One of the real strengths of mind mapping is that it leverages your brain’s awesome associative powers. But in order for you to realize that potential, you need to be sure to select keywords for your first-level topics that help you to make additional connections and generate valuable ideas.

In his excellent book, The Mind Map Book, Tony Buzan offers some valuable tips to help you decide what words to use for your map’s first-level topics – which he calls “basic ordering ideas.”

He recommends that you ask yourself these open-ended questions:

• What knowledge is required?
• If this were a book, what would its chapter headings be?
• What are my specific objectives?
• What are the seven most important categories in the area under consideration? (According to brain science, the mind can only hold at most 6 to 7 thoughts consecutively. So you should try to limit the number of basic ordering ideas to this number)
• What is a larger or more encompassing category into which these fit?

Buzan also recommends questions that begin with the popular “5W & H” words: Who? Where? What? When? Why? and How?

Here are some additional tips from Buzan on the types of words that tend to make effective basic ordering ideas:

• Divisions: chapters, lessons or themes
• Properties: characteristics of things
• History: a chronological sequence of events
• Structure: how things are formed or arranged
• Function: what things do
• Process: how things work
• Evaluation: how good, beneficial or worthwhile things are
• Classification: how things are related to each other
• Definitions: what things mean
• Personalities: what roles or characters people have

These questions and word types will help to catalyze your thinking and will help you to develop more effective mind maps. Why not give them a try?

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