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Mind Mapping For Dummies

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Unlock your brain's potential using mind mappingMind mapping is a popular technique that can be applied in a variety of situations and settings. Students can make sense of complex topics and structure their revision with mind mapping; business people can manage projects and collaborate with colleagues using mind maps, and any creative process can be supported by using a mind map to explore ideas and build upon them. Mind maps allow for greater creativity when recording ideas and information whatever the topic, and enable the note-taker to associate words with visual representations.

"Mind Mapping For Dummies" explains how mind mapping works, why it's so successful, and the many ways it can be used. It takes you through the wide range of approaches to mind mapping, looks at the available mind mapping software options, and investigates advanced mind mapping techniques for a range of purposes, including studying for exams, improving memory, project management, and maximizing creativity.Suitable for students of all ages and study levelsAn excellent resource for people working on creative projects who wish to use mind mapping to develop their ideasShows businesspeople how to maximize their efficiency, manage projects, and brainstorm effectively

If you're a student, artist, writer, or businessperson, "Mind Mapping For Dummies" shows you how to unlock your brain's potential.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

72 people are currently reading
415 people want to read

About the author

Florian Rustler

8 books3 followers

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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
Profile Image for امیرمحمد حیدری.
Author 1 book71 followers
May 7, 2022
این کتاب تحت عنوان «نقشه‌ی ذهن» توسط «عزیزالله سمیعی» به‌واسطه‌ی انتشارات «آوند دانش» به چاپ و نشر رسیده است؛ اما گویا صفحه‌ای برای نسخه‌ی فارسی‌اش موجود نیست. کلیت داستان شاید جذاب به‌نظر برسد، اما واقعا این‌طور نیست. نقشه‌کشی ذهن، کار ساده‌ای نیست؛ انکار نمی‌کنم که فهم خویش (علی‌الخصوص طرز کار ذهن) سرتاسر فایده است، اما این روش جوابگو نیست و مبحثی نیست که در یک کتاب آن‌هم به‌صورت خودآموز قابل یادگیری باشد.
Profile Image for Elizabeth.
364 reviews2 followers
November 9, 2012
This is a good introduction to mind mapping. Rustler explains both hand-drawn and computer-generated mind maps, emphasizing the use of colors and the advantages of restricting yourself to single word concepts. I found the chapters on computer software for mind mapping useful; however, Rustler definitely had favorite software and having to "tune out" his preferences made it hard to judge the various software descriptions neutrally. Rustler talks about using mind maps in all sorts of situations: education, creativity, project management, taking notes from lectures or on books. I liked the broad range of applications, and hope to use a mind map for the next nonfiction book I read. But even though the book is ostensibly intended for a general audience, there's a definite "corporate" tone to it, which may or may not be an issue for you (I found it a bit irritating by the end of the book).
57 reviews
December 29, 2019
I wanted to learn more about how to mind map. This book got me there and beyond. The author wrote in an intellectual manner but not a know-it-all manner. I learned what I sought and then learned more techniques that I didn't even think of to use mind mapping for. Overall this is a great read.
684 reviews27 followers
April 29, 2013
The book I read to research this post was Mind Mapping for Dummies by Florian Rustler which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book includes an introduction by Tony Buzan who invented Mind Mapping. It also in addition to being about Mind Mapping has reviews of various Mind Mapping Software some of these are free and some are downloadable programs and others are cloud computing services. Your brain doesn't like intricate details but instead likes to see how something fits into the general picture. Mind Mapping does this it produces in a graph form how everything inter relates with each other. In research it was shown after 3 days you remember 10% of what you read but 65% of what you see in a picture. Mind Mapping is similiar to Gantt Charting which is done in project management & also presents in visual form the general picture of a project. The Gantt Chart symbolizes each part of a project with a line and the length signifies how long each part takes. In Mind Mapping Online services there is a good free cloud service at http://mind42.com although it's a bit basic. It does however let you store your mind maps on the web rather than on a computer. Some of the more advanced services let you share work with others & let you use different devices like tablets. The best software is probably Mind Map Manager & iMap. The latter is produced by Tony Buzan & comes in a free basic version, a cheap student version & an advanced business version. Mind Map Manager has had a lot of its features emulated by other products and is often seen as being ahead of the competition. The book has quite extensive information on both softwares.
Profile Image for Fred Cheyunski.
350 reviews13 followers
April 19, 2022
Basic, But Brain Science and Software Aspects Standout - Having heard of “Mind Mapping” and seen references to Tony Buzan’s work, I thought this book would give me some additional background and information on this approach. My curiosity included getting some sense of similarities with Concept Mapping and other visual teaching, learning and information handling methods (e.g., see my reviews of Novak’s “Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations” and Gangwer’s “Visual Impact, Visual Teaching: Using Images to Strengthen Learning”).

