can be helpful and not so helpful and being like, Okay, everyone was just focus on email marketing. Twenty-five percent growing things that way, whereas the better solution is increased sales. Let's see what does work. Let's try some different things. So that's where brainstorming and mind-mapping really creates all kinds of fun. 14. Note Taking Mind Map Overview: The trouble that I experienced the most when taking notes doesn't necessarily have to do so much with mind-mapping in general, but it has to do with the materials at hand. When I'm out and about and I'm at work or somewhere like a library or something such as that, and I'm wanting to take notes. The last thing I usually have on hand is simple paper. Instead, what I do have is papers such as this trusted notebook that is super used and love. I usually have a pan, of course, and a marker on hand as well. Let's go ahead and look at some notes that I've taken from a course that I signed up for a little while back. This right here, these pages are actual notes that I've taken from this blood-borne for body are infection control for body artists. A while back I was thinking, maybe I wanted to become a tattoo artist. Why not? Why not look into it? One of the first things you have to do is get certified and bloodborne pathogens and be able to know the safety and guidelines and rules and be compliant with things such as using gloves, clean needles, etc, etc. I won't go into all the details here. However, I think that it's worth looking at this style of notes that I took from actually trying to learn something, this actual discourse that I was taking. We started off with a little illustrations. Now in this you'll be able to see that my notes run up from top to bottom and left to right. Just like as if I was taking notes doing just regular note-taking in something such as this where I'm just wanting to see I do all kinds of doodles and notes in my notebook. So I have all kinds of things. My notes go from top to bottom. So that's where my mind mapping does change, is that it becomes more of a hybrid type of note-taking. Now you might be on YouTube, he might be on some other. You're looking at some other mind-map or everyone has a different style for taking notes and everyone has a different style for mind-mapping, which I think is rather cool because then you can be unique and individualized. Your mindmaps to fit your needs based off of what's going on in the moment. With looking at this, I've got a lot of little doodles. I've got my maps, I've got branches and so forth steaming outward. I go to the next page. I do a little bit of color here and there. Talk about bloodborne pathogens and infections. I've got a checklist down here, different types of headers and aseptic techniques and so forth. The next few pages I get into more light charts and illustrations such as, Alright, let's take a look at the human body and I've got a sketch of the human body here. How do you bloodborne pathogens enter? What, how, you know, what's the different types of definitions that we have about this? Then I finish up with more lessons and everything such as that. So I think that when it comes to being useful, mindmaps can be incredibly useful when it comes to taking notes and learning new things. The only thing is, is that you just have to change them and make it unique for you. In the next lesson, we'll be going through an actual lecture. I'm gonna find something that I liked that we can go through and start to you can watch me take notes based off of that. 15. Note Taking Mind Map In Action: Okay, so let's go ahead and see what mind-mapping looks like when you use, or what note-taking looks like when you use mind-mapping techniques. This is not going to be a traditional mind-map that I'll be creating. Instead, it's based on a hybrid system that I've been using and have found beneficial as far as blending mind-mapping techniques with traditional note-taking techniques. So with that said, let's go ahead and take a look at my screen here. We've got we're on TED.com. And there's a lot of TED talks that are available. I'm going to choose one of the things that not too long that we can dive into and you can see me create this my-map in action. Let's go ahead and click on the benefits of a bilingual brain. For me, I think that sounds the most interesting, since I do like the brain and benefits and language and everything. So it's kind of fun. I'll go ahead and turn all this stuff off to, since I don't need a keyboard at the moment, I will leave my mouse available in, on and off to the side. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to start with putting information upfront. Information such as the title. We've got the benefits here. We've got TED Talk, lecture and benefits of the bilingual brain. Let's see, Let's look at the description a little bit more. I like reading the descriptions and stuff preparing ahead of time that way I can know, okay, these are a few of the things that perhaps we're gonna talk about, such as brain health. How to be more actively engaged as possibility that we will be going into all of these things. And I also see that they have a transcript here. However, I'm going to take notes by listening, by pausing. Let's dive in. By watching an ad. Last Espanol put a roof. Osi. Jom Emma. If you answered C, we, or why? You're watching this in English, chances are you belong to the world's bilingual and multilingual majority. And besides having an easier time traveling or watching movies without subtitles, knowing two or more languages means that your brain may actually look and work differently than those