Mind Map Book Unleash Your Creativity

Author's Name: Tony Buzan

Since I invented mind maps in the 1960s, they have become known as the “ultimate thinking tool.” They have taken me on a wonderful journey that has transformed my life, and I hope this book will help you transform your life for the better.

As a direct result of mind mapping, the 14th International Conference on Thinking—held at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, in 2009, in collaboration with the Malaysian Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Seri Mohd Khalid Nordin—officially declared that the 21st century would be the Century of the Mind and the current millennium the Millennium of the Mind. The minister also officially declared that we had passed the eras of agriculture, industry, information, and knowledge and entered the new era of intelligence, and that mind mapping was the “comprehensive thinking tool” for achieving intelligence.

In its relatively short lifespan, the Mind Map has generated over 200 million reference pages, been viewed on television by over a billion people, and reached nearly half of the world's population through audio and print media.

When you read this book, you will join a global revolution in thinking, which is already transforming the way we think about our mental abilities and the way we use our brains and our multiple mental abilities. Below, I will show you how it all began.

In my second year at university, I went to the library and asked the librarian where I could find a book about the brain and how to use it. She immediately directed me to the medical section of the library. When I explained to her that I didn't want to have surgery on my brain, but rather to use it, she politely told me that there were no such books. I left the library in a state of astonishment.

Like everyone else around me, I came to the conclusion of the average student: the slow realization that the textbook was getting bigger and the brain was starting to buckle under the strain of all the processes involved: thinking, reading, creating, remembering, problem-solving, analyzing, and writing. Again, like everyone else, I began to feel not only diminishing returns, but accelerating damage. Ironically, the more I took notes and studied, the less I believed I would succeed!

The logical progression of both situations led me to the conclusion of an impending disaster: if I studied less, I wouldn't absorb the necessary information and my performance would gradually deteriorate; if I studied harder, taking more notes, and devoting more time, I would similarly gradually head toward failure. So I assumed that the solution inevitably lay in how I used my intelligence and thinking skills, which was why my visit to the library had been so illuminating.