“A picture has been said to be something between a thing and a thought.”
— Samuel Palmer (1805–81)
Whether attending lectures, revising for exams, preparing presentations or planning essays, notes have
a vital role to play. But could we be more efficient with our note-taking? Could we use methods
which make our notes more usable, easier to comprehend, more visual – something to help our brains
picture all the relevant information in its entirety? The answer is yes.
What are notes for?
But first, the basics. There are extremely good reasons why notes are essential:
1 Notes act effectively as a filter, helping you to concentrate and prioritise key areas of importance
while disregarding irrelevant padding.
2 They provide a quick reference for exam revision.
3 Because they are your own unique interpretation of information, they are in themselves memorable.
4 They aid understanding.
5 They facilitate an overview of a topic and appeal to both your imagination and your sense of logic
and order.
The attention threshold
Have you ever sat through an entire lesson or lecture and remembered virtually nothing of what you
heard? Silly question, really; but why does this happen? It was probably owing to one or more of
these reasons:
1 The lecture was delivered in a listless monotone.
2 You had a total lack of interest in the subject.
3 The lecturer was a turn-off.
4 The lecturer was a turn-on.
5 You were suffering from a lack of sleep.
6 The subject matter was too complicated to absorb, or there was too much information.
7 Stress – either from the pressure of study or owing to social or domestic reasons. Stress is a major
contributing factor to memory and recall loss – and if the root of your stress lies in achievement related
issues, like exams, fear of failure or parental pressure, it can be self-perpetuating.
Efficiency
Whatever the reason for your lack of concentration, efficient note-taking can ease the problem. As Dday
– otherwise known as exams – looms ever closer, panicky note-taking creeps in, taking varied
forms.
• The great scoop
Take the student who, journalist-style, has a compulsive desire to write down every precious word
the lecturer has to offer lest he or she should miss out on a single pearl of wisdom. The result is a
congealed soup of shorthand: it is impossible to fathom, the central theme is lost and time has been
wasted gathering unnecessary information.
• Danger! Faulty signalling
Then there’s the frenetic artist, the sort who indulges in the creation of a frenzied maze of arrows,
boxes and more arrows that point to everything and nothing. Not the sort of person you want manning
air traffic control as you’re coming in to land. The intention is to connect individual pieces of data,
facts, theories or ideas, thus creating a grand, unified overview. A valiant, logical aim and one that
we shall find the route to shortly; but without basic guidelines the central point gets buried in a
spaghetti-like disarray.
• Precision engineering
Similarly, there’s the conscientious draughtsman. He or she also incorporates arrows and boxes but in
a more precise manner, taking great pains to make sure that all sides are of equal length and that
angles contained in diamond or triangular shapes are also equal. Relevant associations and important
data may, however, be overlooked for the sake of geometric accuracy.
• I won’t forget … honest I won’t
Perhaps you are one of a group who rarely takes notes during a lecture, relying instead on faith in
your memory. You may think you know it all in the short term, but how good is your long-term
memory? What references will you have to fall back on in the future if you don’t make notes now?
So what’s the big deal about ordinary, linear notes? They’re not that bad, are they? We get by on
them, and besides, they’re accepted universally. That’s the way it is and things will never change.
Well, things are changing, and for the better. At this point it might be helpful to have a look inside
our skulls.
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THOUGHT
Humans have an amazing ability to process information. The key agents in this process are the brain’s
nerve cells, or neurons. It is tempting to compare these cells with the working parts of computers, but
neurons are fundamentally unrivalled because they work on a unique blend of electricity and
chemistry. Each neuron has a main tentacle called an axon, and a myriad of smaller tentacles called
dendrites. The axon of one neuron sends messages, which are received by the dendrites of others. The
point at which these messages are received and sent is known as the synaptic gap, a tiny space only
billionths of an inch wide where electrochemical changes take place that give rise to the very essence
of thought itself.
It is hard to begin to comprehend the scope of the brain’s thinking potential when one considers
that:
1 A single neuron can make a possible 1,027 connections.
2 The brain contains about ten thousand million neurons.
It suggests that human thought is fundamentally limitless.
