Mind Mapping For Dummies

Example: Email guideline

Imagine that your company has adopted a new guideline on how emails should be handled in future. It’s 40 pages long and you’ve been chosen to work through it and present it to your colleagues.

The guideline can be divided into two main parts: ‘sending emails’ and ‘receiving emails’. I’ve entered these in the Mind Map as per Figure 6-5.

Figure 6-5: Email guideline – starting point.

You’re now in the section ‘send’. There you read the following sentence:

‘Check whether file attachments are virus-free before sending an email.’

In your view, which words contain the important information?

Students in my classes usually go for ‘check’, ‘file attachments’ and ‘virus-free’.

In Figure 6-6 I’ve indicated two alternatives.

Figure 6-6: Email guideline – alternatives.

Variant no. 1: Virus-free

In this variant the word ‘virus-free’ is the selected keyword. The exclamation mark after the word means that it’s important and I must pay attention to it. It also encompasses the meaning of the word ‘check’.

The word ‘attachments’ is now added as a sub-branch. The email guideline may contain other things that also have to be virus-free. These can also be inserted in the form of sub-branches.

Variant no. 2: Attachments

In the second variant I’ve chosen the word ‘attachments’. ...