Apr 20 2007
Mind Mapping Skills - Helping PhD Students Understand This Powerful Thinking Tool
Today I have been helping some PhD Students from a major UK medical research charity understand the power of Mind Mapping.
There are two ways to look at the way I share what I have learnt with others. The first way is by looking at particular problems I have solved for myself and for others by drawing upon the many tools, techniques, strategies, and ideas I have in my “toolbox” to solve those problems. This sort of work is by far my favourite because it is much easier to work towards a specific end result.
The sort of problems I typically help people solve are things like:
- How can I deal with the volume of information I have to deal with and stop becoming overwhelmed?
- How can I inject some energy, enthusiasm and spark into my training courses to make them more enjoyable and far more effective?
- How can I study for my professional qualifications alongside running a family, working full time after being away from formal schooling for so long?
- How can I become far more effective at remembering all of the names of my clients so I can build better business relationships with them?
- How can I make my team far more creative and innovative in the way we do business?
These are really good meaty problems that you can really get your teeth into and having solved these sorts of problems for myself and for my clients over the years, all I have to make sure I do is tailor my experience to the specific needs of today’s client.
Now to help my clients achieve their goals I do call upon tools like Mind Mapping, Speed Reading, Memory Techniques, Creative Thought, Accelerated Learning as well as a host of other ideas from related (and sometimes not so related) disciplines. Properly applied these tools can have a dramatic impact on the successful realisation of whatever goal the client has asked me to help achieve.
So I do enjoy helping people solve their problems.
The second way I work is by teaching people about specific tools in sufficient depth to allow them to go and apply what they have learnt to their own personal circumstances.
So I have courses dedicated to the various tools that I use:
- An Introduction To Mind Mapping Course
- Mind Mapping and Its Business Applications
- Speed Reading – How To Halve Your Reading Time and Double Your Reading Volume
- Putting The Spark Into Your Training Courses – Applied Accelerated Learning
- Creativity and Innovative Thinking In The Workplace
- How To Improve Your Memory – Techniques and Tips For Perfect Recall
So today was a typical example of me running a tool-focussed training course. On behalf of a long standing client I was invited in to this major UK research charity to run a short workshop to teach some of their PhD students the benefits of Mind Mapping. Over a couple of hours, I was able to show them the power of this amazing thinking tool, why it worked, how it worked and have them doing their own.
It still amazes me that after so long in education people like these still have not been formally taught how to:
- Capture and organise their thoughts on even the most complex topic on a single piece of paper
- Focus their thinking in a fashion that mirrors the way the brain naturally organises and sorts information
- Harness their creativity in a natural and brain friendly manner that stimulates innovative thinking
- Use more of their brains by applying whole-brain tools and strategies.
Well after today’s session, they now have had at least an introduction.