TWO BRAINS IN ONE?
The largest part of your brain, the cerebrum, consists of two hemispheres: the left and the right. Each
hemisphere is covered with intricately folded “grey matter”, the cortex, which handles decisions,
memory, speech and other complex processes. The left hemisphere controls the right side of your
body; the right hemisphere, your left side. These two hemispheres are joined together by a central
connecting band of nerve fibres, the corpus callosum.
An American psychologist, Roger Sperry of the California Institute of Technology, carried out
work during the 1960s with split-brain patients (people who have had their corpus callosum
surgically severed, often as a treatment for epilepsy). Sperry discovered overwhelming evidence that
each hemisphere has specialised functions.
In one experiment, patients were given an object to feel in one hand and then told to match it to a
corresponding picture. Sperry noticed that:
1 The left hand helped the patient perform this task much better than the right hand.
2 The left and right hands gave rise to different strategies in solving the task.
However, when verbal descriptions of the objects were given to the patients, their right hands
performed much better. The left hand (and therefore the right hemisphere of the brain) was more able
to help the patient make the connection between the object it held and visual patterns.
Sperry’s work was so ground-breaking that he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981 for his
discoveries. Further work in this field has been done by a number of scientists, including Jerre Levy
of the University of Chicago. A picture of the general information-processing functions of each
hemisphere has now emerged.
Left hemisphere Right hemisphere
Analytical Visual
Logical Imaginative
Sequential Spatial
Linear Perceptive
Speech Rhythmic
Lists Holistic (seeing an overview)
Number skills Colour perception
Looking at this list of attributes, it is easy to see why many people have been tempted to label a
person as being either left- or right-brained – that is, logical or creative. But this is an oversimplified
and misleading interpretation. While it is fair to say that an accountant, for example, might draw
heavily on the resources of the left brain and an artist those of the right, the two hemispheres certainly
do not work in splendid isolation. If they did, our lives would be made wonderfully confused.
For example, if I were to say to you, “You can’t be serious”, and you were to use only the left
hemisphere of your brain, you might assume that from now on I expected you to be amusing.
However, by incorporating a bit of right-brain perception, you would realise that I was simply
expressing my surprise.
The greatest thinkers in history – the Darwins and Einsteins – were the ones that took full
advantage of both sides of their brains.
What can we expect from both hemispheres working in perfect harmony?
1 Visual analysis
2 Imaginative speech
3 Spatial logic
4 Colourful writing
We’ve looked at some of the more inefficient methods of taking notes. Now let’s investigate one that
utilises more of the brain’s skills.
MIND MAPS
One man who has spent almost a lifetime on this subject is my friend and colleague Tony Buzan.
Tony, who has written several bestsellers on the brain and learning processes, is the inventor of a
revolutionary system of note-taking which he calls Mind Mapping®™.
Perhaps I am undervaluing his work by calling it a system of note-taking. It is more a method of
learning, with many beneficial features.
The following is a description of a Mind Map:
1 The subject matter manifests itself in the form of a central image.
2 Main themes then radiate from this image in the form of branches.
3 Each branch is made unique by its own distinct label, colour and shape.
4 Each branch may radiate further sub-branches identified by a key image and/or word.
5 Branches or sub-branches may interconnect, depending on the strength of associations between
them.
I have just listed five major characteristics of a Mind Map. I have tried to keep my descriptions as
accurate and as succinct as possible, and I believe I’ve made a pretty good job of it. But I am limited
by the very nature of my linear presentation of these descriptions. By putting the characteristics into
words, not only does my account begin to sound rather technical, but I’m also asking you to draw on
your reserves of imagination. Too much talk of “branches”, “sub-branches” and “interconnecting”,
and I run the risk of switching you off completely.
Wouldn’t everything be so much simpler if we could present the facts and express all our ideas in
one hit, at a glance? Which is more accurate: a photograph, or a thousand-word description of a
person’s face?
