Mind Maps: Quicker Notes, Better Memory, and Improved Learning 2.0

by Michael Taylor

The number one Mind Map book on the Kindle has gotten even better. Version 2.0 has more examples, better illustrations, and easier step-by-step instructions. Plus a bonus section that will triple your current reading speed and comprehension in a matter of minutes.

Mind Mapping is a note taking system which allows you to take better, faster, and more efficient notes. In conventional note-taking, you write down information line by line. With Mind Maps, you organize the information more in the form of a diagram, starting with a central key idea drawn in the center of the paper.

In addition to enhancing your note taking skills, Mind Maps help you improve your studying, writing, presenting, brainstorming, and creative skills. It is one of the best note taking skills anyone can learn.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Productivity, Education, Reference, Amazon

90 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 28, 2009

About the author

Michael Taylor majored in English at Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania, and also earned his Master’s degree in Education from the same university.

Reviews

[Lakis Fourouklas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book could easily carry another subtitle: How to Train Your Brain! According to the author there’s a simple way to do that: Mind Mapping.

If someone ever told me that there was a way for me to start reading faster than I already do, I’d say that he was crazy. And if I’d never read this book I’d insist he was. However in the book at hand I’ve discovered a simple example, which I’ll call for the purposes of this review 'Reading by the Dot,' that left me speechless. Thanks to it I did not only read a paragraph in great speed, but I’ve also memorized almost every word of it.

It is widely known that every person uses only a limited amount of his mind’s capabilities. This book offers the reader a chance to enhance his reading and learning experiences, and improve his memory as well.

As we read in the introduction: “A Mind Map is a diagram you create to organize your thoughts. In conventional note-taking, you write information down line by line or perhaps column by column. Mind Mapping differs from such note-taking in that you present the information more in the form of a diagram.”

And how does that help me? one would ask. Well, for starters, I’d answer, it helps with your memory since it is easier to remember images than words. Visualization is the key word here. Kids, just as much as the adults, do not have many difficulties in remembering images but when it comes to words it’s a different story.

One of the examples that the author uses to prove his point is the diagrams he uses to create an overview of the popular novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Through these diagrams we follow the book from point one all the way to the end, taking a good look at the characters and their interactions, and thus get a brief yet detailed view of the story. “One idea is interconnected with many other ideas,” we read, and, as we well know, one person is interconnected with many other persons, which helps prove the point.

Mind Mapping has many advantages; it balances the brain, simplifies life, helps with creativity, and speeds up the learning processes. It also has some disadvantages though since it asks of you to change your habits, to spend time to get to know how it works, and maybe creates some minor problems when it comes to speaking since language is an auditory process. The former though overrule the latter, since learning how to operate with Mind Maps can help you change your life for the better in many ways.

“…essentially, there’s no limit to how vast your Mind Map can become. A subtopic in the first Mind Map you create may become the central idea in the next one you draw. Each subtopic in a map is in effect a center of another map. This is the beauty of the technique—relationships may go on as extensively as they exist in your mind.” Now, how interesting is that!

To be honest before reading this book I knew next to nothing about how Mind Mapping works. I’ve read things about it here and there, but I’d never thought to give it a try. Well, all that has changed. I now find this subject as intriguing as they come. As someone who reads dozens of books every year, and always wishes to read even more, I believe that adopting the technique of Mind Mapping will help me achieve my goals. I think that if I should come to master it the results could be, if nothing else, highly satisfying.

Mind Mapping can help one in many walks of life: from organizing vacations to creating business plans, from generating presentations to solving everyday problems, and the list goes on and on.

A lot of people say that everything is in our head; the book at hand proves them right. And then it highlights the way one has to follow to reach his own high point, to widen his horizons.

If you’d ask me to put this book in a category I wouldn’t know which one to choose. Is it a self-help manual? In a way it is, but it’s much more than that. To use a metaphor I’d say that this is a guide of how to use the GPS of your brain to find the destinations you desperately seek, and need.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents very well one of the biggest things to hit the education scene in recent years—different intelligences and different ways of learning. I have a degree in teaching English, and if you have taught kids or have kids of your own, you know that sometimes, their brains just don’t work the way that you expect them to. Teaching the 5-paragraph essay to 8th graders or even seniors can (and has) made me want to pull my hair out. The biggest issue is usually students’ frustration with how to organize their ideas. They don’t know where to start or how to group their ideas once they do get started. Outlines? Forget it. Most students slap together a paper and then go back to create an outline, since you are grading them on that as well. Super helpful.

“Mind Mapping” is basically a different way to get kids (or yourself) to organize information. It isn’t just for writing papers, although as an English teacher that is what automatically comes to my mind. The book mentions things like speech writing, note taking, brainstorming, or even planning things like family vacations. There is even a chapter on how to teach it to young kids, which is nice. The book makes the argument a few times that using concepts like mind mapping encourages creativity, especially in kids.

Rather than relying on the linear thinking that we are raised to use, mind mapping makes you use what the book calls “radial thinking”—you think in connections and keywords, which is how the brain thinks best. A quote from the book says, “When you look at a friend’s face, your eyes and mind process the face as a whole to recognize the person. It does not look at the eyes, nose, mouth, and every bit of information separately to distinguish your friend." This is the way Mind Maps work.”

