The Magic of Mental Diagrams: Expand Your Memory, Enhance Your Concentration, and Learn to Apply Logic

by Claudio Aros

When Einstein said we only use 10 percent of our brain, he was inviting us to explore all those capabilities that are waiting to be awakened. This book finally explains how to do just that.

Mental diagrams are a simple, efficient means of activating all our potential. Upon sketching a mental diagram, we create a blueprint with shapes, colors, and figures to process information faster and to increase our ability to synthesize.

This excellent, creative system of thinking allows us to obtain a joint vision of life’s daily problems in addition to strengthening all the areas in which our mind operates, like memory, concentration, logic, or intuition. In the pages of this book, you will

• The function of the human brain
• How to create mental diagrams
• Exercises to strengthen memory
• Intelligence regarding personal decisions
• Tests to develop intuition and creativity
• Secrets of the great lecturers

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Self Help, Science

200 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 2015

Reviews

[Tony Tauro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pros:
It explains what Mental Diagrams are (a form of mind map) and why they are useful.
If you want to use them for a variety of applications - making notes, planning, presenting - then it does a good job walking you through the process. I liken it to using mnemonics to remember a deck of cards. You have to do a lot of prep work to ready yourself to be able to remember a deck quickly. Similarly the book walks you through the relaxation, meditation and alpha thinking techniques required for visualization, how to choose the right visuals, the importance of having short words in the diagram and so on. There is a lot of good stuff there in the exercises, which to me was worth the cost of the book in itself.

Cons:
This book appears dated. For example it refers to overhead projector slides, which I have not seen used in a corporate setup in the US in this century. Also there is a lot of focus on manually creating these diagrams, which is cool and all, but almost everyone puts their notes online now. So if the book was relatively recent I would have expected some reference to mind mapping or other diagramming software, which is sadly absent.
As other reviewers have mentioned, some of the science we know is incorrect, some just feels too weird to be right. But the point of the "science" is to help explain something else, so I'd give it a pass on that front.
This book appears to have been a translation from a Spanish original, which explains some of the language. But I read it more as a reference/textbook and the prose is thus not an issue.

Overall, I don't regret the time I spent reading this book. It certainly helps expand your mind to new techniques of memorization.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea is interesting and involves thinking differently about how we approach many things, most notably how we write things down and how we organize our thoughts.
The book presents a lot of good examples of how you can use pictures and associations to remember things better and draw out more creativity from your every day life.
It reads more like a workbook with exercises than a deep dive into the subject. This would be good to revisit and attempt the exercises.
The writing was somewhat weak though and treated the reader a little like a child in some sections, which made me wonder about the qualifications of the author.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting idea--but bunk science (10% of your brain adage) within the first few pages of the book. Mind mapping is a way to quickly synthesize data in a visual format (thus making it easier to mantain). It's an alternative to rote memorization and similar to other techniques such as link associations, story methods, peg and memory palaces.

[Phil Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very basic. Very repetitive.

If you have read anything about mind maps you know everything presented here; maybe more. He applies mind maps to many different applications. This is where the book becomes overly repetitive. Once you know the steps, adapting them to other areas is obvious.
One thing I didn’t see is a suggestion on how to go from the initial stage putting lots of ideas on paper to grouping them in the different branches. On paper you would either start with a rough draft and recopy them, or erase and redraw, which strikes me as very difficult. A white board might be better. At least the erasing is easier. But our expert doesn’t give us any help here.

[Judith D · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a systematic idea that will help you organize time, living habits, and thought processes. I really liked this idea and will occasionally continue to refer to this book. The plan is all laid out for the reader. It gives examples and lesson about how to build mental diagrams. The book talks about the architecture of the brain including processes of each side of the brain, as individual parts. There are colorful references of Mental Diagrams at the end.

[Chiara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am quite disciplined and use bullet-point lists, tables, and colors to keep track of my activities, so I picked this book hoping to learn something useful and make a better job than I'm already doing. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The book is quite boring and repetitive;; moreover, the author insists on the necessity of adding drawings to the charts, which I personally find extremely distracting - as well as time wasting.

[Mav · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's worth reading for entertainment. It's a book on mind mapping that goes a bit beyond that. Somehow it's a little thin...it misses let's say "deepness".

It contents many lists like that:

list1

list2

list3

...

I don't know why? to make it to 200 pages?

[Judith D Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mental Diagrams Means Organizing Thought Prosesses

This book shows the reader ways to think and organize any life experience you may be living through. I think mental diagrams is a time gaining idea. Who doesnt need more time in their schedules to just relax and enjoy.

[Elbakkay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Magic of Mental Diagrams: Expand Your Memory, Enhance Your Concentration, and Learn to Apply Logic

[Sufia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically a book about how to do mindmaps and how to apply it. Not the most original concept but pretty interesting read nonetheless.

[Bruce]

good

[Nguyen Harley Phuong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rediscover the world, in different way