A picture says it all – and so does a Mind Map. Take a look at the example of one on the following
page. If you haven’t seen a Mind Map before, you might be tempted to think that the picture is just an
elaborate doodle; but this particular doodle happens to represent the life of Swiss artist Angelica
Kaufman (who is discussed in chapter nineteen). Now that you have actually seen a Mind Map, let’s
run through those descriptions again.
1 The subject matter – the artist – is the central image of the map.
2 Main themes – SUCCESSES, PAINTING, TRAVEL, LIFE – radiate from the central image like
branches.
3 Each branch is a unique shape and is labelled.
4 Each branch sprouts further sub-branches – for example, “portrait”, “anatomy”, “mythology” and
“neoclassical” sprout from PAINTING. Some of the sub-branches are embellished with key
images.
5 There is scope for interconnecting the sub-branches – for example, those sprouting from TRAVEL
and SUCCESSES relating to Italy and Italian cities.
What are the benefits of a Mind Map?
1 The central core of the topic and its main themes are clearly defined.
2 The relative importance of each element is immediately apparent.
3 It enables rapid appraisal by giving an instant overview.
4 Unnecessary gobbledegook is eliminated.
5 It is unique, distinctive – and memorable.
What are its advantages over linear notes?
The advantages of the Mind Map are endless, probably because it satisfies everything the brain
craves. It employs the full range of cortical skills, including the imaginative, spatial, verbal, logical,
and so on.
It allows an unleashing of creativity. With linear notes you are committed to one idea at a time.
Once you start a sentence, you’re stuck with it until you get to the end. But our minds don’t work that
way; they are multidimensional. A Mind Map allows your thoughts to radiate out, freed from the
bounds of one-way, single-level thought. It enables a steady stream of random ideas to flow
unhindered, secure in the knowledge that the Mind Map will do all the structuring for you, like your
very own personal organiser providing a model of your thoughts.
One-track mind
Stare at a page of text or linear notes and you get no gist, no initial sense of its meaning. So you have
to read through it. Even then, key words, central themes and important associations can be obscured,
lost in the crowd of grammar, semantics, punctuation and other language features.
You could use the comparison of a great rail journey. You wish to explore new territory and you
have decided to travel by train. The new territory is the new subject you wish to learn, and the
railway line represents linear notes on the subject. The destination is your understanding of the
subject, and the various stops or stations along the way are the key words or themes. Each sleeper
that makes up the track symbolises each word of your notes.
You decide that in order to appreciate this new land and get a feel for the culture, you should stop
off at as many stations as possible and explore the towns and villages. The trouble is that you spend
most of your time travelling, just sitting on the train, moving in a straight line, and it seems to take for
ever to get from one station to the next. In other words you’re spending time on the irrelevant words
that make up the track, rather than focusing on the themes that will gain you marks in exams.
You wish you had a better overall picture. You’ve got no idea where you are – you didn’t bring a
map! When you do finally reach your journey’s end, you feel as though you’ve missed out. How can
you get a proper feel for a country if all you do is travel in one straight line? Wouldn’t it be better to
charter a helicopter and take a map? It’s quicker, you get a great overview and you can land wherever
you want to look at important places in detail.
Guidelines for mind-mapping
Instead of taking a mind-numbing railway journey through your subject, use a helicopter and a map.
By following a few simple guidelines, you’ll be able to create Mind Maps that will enable you to
fully understand your subject by charting the key words, the main themes and, most importantly of all,
the relationships between themes.
• Always start with a central image.
This is the focal point of attention. Choose a piece of paper that is large enough to allow all the
themes to radiate from the centre.
• Use only one key word per line.
It’s tempting to write more than one word because that’s what we’re used to. Don’t. It’s good
discipline to get straight to the point.
• Use symbolic images as often as possible.
It’s easy. You don’t have to be Michelangelo. Even very simple images not only create visual impact
but are highly effective memory aids.
• Use different colours for different themes.
The majority of standard notes are written out in a single colour, usually black or blue – monotonous,
dull and forgettable. Colours accentuate and highlight. They are memorable, adding character, appeal
and … colour!
