He describes the brain as a Radiant Thinking Association Machine with five major functions:

• Receiving
• Holding
• Analysing
• Outputting
• Controlling

These five functions support and reinforce each other. The first three are expressed by the fourth, while the fifth function keeps everything together.

How well does your thinking methods support the above functions?

Tony Buzan goes on to say that the inherent weaknesses of traditional note making and note taking systems leave our brains in quandary. He also differentiates between note making and note taking. Note making is making notes of your own ideas and note taking is making notes of other people’s ideas. I will use the terms interchangeably, as the principles I would like you to apply are the same for both note making and note taking. Also, the best notes should be a combination of your thoughts and other people’s thoughts.

By analysing the ineffectiveness of traditional linear notes, we can appreciate the need to use a system that works with our brains rather than against them.

Let’s do a short exercise. Review your own notes that you’ve made for any of the following purposes:

• Memory
• Communication
• Innovation and Creativity
• Planning
• Analysis
• Decision Making
• Time Management
• Problem Solving
• Any other reasons.

Are they on lined paper, in a single coloured pen?

If your answer is ‘Yes’, then your notes probably have the following symptoms:

• No Visual Rhythm
• No Patterns
• Lack of Colour
• Little Imagination
• Minimal Visualisation
• One dimensional
• Absence of spatial awareness
• No Gestalt or big picture
• Little association between ideas

It is therefore not surprising that the following comes to mind when looking at linear notes:

• Boring
• Punishment
• Headaches
• Finger Cramps
• Homework
• Exams
• Time Wasting
• Failure
• Rigidity
• Depression
• Fear
• Study
• Etc.

It should not be surprising that normal, linear monotone notes are simply monotonous. After all ‘monotone‘ is the root of monotonous!

What does the brain do when things become monotonous and boring? It tunes out, turns of and goes to sleep.

We therefore end up with a global ’sleeping sickness’ in response to learning.

Tony Buzan is very critical of this. In fact, this is what he writes in ‘The Mind Map Book’:

‘…We need only look at libraries in schools, universities, towns and cities around the world. What are half the people doing in those libraries? Sleeping! Our places of learning are becoming giant public bedrooms!…’

Our brains are in quandary. We have a dilemma on our hands.

Linear notes are largely responsible for this dilemma

Linear notes have four major disadvantages:

• They obscure the Key Words
• They make it difficult to remember
• They waste time
• They fail to stimulate the brain creatively

The main reason that linear notes have this disadvantage is that it does not allow our ‘left brain’ and our ‘right brain’ to interact with each other in a way that stimulates learning and engages our whole brain. Our note taking system actually encourages us to reject and forget.

Radiant Thinking

As I stated above, Tony Buzan calls this ‘The Major Evolution in Human Thought’.

Think about what happens in the brain when you experience any of the following:

• The smell of a ripe fruit
• The smell of fresh flowers
• Listening to music
• Watching a stream, river, or the ocean’s waves
• Touching a loved one
• Daydream

Is your answer both simple and yet extremely complex?

Each piece of information in your brain can be seen as the centre around which an unlimited number of other thoughts and ideas can radiate.

I covered the brain’s amazing powers in my article, ‘The Mind’s Unknown Potential’ on MindMapTutor.com.

Each thought, or idea, can be seen as a hook to which more things can be attached. This array of hooks acts as your memory bank, your database, your library.

The stronger the associations between these hooks are enforced, the easier it will be to tap into any of them at any time.

This Map of thoughts can be seen as a gigantic, Branching Association Machine, which strangely enough looks remarkably similar to the neurons, which make up the brain.

The more you learn to gather information in the way that the brain works. i.e. in an integrated, radiating, organised manner, the easier it is to learn more.

Radiant thinking therefore refers to associative thought processes that proceed from, or connect to a central point.

Mind Maps are an expression of Radiant Thinking

The third function of the brain stated above, is ‘outputting‘. If you think of a Mind Map, you will see the following:

• A Central Image or Theme
• Main Themes radiating out from the central theme
• Sub Themes radiating out from the main themes
• Branches as a subcentres of association
• Branches forming a connected nodal structure

The Mind Map is therefore an external representation of Radiant Thinking.

Even though it is drawn on a two dimensional surface, a Mind Map is a multidimensional representation of your thoughts, encompassing space, time and colour.

By using Mind Maps, you will naturally begin to not only use the amazing storage capacity of the brain, but also increase its storage efficiency. By increasing its storing efficiency, you will increase its storage capacity, as storing information efficiently multiplies your storage capacity.

The Way Forward

If you haven’t used Mind Maps before, you can do our Free Introductory course, which uses tangible objects to illustrate the principles. We feel this is necessary before you go on to more abstract thinking.

MindMapTutor.com also has many examples of Mind Maps which conform largely to the Principles of Tony Buzan. Look at these examples and start applying them in your daily life.

The Mind Maps on this site were created with iMindMap, but there are many other software packages, including free ones, that can take your Mind Mapping to another level.

Perhaps, my experiences with Mind Map software can be the topic of another article…