Tony Buzan
Mind Map® Handbook
Contents
Title Page
A Letter to My Readers
1: How to Mind Map
1.1: Introducing the Mind Map!
1.2: Making a Mind Map
1.3: Your Daily Life Made More Successful with Mind Maps
1.4: Making the Most of Your Creativity with Mind Maps
1.5: Your Ideal Future Designed by Mind Maps
2: The Power of Verbal Intelligence
2.1: Fore-word! Your Journey to Verbal Power Begins
2.2: Child’s Wordplay – Proof that You are a Natural Verbal Genius
2.3: Word Power I – Roots: How to Improve Your Vocabulary, Creativity, Memory and IQ!
2.4: Word Power II – Prefixes and Suffixes
2.5: Brain Word – Using your Brain Power to Develop your Word Power
2.6: Body Talk – Body Language and How to Improve It
2.7: Present Yourself – How to Become a Successful Speaker
2.8: Read On! How to Improve Your Speed, Comprehension and Recall
2.9: Communication Power – Using Your Verbal Intelligence to Gain Control of Your Life
2.10: Using Your Verbal Intelligence to Increase Your Other Multiple Intelligences
3: The Power of Creative Intelligence
3.1: Introduction – Beginning Your Creativity Journey
3.2: Using Your Magical Left and Right Brains
3.3: Infinite Creativity – Mapping Your Mind with Mind-Maps
3.4: You the Creative Artist
3.5: You the Creative Musician
3.6: Creative Productivity – The Power of Volume and Speed
3.7: Creative Flexibility and Originality
3.8: Your Brain: The Ultimate ‘Association Machine’ – Expansive and Radiant Thinking
3.9: You and Shakespeare – Poets Both!
3.10: Only Kidding
Congratulations!
Plates
Answers
Contact
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Let me tell you the story of how Mind Maps came into being.
As a young child I had loved the idea of taking notes and of learning. By the time I was a teenager my thinking was already getting into a mess, and I began to hate anything to do with study, especially note-taking. I began to notice the extraordinary paradox that the more notes I took the worse my studies and memory became. In an effort to improve matters I began to underline key words and ideas in red and to put important things in boxes. Magically, my memory began to improve.
In my first year of university, I was still struggling. It was then that I became fascinated by the Greeks, for I learned that they had developed memory systems that enabled them to recall perfectly hundreds and thousands of facts. The Greek memory systems were based on Imagination and Association, which I noticed to my amusement and concern were absent from my own notes!
I then began to notice that everyone around me was taking the same kind of crowded, one-colour and monotonous notes as I was. None of us was using the principles of Imagination and Association – we were all in the same sinking boat!
I suddenly realized that in my head and the collective ‘global brain’, there was a gigantic log-jam that needed a new note-taking and thinking tool to unblock it.
I set out in search of a thinking tool that would give us the freedom to think and the freedom to think in the way we were designed to think.
I began to study every subject I could, especially psychology. In psychology I discovered that there were two main things important to the brain during learning: Association and Imagination. Similar to the Greeks! By now I was becoming fascinated by my brain and what I realized were its power and potential. The power and potential were both much greater than I had thought. I began to focus on memory, note-taking and creativity, as it seemed that the answer to my quest would lie with them.
I quickly discovered that most of the great thinkers, especially Leonardo da Vinci, used pictures, codes and connecting lines in their notes. They ‘doodled’ and thus made their notes come alive.
During all these explorations, I would often wander in nature, where I found it much easier to think, imagine and dream. It began to dawn on me that, as we are part of nature, our thinking and note-making must relate to nature and must reflect nature; we must mirror the universal laws of nature in our own functioning!
There was only one possible solution to my dilemma. The thinking tool had to apply to the full range of human daily activities, and had to be based on the way the brain naturally wants to work. I needed something that reflected the processes of nature and how our brains naturally work rather than something that put us in a mental strait-jacket by forcing us to work against our natural design. What emerged was a star-like, simple, and beautiful tool that did reflect the natural creativity and radiance of our thinking processes.
The first Mind Map was born!
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) heard about this new discovery and about its remarkable effect on children. As a result they asked me to do a half-an-hour television program on Mind Maps.
At the meeting to discuss the content of the program, I Mind Mapped the brain-storming session. Looking at the growing Mind Map, the Head of BBC Further Education exclaimed: ‘There’s more than one programme here. There are at least ten!’ Within a year the Use Your Head ten-part television series and accompanying book were launched. The Mind Map had created its own future!
Since then I have devoted my time to lecturing and teaching about the theory and application of Mind Maps. Having struggled through my student days, I was determined that everyone should have the benefit of this liberating thinking tool.
Mind Map Handbook is part of this determination to make Mind Maps accessible to everyone.
Part One introduces you to what a Mind Map is, how Mind Maps work and the many ways in which they can help you excel at what you do.
Part Two focuses on how to use Mind Maps to harness the power of your verbal intelligence and become brilliant with words – whether you are reading, speaking, remembering or understanding them.
Part Three shows you how Mind Maps can help you unlock your creative genius and become the ideas person you’ve always wanted to be. Mind Maps are the Swiss Army Knife for the brain, and with them