Using mind mapping to focus your research and collaborate with your research team

Mind mapping is a tool that can help researchers in multiple ways as they develop their research. Mind mapping is an activity that allows you to organize your thoughts, expand on those thoughts, and draw connections between them.

Here's an example of what a mind map could look like:

                                Source of Picture

Instructions:

1. On a large surface (flip chart or white board works well), write your central idea in the middle.
2. Begin to identify connected and peripheral ideas to your main theme and write them around the central theme and connect them with a line or arrow (this is brainstorming, don't stop to erase or re-work ideas just get everything you can into your mind map).
3. After you have finished brainstorming, spend time analyzing your mind map and drawing additional connections between ideas.
4. Use a red marker to highlight what themes, ideas, and connections really jump out at you and use them to reframe your project, prioritize your foci, come to consensus as a team, etc.

Tip: When making mind maps, using different colors is helpful, especially for visual learners.

Uses:
Mind maps can be used in a variety of ways:

• Identifying new ideas or solutions to a particular problem or theme
• Realizing new connections between ideas
• Brainstorming with your research team to develop and connect areas of expertise and possibility
• Organizing your thinking when writing a grant, publication, or theoretical framework

Even if you think you are not a visual learner or that you are a more linear thinker, give mind mapping a try on your next project and see if you are surprised by any new ideas or connections you realize.

Resources and Software:
A useful Youtube tutorial
Mindmeister: Mind mapping software
SimpleMind+: Mind Mapping app