Introduction
Mind Mapping is a tool commonly used to brainstorm thoughts pertaining a given subject without consideration of doing things in a particular. It is essentially a way you can visualize a stream of consciousness (free-flowing thoughts) into a structured layout. It is a great way to help sort your thoughts out about something as it visualizes concepts, quickly outlines potential reports and presentations, and simplifies things like project management or writing papers.
How do I make a Mind Map?
A Mind Map, visually, is a central idea from which related ideas branch out from it, followed by those ideas having related ideas branch out from them, ad infinitum.
Thus, to make a Mind Map, start out with a box in the middle of your workspace labeled after your key topic (i.e. vacation ideas). Then, branch out from your key topics with things that pertain to your key topic (i.e. different countries you’d like to vacation in).
Then, branch out each of those things into specific aspects of those things (i.e. cities/geographical areas of interest in the countries you’d like to vacation in). Go further and branch each of those specific aspects into even more specific points (i.e. restaurants, tourist attractions, etc. in each city/geographical area). Rinse and repeat until you have no more thought to add to a branch.
You may notice that, in principle, it’s not that different from a bulleted list with sub-bullets and sub-sub-bullets. That’s because it isn’t — principally it’s the same thing. The difference lies in the visualization and presentation of the bulleted list. The presentation of Mind Maps are more akin to how our minds think of things (potentially swinging from branch to branch) as opposed to bulleted lists, which force us to think top to bottom.
Conclusion
Give it a shot the next time you’re trying to sort out your thoughts or think through an idea. Mind Mapping is a great way to brainstorm and work out potential solutions to problems not only from a product management perspective, but from a general, personal perspective, too.