Mind Mapping – Thinking and Organizing Creatively

Mind Map’s mastermind, Tony Buzan, developed the concept of Mind Mapping out of frustration for the ineffective traditional note-taking which was difficult create and review. Jotting down speaker’s words line by line or even summarizing keywords are done linearly and chronologically, meaning that notes relating to the speaker’s point X somewhere on page numbered Y can be on another page numbered Z. At the end of the lecture, we might not even remember the connection among related ideas. I have years of collection of useless college notes to backup this claim.
With Mind Mapping, a big-picture snapshot of your thinking process, your brainstorming session or your summary of a topic is laid out on one single piece of paper. Key points and important ideas are recorded in a way that show their ordered and connection to one another. The seen diagram is a summary of Michael Faraday.

I have applied this Mind Mapping technique to brainstorm my travel, to prioritize tasks for flat moving and to learn the grammar of a foreign language in addition to taking notes of horribly boring technical and procedural presentations at work. My work productivity increases as rehashing my knowledge and looking up forgotten points take only minutes.

I currently use are Concept Draw Mindmap, Mindjet Map Manager and free-version web-app MindMeister.

/>> See more samples of mind-map diagrams and view a list of mind-mapping software.

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Dress Like a Pro

It takes only sports-specific clothing and confident body language to cause an opponent’s resolve to waver, according to a study in the journal Psychology of Sports and Exercise.

Three weeks ago, I tried out Karate at a friend’s club. Having no uniform, I wore a T-shirt and a horribly long and loose pair of sweat pants. I could not kick nor move properly because the damn pants kept getting on my feet no matter how tightly I tried to fold it above my heel. I felt so embarrased in this piece of clothing that I was not entirely focused on practicing the move, instead I let myself wander to “Don’t look at my feet…Where should I go and buy nice sport clothing?” Fortunately, this was only a casual practice. It would have been a disaster if I had to spar with someone while thinking about the next sporting shop at Wencelas Square.

It’s true that if we suck at our games, an impressive Wilson and Nike styled clothing closet will not save us from embarrassing defeats. However, if we and our opponents are on the same level, maybe a professinonal brand sportswear will boost our confidence, and this is all we need to win.

My squash tournament is coming in two weeks. Let see if a pro sportswear is going to save me.

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Formula for Success – Very Brief

Successful Outcome = Perseverance + Passion + Creativity + Talent + Luck

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