of your monolingual friends. What does it really mean to know a language? Language ability is typically measured in two active parts. I like that the subtitles are on here because that helps me to be able to see what it is that I'm looking at at the same time as hearing. That helps with learning something new is when you can engage more and more senses. Taste, touch. I know it's hard to in a cage taste and touch when learning. However, the touch, the feel of having a paper in writing and so forth does make a difference that engages in that sense when you can see what the words are and learn through subtitles along with hearing that engages more senses. I'm gonna go ahead and start to break this up into bits. I'm going to have, I'm going to draw a doodle of a brain here, since this is what it's all about. I'm going to have the brain divided into a couple of parts. Then some squiggles to show the folds of the lobes and everything, all that good stuff. Let's see, measured into active parts, speaking and writing. You'll also notice that when I take notes, I will doodle a lot. I'll do a lot more doodles when I am actively learning something. Then when I am necessarily just trying to get like brainstorming ideas out might seem counter-intuitive, but that's the way I do things. Language two parts. I'm going to divide this up here, speaking and writing. And then have another branch coming out here with writing on it. Speaking and writing and to passive parts. Listening and reading. Language themes are active that way because I'm already running out of room, as you can see over here, I guess I could keep going this way. However, I'm going to. Just start to separate things into active is over here, passive is over there. While he balanced bilingual has near equal abilities across the board in two languages. Most bilinguals around the world know and use their languages in varying proportions, depending on their situation and how they acquired each language. They can be classified into three general types. For example, let's take Gabriela, who's family immigrates to the US from Peru when she's two years old as a compound bilingual. Alright. Now we're getting into some more of the learning. I'm gonna put it over here because mindmaps, the thing about mindmaps and learning and stuff is that they are incredibly messy. It's one of those things where you don't know. The best thing to do I found is not control how the mind-map is flowing. Instead, control how the information is written. That way I can have all kinds of different things. I just started jotting stuff down. I'm sure she'll jump back to other things and then I'll be able, my mind-map will basically essentially get messier and messier until it starts to resemble something such as this to where it's just kind of like messy. And that's the beauty of mind maps, is that they do not have to be neat at all with regular note-taking. It's very systematic, very linear, very much a, B, C, outline based 123. And that's not how learning occurs. Learning occurs in all kinds of different ways. So I've got a little checkbox over here. I'm gonna write compound bilingual. Gabriele develops to linguistic codes simultaneously with a single set of concepts, learning both English and Spanish as she begins to process the world around her. Her teenage brother, on the other hand, might be a coordinate bilingual, working with two sets of concepts, learning English in school while continuing to speak Spanish at home with friends. Finally, Gabriele is parents are likely to be subordinate bilinguals who, who learn a secondary language by filtering it through their primary language. Because all types of bilingual people can become fully proficient in a language regardless of axon or pronunciation, the difference may not be apparent to a casual observer. But recent advances in brain imaging technology have given neuro linguists at glimpse into how specific aspects of language learning effect the bilingual brain. It's well-known that the brain's left hemisphere is more dominant and analytical and logical processes. While there right? Now I can start to fill out my mind-map by adding things such as this, like the left side analytical, something that I already knew, but I want to write down just to support that. And then the right side of the brain being more logical based. Chemistry and emotional and social lens. Also like white out. When it comes to mind-mapping notes and everything, because sometimes I'll write the wrong thing down there. I need to have something to be Ubuntu, pop that on there. Change it especially when working with a pen. Though this is a matter of degree, not an absolute split. The fact that language involves both types of functions, while lateralization develops gradually with age, has led to the critical period hypothesis. According to this theory, children learn language is more easily because the plasticity of their developing brains lets them use both hemispheres in language acquisition. While in most adults, language is lateralized to one hemisphere, usually the left. If this is true, learning a language in childhood may give you a more holistic grasp of its social and emotional contexts. Conversely, recent research showed that people who learned a second language in adulthood exhibit less emotional bias and a more rational approach when confronting problems in the second language than in their native one. But regardless of when you acquire additional languages, being multilingual gives your brain some remarkable advantages. Some of these are even visible, such as higher density of the gray matter that contains most