What I liked about this book is that it laid out the idea simply and gave concrete steps and visual examples to show how to mind map. It said there are disadvantages, like how language is auditory and mapping is not, but I think the idea is really useful. I’m a list maker, and I always find myself squeezing in things I forgot. More than that, though, this needs to be used in the classroom. Your kids will thank you!

[Joy B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative guide about becoming a better learner.

[Gloria J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never heard about mind maps before, so was pleasantly surprised to read this book. It is a great introduction, very easy to digest and practical.

[D. Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can help you become a better learner, writer, planner, note taker and over all be more productive in your life.

[Laurent S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy read, lots of useful information, specially the section on speed reading.

[Riccarda H · Rating 5 out of 5]

must read for any student

[Cecilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful book about mind maps. The discussion on taking notes of lectures was handy. It talked about paying attention to the points the speaker is making and noting information within those points. He gives several suggestions for how to recognize the major topics and changes in those topics. This is more effective than what I am used to doing, which was pretty much writing down everything I could as quickly as possible. At the end all I would have is a list of facts and data, but not how they related to each other or the bigger picture, which made it all the more difficult to understand and remember. Mind map way works better in my opinion. Even if you don't use mind maps for lectures, some of the guidance in here about the proper way to listen to a speaker can be useful.

[Flora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, other reviews have talked in detail about the ins and outs of what's inside, so I will focus on what most left out - the speed reading section. The section on speed reading at the end is awesome. I don't normally use yell words like 'awesome' to describe something, but in this case I am making an exception because it is. With just the few seconds it took to read the example exercise, I was able to start reading several times faster. It is a way of reading that uses less effort than what so much of us are accustomed to. It is magic how our eyes can pick up the text without trying. This section alone was worth the purchase, kudos to the author for providing such valuable insight to anyone who reads.

[Amina Dori · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking to become a smarter, more intelligent person, in school with homework and test taking, as well as other fields, this is the perfect book. It does an excellent job of introducing you to a technique called mind maps and carrying you forward to all the different ways to use and apply it.

[Adrian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This books gives a good overview of mind mapping, which in my opinion, is a great study and memory tool for all types of situations.

Saying this though, this book does not give enough "proper" examples. If you are to buy this book, then i would suggest getting the paperback version as the kindle version is in black and white. If there were more examples then I would probably have given this book a better rating.

If you are new to the idea of mind mapping and need a quick overview then this book should serve you well, but if you are like me and are familiar with the concepts of mind mapping then i would suggest buying books by Tony Buzan (the creator of the mind mapping concept.)

[Jay French · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have used mind maps in taking notes, although I didn't realize the concept had been formalized at the time. I have also used mind maps with groups to describe options for a decision. I find that they are slightly more useful for explaining things than using outlines - in effect mind maps are graphical versions of outlines. And since they are graphical, you can add meaning through the use of color, location, shape, etc. that you can't do with a typical outline. This short book talks through these capabilities, and then describes the use of mind maps for everything from note taking to writing to decision making. The author even includes a process using mind maps to locate a misplaced item. If you haven't used mind maps, this is a perfectly fine introduction and could be skimmed in a few minutes. If you have experience with mind maps, you might find this just a review.

[Brenda Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful read. The author says mind maps and mind mapping have been around for quite some time, but to be honest I had never heard of it before. I'm glad I started with this one, Michael Taylor makes the topic so easy to grasp. Never was I ever at a loss. If you haven't heard of mind maps, I recommend reading it.

[Milena Josan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone new to mind maps, I was looking for something that was easy to digest. This was that book, I like that it built your knowledge one step at a time. It never threw too much at you at any one point. The visual aids were used very well, made the instructions very clear.

[Oleg Shevelyov · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's my second book on Mind Maps, after Buzan's "Modern Mind Mapping for Smarter Thinking"
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) For those who isn't into mindmapping, Tony Buzan is the guy who took spider diagrams, suggested conceptual rules for their creation, and started to actively promote his improvements under the brand "Mind Maps". In spite of this fact, Michael Taylor's book, in my opinion, is better than Buzan's.

Pros:

1. Taylor rather quickly describes Mind maps, their important properties and variations and goes straight to practical applications.

2. Some applications and, to be more specific, mind map structure for them, were surprising to me.

3. The author is more humble than Buzan, who every here and there reminds the reader that he is The Inventor ("when I invented mind maps...") or that his software is the genuine mind mapping software, the rest (he hints) is fake. This book is not like this. The author's approach is more respectful, neutral and objective.

Cons:

1. Although, Taylor writes much better than Buzan, still his book is rife with passages like this

"This is how you use Mind Maps to recall the location of misplaced items. Now we will look at how to recall facts."

or this

"This is a nice way to separate the variations."

which I see as completely obvious and therefore useless.

There are also lots of explanations of intuitively understandable things which are annoying but still better than literally PAGES of filler in Buzan's book.

