Mind map your way to success
Let me guess - you have a 100 different things buzzing around in your head and you need to identify how you can build connections between these things and what you’re trying to achieve?
Mind mapping is one of THE best ways to get everything out in some sort of an organised way.
Basically you want to focus on one topic or area and write out everything you associate with that. So you could take your art practice for instance and write all of the words, feelings, associations and things that come to mind about it. It might be a simple word or phrase that you can then delve deeper into.
For instance your art is about “Love”. Well what kind of love? What relationships are you taking about? How does that show up – vibrant colours or soft and floaty? Is it portrayed quietly and simply or is it loud and saturated?
Tips to get you started:
Choose the topic / area
Get a big sheet of paper
Get writing – put down everything and anything. It doesn’t have to be logical or in order – just get it down
Keep drilling down – when you get a word down, can you make further connections to that word or go into it more so it makes more sense or becomes simpler?
After you’re finished, then you can start making sense of what you’ve written. You might discover that there are many areas that mean the same thing or focus in the same direction. You can group those together. It might also mean that those things are very important to you – for example in the below photo of my mind map on what makes me want to engage more frequently with other artists, you’ll see things like community, shared connections, shared stories and connection come up a lot – aka the community aspect makes me feel more connected.
EXAMPLE: Mind mapping engagement with other artists’ social media pages:
I have been working on my website and trying to drill down into my art and the meaning of it so I can see how to best talk about, describe it and who it might interest. Enter mind mapping. There are a lot of words that I had already associated – the idea of “Painted Memories” for example is something that has sat with me for a long time. However, in addition to these, ideas such as shared experiences, community and emotions are all other areas that come up.
By identifying these, I can go deeper into them and hopefully come up with more associations and insight that will not only help me with my website and speaking about my art, but the development of the art itself.
If you google mind mapping, you come up with so many things to consider – as well as apps and tools you can use. Depending on your personality, you might love these and they might be exactly the support you need to really get into the topic and uncover your thoughts on it. Me? I need a bit of quiet space, a pen, some paper and time. This doesn’t have to be fancy to be useful. Leave your thoughts run free and write down everything that comes to mind. You can make sense of it afterwards – don’t censor your creative flow on this. There’s no right or wrong answer either – everything is valid. Some areas might end up being more important, or come up more frequently. Pay attention to those. You can decide the next steps based on what comes up in the mind mapping – it might just surprise you!
I’d love to get your opinions on mind mapping – have you tried it? What did you learn from it?