• Use creative imagination and association.
The beauty of a Mind Map is that it can accommodate even the wildest imagination. In fact, the more
untamed you allow your imagination to be, the better. Brainstormed ideas bursting to get out don’t
have to queue up in a polite, orderly fashion. They can be released immediately while they’re still
hot. Just form a branch and wrap the idea around it. Keep going, branch out if necessary and, if an
associated thought leaps out in front of you, throw a rope across to another branch instead of casting
the thought aside for later attention.
Don’t let ideas get channelled; you’ll only thwart the natural flow of creativity. It’s a bit like
working in a sorting office. The ideas arrive by the sack-load in differently shaped packages, parcels
and letters. There are so many that you wonder where they all came from. Luckily, the sorting office
is fully automated, and all you have to do is empty them onto the conveyor belt.
So open the floodgates and empty your thoughts onto the fully automated, self-organising Mind
Map. There’s no need to worry about filling it up. It has no saturation point, just as our thought
potential is limitless. Infinite thought – and infinite space in which to map our thoughts.
WHEN TO USE A MIND MAP
Mind maps are extremely versatile. Don’t just use them for revision – use them all the time!
Receiving oral information
Whether you are attending a lecture or a group discussion, the Mind Map provides an excellent
method for recording data and structuring topics. It reduces a talk to the salient facts and highlights the
relationships between those facts. The results can be both revealing and surprising.
They may even expose the more tangential side of your teacher. For example, he or she may
announce that the entire lecture is to be devoted to the functions of blood cells. But instead of ending
up with a nice, even distribution of branches covering the three main components of blood cells – red
cells, white cells and platelets – it becomes apparent that 70 per cent of your Mind Map relates to
sickle-cell anaemia, a subject of great interest to your teacher but one irrelevant to your studies.
I doubt that you’ll gain any Brownie points by exhibiting your findings, but you may nudge your
teacher into sticking to the syllabus!
Receiving visual information
Information presented to us visually, in the form of practical demonstrations, videos, films, slide
presentations, and so on, have a greater impact on us because they offer wider cortical appeal –
movement, colour, and a spatial as well as aural element. We remember things more easily if we
attach images to them. The sight of litmus paper turning red in an acid is retained far longer in the
memory than a written or oral account of that reaction.
The Mind Map in this case acts as a diary, sparking off images from past scientific experiments or
reminding us of scenes from historical re-enactments. Key symbolic images – however badly drawn –
play an important role here in triggering off these visual recollections.
Processing written information
The advantage of learning from textbooks, novels, plays, journals, and the like is that we can work at
our own pace. We have ultimate control over how much, how little and which material to read.
The disadvantage is that we lose the impact of someone else’s presentation – animation, verbal
emphasis, visual stimulation and interaction. This, then, makes the learning process a bit more of an
effort because we are left, literally, to our own mental devices. It is our imagination that we turn to
and rely on to act as a substitute for movement, emphasis and stimulation if we are to maintain some
semblance of impact. Not easy, I grant you, if the text you are clutching happens to be on quantum
mechanics.
But before engaging the imagination, valuable time can be saved by working in the following way:
1 Plan your reading. Check the contents section for chapters relevant to your studies. You could also
quickly scan the index and make a note of certain page numbers. Concentrate on these. Don’t feel
duty bound to read the book word for word, cover to cover. Paying attention to unnecessary detail
usually signals a fear of missing something. The danger is that this preoccupation may result in your
missing the very thing you’re looking for – the central point.
2 Look out for the central message, and when you think you’ve located it you have a starting point for
your Mind Map. Read on with an open, enquiring mind and try to bring the text alive by using your
creative imagination.
3 Try not to read passively. Think things through and question the logic behind various statements. If
you play an active role during reading, this will greatly enhance your understanding and memory of
a subject because you will be allowing your mind to make connections and associations. For
association is the mechanism by which memory works.