More specifically, the book consists of five parts: (1) Mind mapping: the Swiss army knife for the brain; (2) Traditional mind mapping in practice; (3) Mind mapping software; (4) Advanced strategies for mind mapping; and (5) The part of tens. (Since this book is by a European author the text employs British English spellings.)

Stand out parts were those about Mind Mapping description, basis in brain science and Mind Mapping Software. For instance, author Rustler (in Kindle Location 299-301) says that “A lot of people know about Mind Mapping as a concept but without really understanding what actually lies behind the technique. . . You learn how important it is to visualise information rather than just writing it out as text.” He goes on to explain (Location 312-13) that “Mind Maps . . . look more like pictures than text. . . a bit like a tree looked at from above, with its branches radiating out in all directions from the trunk . . . [which] contain actual words but that these are always reduced to mere keywords.” A little later(in Location 542-546), the author elaborates that “. . . in our distant past we received much of our essential information in the form of moving images and so our brains are particularly good at recognising, storing and recalling visual information . . . text is also a form of visualization. . . However, text is less effective than images for recognising, understanding and retaining information.” Moreover, as related (in Location 973-77) “Our brains respond very strongly to pictures. . . Neuroscience has a special term for this: the pictorial superiority effect . . . [has had] evolutionary significance . . . [that is] Whoever could process [information]. . . quickly had an advantage.”

Regarding Mind Mapping software, Rustler describes features and benefits of such programs as well as much detail on a number of the leading programs. For example, (in Location 1102-10), he conveys that “With Mind-Mapping software, . . . you can use your manuscript entirely as a prompt for [a] lecture. . . assembling your initial ideas and thoughts” (possible use includes providing a basis for writing an article, paper or book review). Other application advantages include the ability to save and change different aspects of Mind Maps, allowing one to try out different ways of arraying information or such things as including graphics and hyperlinks. Further on (in Location 1708), the author admits that “Mind-Mapping programs have recently proliferated. . . [so it is] difficult to keep track . . . [and hard] to choose the right one.” Near the end of this part (Location 1866-1977), he conveys that “Table 9-1 provides an overview of all the programs mentioned . . .” The table and the information summarized offer a good start in reviewing and selecting a program suitable to one’s own needs ranging from free, simple ones to those that are more pricing and laden with advanced options.

Drawbacks of the book are that at first it seems like a lot of this explanation seems obvious, but it gradually offers more detail that is truly helpful. Also, the book does not provide much background on Mind Map origins, its possible historic precursors and relation to other similar forms such as Concept maps or Graph Databases (e.g., see my reviews of books such as Ong’s “Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason,” Staley’s “Computers, Visualization, and History: How New Technology Will Transform Our Understanding of the Past,” and Robinson and Wilson’s “Graph Databases: New Opportunities for Connected Data”).

Despite its minor shortcomings, consider this book as a useful introduction to Mind Mapping today.
Profile Image for Remo.
2,543 reviews177 followers
May 9, 2020
Introducción rápida a los mind maps con mucha, mucha paja y algo (algo más que algo) de product placement al hablar de los dos principales programas de software de pago para mind maps.



Hay algunos consejos útiles, otros muy obvios, y hay varios ejemplos que aunque parezcan sencillos hay que hacerlos y se puede aprender de ellos.

Me han parecido más interesantes las partes sobre toma de apuntes y resumen de charlas y reuniones, y sobre todo la que cuenta cómo retener más de los libros que leemos (ahí la he relacionado con un par de artículos muy buenos sobre cómo leer más y mejor).

En general interesante, sin ser sobresaliente.
Profile Image for Bruna.
8 reviews
June 26, 2020
In terms of content yes, you do learn what mind maps are and how to create them successfully (5*). However, I think the author seems to be continuously trying to sell the idea of mind maps, which in my opinion, if we're reading this book then the idea is already sold, we are just trying to improve our understanding of it. The book is very very repetitive and tiring... I enthusiastically read almost 1/2 of the book, but then it got boring, always repeating the same things, focusing on technical aspects of some software programs (which are good if you will in fact use them, but otherwise...)... I think it would have been a better book if it had half the pages, half the content, half the repetition.
21 reviews
November 17, 2017
Sometimes I totaly skip reading a book and instantly convert it to mindmap.

