Use Mind Mapping Software to Boast Your Brain Power

If you are not practicing mind mapping, then you are really loosing out. Whether for improving yourself or your business, mind map is a great tool that you can’t afford not to use.

So, what is mind map?

According to Michael Michalko, the writer of Cracking Creativity, “A Mind Map is ‘the whole-brain alternative’ to linear thinking. It reaches out in all directions and catches thoughts from any angle.”

Basically, a mind map is an overview of a subject with branches that branching out from the center or the core (subject), explaining or detailing the whole thing on a single view. It uses lots of color, drawings and phrases that no more than two words, to stimulate creativity and memorizing capability.

So by using a mind map, you just need to look at a single piece of paper to understand the whole thing that is going on under the subject that you want to study. It saves your time from unnecessary lengthy explanation which most of the time that does not serve more than the words used.

One of the most respected pioneers in mind mapping, which I guess you must have heard of is Tony Buzan, unless if you have been living in the caves for the past few decades, that’s would be a different story. Tony Buzan describes mind map as the ultimate organizational thinking tool and he even call it as the “Swiss army knife of the brain”.

He explains further that mind map is the easiest way to put and to take information out from the brain. It is a creative and effective means of note-taking that literally ‘maps out’ your thoughts. Nothing could organize information more effectively than a mind map. You can keep things in your brain like an effective librarian that could retrieve just any titles from the shelves at the shortest span of time.

So by organizing the information in your brain effectively, you can enhance/ boast up your creativity and thinking capability. It makes the whole process far more easier than ever before. Some of the great geniuses such as Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Michelangelo, Charles Darwin, Sir Winston Churchill and William Blake had employed some of the major elements of Mind Mapping Guidelines to make their thought visible and thus, helping them to make great creative leaps forward in their disciplines.

And believe it or not, theirs brains are no different from yours, it is just the matter of how their used theirs to expand the brain power. So do you want to think like a genius?

If the answer is yes, then start mind mapping. And the good news is you do not need to draw on a piece of paper if you don’t feel like, particularly if your drawing sucks, as Tony Buzan has created a mind map software, which he calls it 'iMindMap' that makes mind mapping fun and easy. As a registered user of this software, you will be able to connect to his artwork of database that contains more than 300,000 images and animations. You can download the 30 days evaluation at his website, iMindMap.

Another great piece of mind mapping software that you can try it out is MindJet. From testing out their mind map examples, I found that this piece of software is awesome. It has lots of great features but it quite confusing especially for first time user, I am and still in the middle of exploring it, which for that I don’t wish to comment more. Check it out at it's official website and experience it yourself.

By the way, MindJet has a great list of clients which include Microsoft, Amazon, BMW, Philips, Canon, ABN AMRO, Cisco and lots more which you can find them out there.

I am not affiliated with both iMindMap and MindJet, it just happens that I love Buzan's stuff and has just tried MindJet. MindJet is quite expensive and I don't really recommend this unless you have a big budget. As you have noticed, this piece is used by big dog companies. Anyway, I'm using the trial version.

There are other mind map software that available in the market, some are free and some are not. There are also web-based tool where you can mind map anywhere in the world as long as you have a connection to the internet. And this would comes handy even if you don't have your laptop all the time, especially when you are on the move.