(Honestly, reading this, second, book made me think that maybe this is a common feature of all mind mappers to be a bit... slow, explain obvious things. Maybe that's why on the first place they need mind maps. Maybe those, who are able to operate information more efficiently, don't need to visualize knowledge in mind maps? They just construct them in their heads.

I hope it's not like this, though! If it is, then I'm probably also a slow-thinker, since despite of love of mind map authors to over-explicate, I've struggled through their books and got used to mind mapping. I've tried dozens of software and actively use Freeplane now.)

2. In my opinion, the author didn't quite get the idea of keywords for node connections. In the beginning, he colorfully explains the advantages of keywords instead of long phrases, but then almost in every example he obliviously uses phrases instead of words. Which is why, I still think that, even though Buzan is quite a bad writer, I made a correct decision to read him first and get the original principles.

All in all, Taylor's book is worth reading, it clarifies the process of mind mapping and definitely opens new perspectives for successful applications.

[Jennifer Zartman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that this way of organizing material had been available years ago. I never related well to writing outlines and always considered them rather fussy and unworkable. If you think from the top down this is a great way to organize information because you never run out of room for the subtopics (one of my problems with outlines), and you can get the whole picture on one page. I also appreciated the idea of using color, doodles, shapes, and thickness of lines to further organize and categorize the information--a boon for the visually oriented.

That said, I found the book to be a bit shallow. After the good opening explanation of the concept, the rest of the book seemed to explain the obvious. I gather from some reviews that better material exists on the subject, but this one gives a good introduction. I borrowed the book through Amazon prime, so I paid nothing and gained a great idea. I'm glad I read it, and may explore other books on the subject.

[Gil Michelini · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only negative I have about this book is that it is hard to read a book that talks about color on a black and white Kindle. Of course, that is not the author's fault. What is great about even this is that Taylor overcomes this by explaining which items have have which color and why.

I LOVE MIND MAPS but I am still a hacker at using them. This book gives some excellent tips on creating and applying this valuable tool. I would recommend this book to anyone that needs to organize their thoughts or take notes quickly and accurately.

+++
Gil Michelini, author of "Daddy, Come & Get Me: a dad's adventure through a Guatemalan adoption"

[Jennifer Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read much non-fiction books, but very happy to come across this one. I don't use mind maps like how many people do, for note-taking and creative thinking. I use it to keep myself organized specially when working on large projects. Each branch I create helps break the project down into smaller parts, and the sub-branches allow me to note the important activities and deadlines about the branch.

[Lin Statamos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liked the book, would give it 4.4 starts, but since that option doesn't exist am bumping up instead of down.

[Valentina Năstăşel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very practical, easy to read, goes straight to the point

[Jeff Birk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book years ago and picked it back up off my shelf in order to bring some more organization to my work tasks. I was very much reinvigorated by the power of mind mapping and am very excited not only to apply them to my work life but also my personal life. I am a very visual person and this technique is just what I need to help me organize and keep track of my projects. This methodology also enhances much of what I've learned through Dominic O'Brien's material I've studied and applied regarding memory techniques. I'm in the process of narrowing down the mind map software I'll be using and am very excited to get started.

[Kannan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book on useful applications of Mind maps

It is a good book and provides lot of real world applications for mind maps. I will definitely try using the techniques. The one star less is becuase I felt the topics in the book could have been covered with less pages as it felt repetitive

[Dorota Winch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book for beginners. It shows how the mind maps work and explores how to use them in the everyday life. Before I read this book I only knew the mind maps existed, now I have a good idea how to use them to learn a lot of text by heart, how to prepare a good presentation, an essay and how to use it for learning foreign languages. Good stuff.

[Aditya Kulkarni · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read an audio version of this book. There are so many great steps provided to use Mind Maps to Study, take notes, decision making, etc.

This was really a good read and I really got many benefits related to Mind Maps. I have been using Mind Maps ever since!

[GENV · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks

I usually don't know how to make my notes more memorable. Mind maps have been useful for me when I want to organize my notes. It makes me follow through my notes more easily when I study.

[Oanhbt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished this book, Because I have used this method daily for a long time so it’s very easy for me to understand it clearly and it doesn’t make me excited. Somewhat boring because it doesn’t have new methods, just one or two method repeats several times.
By the way, I have finished.

[Luca Roseano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Practical approach to mind mapping

This book will help you to understand how to build mind maps. It is more practical then conceptual. It discuss how to build a mind map and why to chose one specific form over another. I like the book practical approach to mind mapping

[Mohammad Yahia · Rating 4 out of 5]

short and informative

The book provides the how and why on some of the areas that mind mapping can enhance and make them easier to address and experience. You might find some examples with exaggerated assumptions but in general it is a useful book to start with if you’re interested in Mind Maps

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A former colleague was very interested in mind mapping, and i bought this book as a Kindle freebie years ago.

I don't know if I could get the hang of mind mapping for note taking, but I love the idea of using it for travel planning and language study!

[David Petie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Straightforward value for money book

Mind mapping is a powerful tool and this book conveys why they work, where they can be useful and how to do them. The rest is up to you...