Speedy Writing Tip: Make a Mindmap

Writers are always looking for ways to write faster and more easily. As someone who’s been writing for 20 years, I’ve found mindmaps to be invaluable.

Mindmaps help me organize my thoughts, brainstorm topics, and expand ideas. When I make a mindmap before writing, I find the actual writing to go much more smoothly and quickly. It’s as if my subconscious had already pretty much written the material and I’m merely typing it onto the computer.

In addition, with today’s mindmapping tools, it’s easier than ever to take your ideas from a mind map to the written page. More on that later.

What’s a Mind Map?

A mind map is a visual diagram made up of words, images, colors and lines. Mind mapping is a technique invented by Tony Buzan, a renowned author and educational consultant. He came up with mind mapping as a way to unlock the functions of the brain, particularly those that we often underuse.

If you recall, our brains have two sides. The left side is in charge of words, logic, numbers, sequence, and linear thinking. This is the side we most often use in our everyday lives, including our writing.

This leads us to neglect the right side of the brain, which handles imagination, rhythm, spatial awareness, and so on. As a result, we’re only harnessing half the potential of our brains. We come up with the same old stale solutions and ideas.

On the other hand, by using both sides of our brain, we unlock our creativity, problem solving and thinking “out of the box.”

How Mind Mapping Helps Writers

As you can imagine from the description of mind mapping above, it can be a useful tool for writers. Mind mapping can help you:

• focus on your main idea or topic
• organize various topics in a coherent whole
• stimulate your brain to come up with fresh ideas, topics and approaches
• think critically about a topic
• burn key concepts into your memory

You can use mind mapping whether you’re still trying to come up with ideas for content, or already have a topic in mind and want to plan what you’re going to write. Ready to give it a try?

Mind Mapping Tools

First, gather your mind mapping materials. The most basic tools for mind mapping are:

• blank, unlined sheet of paper
• colored pens
• your brain

A number of high-tech mind mapping tools have come up as well. Dozens of of computer software are now available, which allow you to create mind maps directly on your computer. Some are free; some cost hundreds of dollars.

Personally, I like free. Two I use are bubbl.us, which you access online, and Freemind, which you download to your computer. I like the colors and three-dimensional look of bubbl.us mind maps. However, I find myself using Freemind more for a “quick and dirty” mind map. Explore the options and stick with whichever works best for you.

As far as unleashing your creativity goes, I believe it’s better to use your hands. Therefore, the pen and paper technique would be best. You can’t draw images on your mind map if you’re using software.

However, mind mapping software does have an advantage over the low-tech approach: the ability to export your mind map into a word processing document.

This means, after you’ve created your mind map, you won’t need to rewrite everything into your written content. You simply export it into your word processor, and you’ll have a text outline. Now start expanding the outline into sentences and paragraphs. Wasn’t that easy?

Bubbl.us and Freemind don’t export directly to a word processor. They do export your mind map to HTML, which means your outline opens into your web browser. Copy this text outline and paste it onto your word processor. Easy peasy.

How to Make a Mind Map

Here are the main steps to mind mapping:

1. In the middle of your unlined paper, draw an image that represents your main topic.
2. For each sub-topic you have, draw a branch from your center image.
3. Label each branch using only a few words or key words. For better results, draw an image for each branch or sub-topic as well.
4. For each sub-topic, draw more branches for every idea you have about it. Keep drawing more sub-branches as long as your ideas keep coming, getting more and more detailed as you go along.

There you have it, your mind map.

As you can see, mind mapping helps you come up with content ideas, organize your ideas, guide your topic research, and write more quickly. It’s worthwhile to take a few minutes before writing to create a mind map.

Do tell: do you use mind maps? What do you think of mind mapping? If you’ve never tried mind mapping, what do you do to prepare for writing?

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About the Author

Alexis Rodrigo is a passionate blogger, copywriter and Internet marketer – when she isn’t changing diapers or cooking meals, that is. A self-confessed word nerd, she is a lifelong student of how words influence people’s thoughts, attitudes, feelings and actions.

Visit Lexi Rodrigo Online at: TheSavvyFreelancer.com