of your brain's neurons and synapses and more activity in certain regions when engaging a second language. The heightened workout or bilingual brain receives throughout its life can also help delay the onset of diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia by as much as five years. There are also talking to some of the woods, just say medical benefits as well, such as keeping the brain neuroplastic inactive. Going to put on there more use. The idea of major cognitive benefits to bilingualism may seem intuitive now, but it would've surprised earlier experts. Before the 1990's, bilingualism was considered a handicap that slowed a child's development by forcing them to spend too much energy distinguishing between languages. So I understand you based largely on flawed studies. While a more recent study did show that reaction times in errors increase for some bilingual students in cross-language tests. It also showed that the effort and attention needed to switch between languages triggered more activity in and potentially strengthened the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain that plays a large role in executive function. Problem-solving, switching between tau. Since I'm not using really a lot of this area right here, I'm going to start to pop this up there. Under the benefits and everything. I'm going to put executive function here. And we've got problem-solving. Or even put multitasking. Let's see what else. Tasks and focusing while filtering out. And focusing. Going to add this, filtering out. Irrelevant information. While bilingualism may not necessarily make you smarter, it does make your brain more healthy. That's kind of cool. Benefits, continued benefits are it looks like it's wrapping up here. I'm going to put another benefits. I'm going to make a little checklist. More healthy brain. This is where I'm writing more sentences and everything. Complex. Active engagement. And what else? Complex and actively engaged. And even if you didn't have the good fortune of learning a second language as a child. It's never too late to do yourself a favor and make the linguistic leap from hello to hola, bonjour or knee halls. Can see when it comes to our brains, a little exercise can go along way. I like it. I like it. We'll put another benefit is just exercise. Your brain. I think that's the conclusion there is that bilingual, even just learning a second language, I used to actually know how to speak Spanish on a fluent level. Back when I was in my twenties, I lived in the Dominican Republic for a couple of months teaching English down their two kids near the area about a Honda, which is right super close to the Asian border and on right along the Caribbean Sea, I guess that is. But it was right next to the beach. Very under privileged children. And if you want it to speak In, wanted people to understand, then you had to speak Spanish. People just didn't. I mean, they knew a couple of words of English, but other than that you had to speak. So I learned and it definitely was something that I still have to filter my language through. I have to think, okay, how do I say this in English? And then filter through? And Spanish is just really arduous. Whereas kids who learn a language at the same time, like my daughter's friends, they learn Spanish and English at the same time. And so their brains are just different. They don't have accents when they talk, when they speak English, like Matthew's five-years old, he doesn't speak with an accidental, but then he speaks beautifully when it comes to Spanish. In his brain just filters information differently. So his brain is receiving different benefits than mine is. However, it seems like based on this video and all the studies and stuff that have come before, is that it's just a great way to keep your brain very neuroplastic and moving and everything. Which is another reason why like mind-mapping is that it keeps your brain plastic. It keeps things moving. It makes you to use all the parts of your brain instead of just the right hemisphere or the left hemisphere when it comes to learning. So I hope that with note-taking, something as simple as this, watching a TED Talk video and taking some notes and just seeing me do it helps you to be like, Okay, that's how it's done. That is one way to do things. Someone else who's teaching the same class on mind-mapping, they are very different. So again, choose which one is best for you. Adapt it to meet your needs and then move forward from there. Maybe your brain is used to taking notes the traditional old-fashioned way. And you would like to just basically use more doodles and everything in your note-taking. Great. Do that. If you're like, Oh, I can't stand traditional note-taking. I need my brain, likes to be able to be all over the place when I'm learning in jump back and forth and be like, Oh, let's do some research and find out more about compound bilingualism. As far as what happens in children's early developmental stage, or when someone moves to a more of a coordinate bilingual, that kind of a thing to wear. For me. I'm more of a subordinate bilingual if you want to call it that. So even just looking through this video, watching it for the first time, my brain, since I am used to active learning. In passive learning, note-taking, I'm able to learn things faster than maybe someone who isn't used to. Mind-mapping isn't used to learning their brain, isn't plastic or in a state of neuroplasticity all the time. So anyway, I'm not going to dive too deep into this, but I hope that you're able to find something that is useful when it comes to note-taking.