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ОглавлениеChapter 4: Mind Charting
Introduction to Mind Charting
What I would like to do at this stage is stop talking about the mind and the brain and now turn to a “doing” activity called Mind Charting. (I have heard and read this described as “Mind Mapping”, “Mindscapes” and “Mind Clustering” – I'll call it “Mind Charting”). It is an important topic for academic accelerated learning and its uses can also be applied to achieving life skills goals faster. Many people are able to complete mind charts in the relaxed focused concentration state, whilst others may do them in the active Beta state. I have found the activity of doing them, in whatever state, important. By now you probably realise that because it is so important you will find Mind Charts throughout the book (done by Monika Kobus).
Accelerated learning strives to involve the whole brain. One great technique is to present information in two ways. Written work (words) involves the analytical side of the brain whilst Mind Charting uses pictures and colours which involve the creative side of the brain. In this book a summary is presented in two different Mind Chart formats. These Mind Charts appear at the front and at the end of each chapter (they summarise the book).
The idea is to switch the mind onto the information about to be presented (first Mind Chart) and then after the information has been presented, to quickly revise it with the second Mind Chart. All the Mind Charts need colour. I urge you to colour in as many as possible, especially those that have been specifically prepared for colouring in. Examples are the full-page diagrams – Building Your Peaceful Place, Thoughts, and Visualisation of Scenes. Mind Charting is an accelerated learning tool, or skill if you like. The subconscious mind itself does not think chronologically. The conscious mind thinks in an analytical way – we have trained it to think like that. Most of us commence analytical/logical learning at school.
All sorts of thoughts come from all over the place. Right now how many different things are you thinking about? Probably not just what you are reading about – other thoughts and distractions are always creeping in around the edges of our mind. When you think about a problem, or an essay you have to write, or a challenge facing you, look at all the things that come into your mind at once. No chronological order, many thoughts, ideas, and patterns come randomly into your mind. You then sort it out and record it in a chronological way. One use of Mind Charting is that it helps you to record these thoughts in a non chronological way. Mind Charting is a mechanism for note taking, for thinking. It is a mechanism for problem solving and for remembering and doing something as we think of it, as the thought enters our mind.
The Laws of Mind Charting
The laws of Mind Charting are very simple. As the thought enters your mind you jot it down, not in note form, but in a simple diagram or symbol, using colour, if that's the way the thought comes in.
Use pictures, lots of little pictures – a little house, little tree in front of it for example. Branch along to the next picture (thought), or use one key word per line; use symbols. When we take notes we all use symbols already, so use them for Mind Charting, use designs – any designs which are special for you. Now what that means is that every time you do a Mind Chart, that Mind Chart is for you and only you. It is not for somebody else. Isn't that a great thing, the fact that you're able to record all the information that you want to know in the way you want to know it?
Making a Mind Chart and its Uses
•Step 1 to Mind Charting, as shown in the diagram, is to write down in the centre what the challenge is.
•Step 2 is to have branches for topics, as they come into your mind.
•Step 3 is to have sub branches for those topics, everything that affects that sub branch.
So while you're thinking of a challenge, say of writing a music essay, suddenly something comes into your mind such as the different types of music, like classical, baroque, jazz, rock, or perhaps great composers like Mozart, Chopin, Wagner, or instruments in an orchestra. These are all aspects that would go in different parts of a Mind Chart.
You can use this sort of Mind Chart when taking notes as you listen to somebody. That is one way, but if that's disturbing to you then of course don't do it, just take your notes in the normal way. The idea of Mind Charting is to build up a picture. How powerful is a picture? A picture is worth – how many words? – a thousand words. We've all heard that saying so often. You look at a picture for ten seconds and straight away you can describe it, probably using a thousand words. The information from the picture has gone straight through to the creative brain. The creative side of the brain thinks in pictures.
So the information from the picture goes straight into the creative side of the brain and then you can describe it with the other side of the brain – the analytical side of the brain. On the other hand though, if you had a thousand words and you had ten seconds to look at those thousand words and then had to reproduce it, how much would you know? You'd be flat out to produce one hundred words out of the thousand words wouldn't you? But if you looked at a picture – information flows easily.
You can probably see now that the idea of Mind Charting is to build up a picture and as we build up a picture that is how we can revise.
One way of using Mind Charting is for revision of a topic. You can build up a Mind Chart for problem solving or for writing a paper or essay, or for any other summary that you want to make. Once you've done it and built up this Mind Chart, you can put it up on the wall and look at it – very quickly just like a picture – and you will remember, with the creative side of your brain. The next day make really sure you look at it again, if your walls at home or in the office are getting full, then take the Mind Chart down, and put it in a scrap book, or your note book. Look at it a week later, then a month later, and each time revise only what you don't know. Experimentation has shown that a year later there is a 90% success rate in remembering the information, through the use of Mind Charts. Pretty powerful!
Take a moment now to look at the Mind Charts later in the book: before the second exercise in Chapter 7, at the beginning of Chapter 9, and in the “Weight Release - Imagery” section in Chapter 11. These are three different kinds of Mind Charts – choose one of these styles or make your own.
Exercise
Take some coloured pencils, and spend about five minutes making a Mind Chart of the information you have read so far.
A Mind Chart of this book (so far) has been prepared by Monika Kobus (isn't she good at it?). What you can do is colour it in – perhaps compare it to your own, remembering that anything you prepare yourself is much more powerful. Turn to the next two pages to see Monika's Mind Chart.
A Good Tip: Throughout the book preview each chapter by looking at the Mind Chart at the beginning of the chapter. Read each chapter then revise it by looking at the Mind Chart at the end of the chapter. If you ever want to quickly summarise the book, just look at these Mind Charts.
USE COLOUR !
Research into using colour in the last ten years has shown:
•Memory is improved by up to 82%
•A 70% time saving is made in reading
•Reading motivation increases by up to 80%
•Understanding is 73% easier
USE COLOUR FOR –
Notes, lectures, study,
mind charting and
everywhere you can.
REVIEW OF CHAPTERS 1 – 4
PREVIEW OF CHAPTER 5