4 Keep adding to your Mind Map, jotting down key words and ideas as you unravel more supporting
topics. Important data such as names, terms, dates and formulae can all be accommodated, written
on lines extending from branches. Make sure they can be recognised at a glance. Branches may also
be numbered, should you wish to show order and priority.
After a reading session, the Mind Map may reveal that what you thought was the central message is in
fact an offshoot of a main branch, or vice versa. In such a case you will need to form another Mind
Map, this time built round the true core of the subject.
Preparing essays
It follows that if an essay consists of an introduction, main text and conclusion, then this should be the
order in which we should write it. But how can you write an introduction to something you haven’t
yet written about?
It’s a bit like announcing a list of New Year’s resolutions. They all sound promising, but come the
New Year your ideas may change and you’ll wish you’d kept your mouth shut. So rather than make
promises you may not want to keep, plan the main body of your essay first – that way you’ll guarantee
an accurate introduction.
Drawing up a plan really is the only way to start writing an essay. It’s easier for you and it makes
for a better read. Picturing the structure of your essay will allow you to keep a balanced spread of
topics and make a smooth transition from point to point.
Blindly trudging off down the path of the first thing that enters your head can lead to imbalance,
repetition and a disjointed account. Time will be wasted making alterations halfway through, as you
realise that the running order is wrong and the relationship between points has only just dawned on
you. And don’t forget, examiners award no marks for repetition – by repeating yourself you’re simply
wasting time and words you could be using to make a clear point or to explain how you see your
ideas fitting together.
If you’re going to make mistakes, sort them out at the planning stage; don’t wait until you’ve nearly
finished to see the daylight. Planning an essay may seem difficult because:
1 You fear you don’t know enough about the subject to know how to begin.
2 You’ve got so many ideas that you don’t know where to begin.
This is where the Mind Map comes into its own. We always underestimate the true extent of our
knowledge. A Mind Map has the effect of squeezing out knowledge, “like an independent little miner
ferreting away in the mines of your mind and digging out information that otherwise would have been
sealed in for ever” as Tony Buzan puts it. It dramatically counters your suspicions of ignorance by
disclosing a lot more than you thought you knew, thus giving you the confidence to write – you do
have something to say.
On the other hand, being spoilt for choice by having so much to say may camouflage the structure of
the essay. To avoid this “wood for the trees” syndrome, use the Map to give you an overview of all
your thoughts. Again, starting with a central image, chuck down all the ideas as they present
themselves to you. Don’t worry about priority at this stage: just empty your mind and watch the
themes radiate from the centre like shock waves. By releasing what is uppermost in your mind, you
are collecting the bones of the body of your work. Once you can see all these bones laid out in front
of you, the job of assembling and connecting them is that much easier.
The process of essay-writing can be viewed as an assembly line. The Mind Map is the skeletal
stage; putting on the grammatical flesh and adding cosmetic semantics is the last linear stage, the point
at which you physically write it.
Preparing presentations
In chapter nineteen, I explain in detail how you can deliver a speech or give a presentation entirely
from memory. First, however, you’ve got to make sure that your presentation is worth remembering!
Preparing for a presentation is much like preparing an essay, but with a slight variation. Formulate
the structure using a Mind Map in the way described for planning an essay. This time, however,
depending on the time you have available for the presentation, you may need to confine your speech to
just three, or possibly four, key features. Think of your audience and put yourself in their shoes: it’s
better to make sure that the message gets across by concentrating on a couple of themes rather than
trying to cover too many topics with no time for adequate explanation.
You may have to draw two Maps. The first one will provide you with, hopefully, a glut of possible
choices, and more importantly will indicate, by the sheer density of certain branches, the biggest
“talking points”.
The second Map will need to be a tighter, more edited version of the first, leaving you with a clear
structure containing the themes you feel most comfortable talking about.
Once you are happy with your plan, the Mind Map itself can be used to guide you through the
presentation. It is an extremely effective memory aid, obviating the need to shuffle notes scrawled on
numerous bits of paper. In presentations, as in other parts of your academic life, Mind Maps will
become a reliable and flexible tool for success – you’ll wonder how you ever got by without them.
