This fabulously effective tool for helping the mind retain information about almost any subject, was invented way back in the 80’s by Mr Tony Buzan. It was intended as a new way of note taking, but since then has developed into whole new areas, and can be used to remember easily virtually anything that you want to remember.

The use of the mind mapping technique starts by firstly writing a keyword in the centre of the page that represents the topic; idea or subject that is to be remembered. Out from this center keyword are drawn lines to represent various facets; features or subtopics, with further branches representing ideas; information or facts. To make this more interesting to the brain, colours are used for the lines, and symbols that are meaningful and easy to remember are used to accentuate certain facts, ideas or information.

A new topic becomes a new mind map, with each mind map occupying a single page ideally. Being a very visual information storage technique, the imagination is used to make each mind map unique and easily to remember.  Whilst the logical left half of the brain is looking at the facts or ideas, the right half of the brain is looking at the colours, symbols and patterns. The end result, is a whole brain memory of the facts or ideas, with all the colours, symbols etc, used for clarity. Remember the keyword, then remember the colours of the subtopics, then the names or facts.