5 Tips For Using Mind Mapping To Help Declutter Your Brain

Mind mapping is a mainstream tool used by many people of different occupations including academics, students, and business professionals to process, organize and reproduce information in a new and highly structured way. But very few people realize they can use it in everyday life.

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Mind mapping in a few words

There are dozens, maybe hundreds of methods for “boosting” your brain because it conceals many opportunities, access to which is often limited to us. “Eat dark chocolate”, “Hang stickers all over the house”, “Start with the most important things” and many other tips can be found on the Internet, the essence of which boils down to one thing – to push our brain to work fast, get it going to its fullest, or even “Cheat”. And all for maximum benefit – to do a lot of things, memorize more information, defeat laziness, and so on. Man has always tried to squeeze the maximum of his capabilities.

In the 80s of the twentieth century, another such method was invented by Tony Buzan. Mind mapping is now understood as a thinking visualization technique with which you can better and more efficiently process some information. So here are 5 tips on how mind mapping can be used to declutter your brain.

3 benefits of mind-mapping

More effective memorization

Many people utilize mind maps as a powerful tool to memorize information. Mind maps use colors, shapes, and images to present concepts and data, providing context and visual cues for complex information. By providing the brain with visual associations, they help the brain generate and store new information.

Boost creative thinking

Concept mapping is a particularly effective method for inspiring creative, outside-the-box thinking. By converting a blank page into a flowchart of branches and sub-branches, it encourages you to view the central concept from a thousand different angles, which can, in turn, inspire new ideas.

Problem solving

A lot of people use mind mapping tools to divide complex problems into their component parts in order to develop solutions. Distilling the problem to its central image or main topic and then expanding outward makes it easier to analyze the problem bit by bit and find solutions that respond to each component of the problem.

Best tips for mind mapping

#1 Make sure you make it properly

Creating a mind map is an easy task that can have pitfalls. For maximum effect, make sure you stick to all rules of mind map creation.

• Start in the middle for the main idea
• Create branches to organize subtopics.
• Add more details to your mind map.

Make connections by drawing lines or arrows between ideas in the map that you want to connect and keep expanding for as long as you need to.

#2 Add illustrations, use colors and fonts

Mind maps use both left and right hemispheres of the brain, as well as the management of emotions, thoughts, lines, colors, logic, memory, lists and numbers, words/phrases, imagination, and planning for the future. So mind mapping is a great brain exercise – a great bonus for an already rewarding activity. You can add illustrations, colors, and different fonts to improve the performance of your mind map. You don’t need to have any special skills – just a simple sketch, calligraphy handwriting, and a catchy color will help your brain sort out the things and read your mind map again later.

A cup of coffee next to a “quit caffeine” or a slender figure next to a “yoga” pool? Maybe a TV next to a small “Bubble TV”. Why do colors matter? The thing is, they are as exciting to your brain as are images. They add vibrancy to your Mind Map and energy to your Creative Thinking. Whatever your style, putting your thoughts on paper in an unconventional, fluent way will help declutter your brain so that you can think more clearly.

#3 Create more than one map

Every Mind Map is unique, they all have similar structures. Every map starts with the main thought placed in the middle and that diverges like the branches of a tree. The essence of the mind map is to build associative chains. At the heart of the mind map, you need to put the main idea, and then draw branches, disassembling the general idea into more detailed sub-ideas. If you feel like having more than one central idea on your mind, go ahead and create one more map.

It’s also okay if you jot down all your thoughts on one paper. Very often you may track the relationship between things that you were not aware of before. For example, for me “Healthy Diet” and “Self-organization” may well fall under the category of “mental welfare”. In addition, there are other topics that I would also refer to as “mental welfare,” so the new mind map with “mental welfare” as the central idea helped me a lot.

#4 Use mobile apps

Putting your mind map on paper is an effective way to declutter your mind. Nevertheless, those looking for an easier approach may try specialized apps for creating mind maps. There are a lot of good mind mapping apps available. But since the creative process tends to be quite personal, it’s difficult to point out the best ones.

• No size limitation: you’re not restrained to the dimension of your paper.
• Flexibility: you can easily re-organize ideas through clicking and dragging.
• Co-creation: in software that lets you create a mind map online, you can frequently have more than one user taking part on the same idea map.
• Visual presentation: you can use the formatting equipment to create expert diagrams that you can shortly share and present.

Since you are very likely to have access to multiple devices, it’s essential that your mind maps are synchronized on multiple devices.

#5 Trust different tasks

Mind mapping is a tool that can be used for a wide variety of tasks. Decluttering your brain using mind mapping is possible if you rely on this method not only for learning a language but also for several other tasks. For example:

• Note-taking: For those who prefer visual thinking, mind maps may be most efficient to linear notes because they can use images, words, and numbers. A visual representation of information obtained in real-time can be more intuitive and effective than typical notes for certain individuals.
• Brainstorming: Mind mapping can be a specifically tremendous device at some stage in brainstorming sessions. Mind maps can motivate creative thinking via offering ideas simply, visually, and without hierarchy, inspiring team participants to be more open when pitching ideas.
• Organizing information: Some individuals use mind mapping methods to synthesize complex information. Mind maps can be particularly useful when attempting to combine facts from a number of sources or locate options for complex problems.

Wrapping Up

Everyone approaches information processing differently. For visual learners, mind mapping can be a particularly great fantastic to organize and absorb information. I have presented you with the 5 best tips on using mind mapping to declutter your brain. It’s clear now why mind maps are a fun and exciting way to remember information, brainstorm, and solve complex issues.