"Once upon a time people retained important (survival) information above all in the form of moving images. Whoever could process these quickly had an advantage. This explains why we react so strongly to pictures today and why visual information is so important for us."
What a loving fact.

Have you ever noticed a digital geographical map is also a sophisticated mind map?
Profile Image for Andrew Pan.
67 reviews1 follower
March 25, 2023
介紹什麼是 Mind Mapping 以及如何使用來幫助你思考和學習。書中有很多章節給了很多範例。然後也介紹一些“當時”(畢竟這本書是2012出版的)的軟體,和一些基本的使用方法。理論不多,主要都在介紹你 mind mapping 的概念和使用,在範例章節裡也有講一些些學習或紀錄的小技巧,還蠻實用。
內容多半都在重複,也不是很深入,去掉一些重複無聊的可能只要半本的頁數就夠了,因為是 Dummies 系列吧,講太多就不是給 dummies 看的了。軟體的部分也有點多,好像不太那麼需要,範例部分反而應該再多一點吧。
不過,還算不錯的一本入門書。之前看到人家用 Mind Map,因為不懂所以就沒在太注意,看完這本後,多少有點觀念,然後慢慢學著自己做,覺得成果不錯,今後也會繼續多加利用。
Follow-up:
Mind Maps for Business, 2nd Edition By Tony Buzan, Chris Griffiths
Profile Image for Anusha Sridharan.
Author 9 books96 followers
September 7, 2019
Did a swift read, learnt the available mind mapping softwares and a new few techniques of how to branch and classify mind maps better.
Symbolisation helps. Keywords are better than phrases being used.
Will try to implement this for my to-do lists here on and see how it works for me.
Profile Image for JHM.
593 reviews67 followers
April 7, 2022
This is the best book I've found for explaining the theory and practice of mind mapping. I'm only rounding the rating down because this edition spends several chapters on software which is outdated. This was a library loan and I'm buying a copy for myself for reference.
4 reviews3 followers
December 31, 2017
Very helpful to understand the basic concept of mind mapping. I enjoying learning about the digital world with the endless chooses on software to aid with mind mapping.
99 reviews1 follower
October 19, 2020
This was a good basic outline of Mind Mapping. The app/program section was a little outdated, but I highly recommend downloading MiMind after reading this book.
35 reviews
March 1, 2024
To be honest, a quick read and the tips were actually useful.
16 reviews1 follower
January 7, 2016
I really liked it, it was very informative about Mind Mapping techniques for both pen & paper and software methods. I didn't bother reading all of 2 chapters, because they were focused on 2 specific popular Mind Mapping software programs. I only skimmed to get a good idea. If I download either of those programs I'll read that chapter. Mindjet is real for android, but I couldn't find a free version other than the 30 day trial for my laptop and found that even the cheapest version is about $150. Unfortunately I downloaded the free trial before realizing this and while it was nice that someone called me from Mindjet to say they specifically would be my contact if I ever needed help with it, I missed that call & they have called me 4 times in total, all which I missed cause it was early & I was sleeping. Its been 2 days & I've already gotten a second email from them too. Personal attention is nice, but now it all feels like spam. I downloaded Xmind which seems to have the same features that I read Mindjet Manager does and I really like that so far.
16 reviews
June 26, 2012
I had been using Mind Mapping using the free program XMind (http://xmind.net) and wanted to learn a bit more about Mind Mapping in general. This book provided some good explanations to the technique of mind mapping and ways it can be applied for studying, learning, note taking, etc. I thought some of the later chapters had a bit corporate speaker-talk, but overall, I thought the book was 90% or so solid in material.

I think my experiences with Mind Mapping have been very fruitful, and I will be working with the ideas in the book for new ways to work with the tool. Overall, I felt I got what I wanted out of the book and would recommend it for those interested in Mind Mapping.
Profile Image for Jan.
462 reviews
February 20, 2014
I had heard of this but did not understand it. This gave a good overview and then I tried it. It looks a lot easier than it is! I really liked it as a different way of trying to pare down a subject. As a visualization method visual/kinetic learners might really like it.
1 review
February 20, 2016
Not happy

I am not happy that I was forced to rate this book since I had not read it and it blocked me from going further!!!
Profile Image for Jaana B.
5 reviews
July 3, 2017
Good introduction book about mindmapping and how to use it. The application I am want to learn to use better (xmind) was not included here however.
Profile Image for Sep Ehr.
20 reviews2 followers
September 8, 2018
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