Creative Thinking and Mind Mapping

By Paul Standish | May 31, 2009

Innovative thinking can benefit greatly from mind mapping because it is able to consume all the common skills found in imagination, creativity, flexibility, and organization of ideas. There are some fundamental elements that you need to know if you want to improve your creative thinking. According to psychological research, these elements include using shapes, colors, unusual elements, and dimensions. Aside from that, it also involves the adjustment of the conceptual positions and it also considers the response to emotionally pleasing objects.

According to further studies, mind maps are the best tools in nurturing creative thinking. If you try to apply mind mapping in any of your activities, you will be able to create lots of innovative ideas than what youve expected.

In creative thinking, there are different stages. In the first stage, you can start by drawing a central image to represent a general topic. Make sure that the image is drawn at the center of the paper or blank page. Try to focus in the image and take note of the ideas that come into your mind. Welcome all ideas that enter your mind and indicate it on paper. You dont have to write a lot of text; in fact, it will be a lot better if you use graphics or drawings instead. Take note of all the ideas no matter how absurd they may seem.

After that, you need to take a break so that your brain can also rest. Look at the ideas that youve generated. Get another blank paper and create a new mind map. Use the same central image but this time you need to identify the categories and major branches. You need to build up the hierarchies and look for new associations from the preliminary ideas. If you see repetitions of ideas in different branches, disregard them and dont try to remove them because they might be important later on.

Your mind map will reflect your current thoughts. Study it carefully and you will be able to explore intellectually, making room for growth. When your mind is at rest, for example when youre sleeping, you must take note of creative realizations. These are sudden bursts of ideas and you should immediately indicate it in your mind map. You need to reconstruct your mind maps and integrate all the ideas into one map.

The goal in creating the mind map is to look for decisions, realizations, or solutions. Examine your mind map again and look for breakthroughs or new insights. Soon you will realize that all the ideas are connected with each other and you will be able to find the answer that youre looking for through the mind maps.

In creating mind maps, you will go through the different stages. If you find difficulty in one stage, dont give up and try to continue making the maps. Follow the step above and soon, you will have a mind map of your own. When youre in the process of creating the maps, you will notice that youre creative thinking is already at a high level.

Making mind maps is one way of enhancing an individuals creative thinking. Adults find it hard to use creative thinking because they are more rational thinkers but you shouldnt be discouraged in exploring this portion of your mind. You will soon realize that it will be the key in solving your problems and in achieving your goals.

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