Bill Reichle

Summary: 

Learn how to use mind mapping to summarize books you want to deeply absorb and remember.

The Details:

If you don’t know what MindMapping is, you should learn a bit about it. Besides the common uses (brainstorming, note taking) I really like to use it for summarizing books I’m  interested in internalizing and/or putting into practice. The statistics for how quickly we forget all the good stuff we read is frightening. A friend of mine was talking about a book he wanted to buy. I remembered reading it months ago and told him that I really enjoyed it. When he asked me to tell him what it was about, I responded with a “deer in the headlight look”. Since then, I’ve decided to mind map the books I don’t want to forget. The act of creating the map furthers your understanding of what you read. Re-absorbing the information in the future is also easier than traditional note taking (and a lot more fun).

I’ll read the book straight through first. If it’s not an audiobook, I’ll use my highlighter to quickly note areas of particular interest. Once I’m done, I’ll decide if the book is worth mapping. 

Then I’ll choose between good ol’ paper and pen or one of the digital options. Both have their pros and cons. Lately I’m doing more digital maps.

Paper and Pen Maps
You can really tap into your right brain with this approach. You’re free to draw little stick figures and images to visually bring home a point.  The act of getting visually creative helps solidify the information in your brain. Using different colors on the map is also important as it allows you to visually separate important information (vibrant colors) from the details (muted colors).  I’ve tried color pencils thinking I could just erase mistakes. However, I’ve returned back to colored pens because the colored pencil maps do not scan very well (at least on my scanner) and erased lines always leave strong “ghost marks”.  I scan the maps so I can keep a copy on my laptop or for publishing it on the net.

Unlike the digital maps, you can’t easily rearrange your thoughts. I find it easiest to create a separate map per each chapter and the create a summary map which puts it all together. 

Digital Maps
There are many mind mapping software applications out there. They come in many varieties too - free, desktop, web-based, etc.   My favorite web-based version is Mind Meister. It has one key feature that’s very important to me: ability to import/export maps to and from other formats. 

When I map a book using this approach, I tend to just create one map for the whole book. I’ll map each chapter as I do with the pen and paper approach - except I’ll start re-organizing the information as I see themes appear. When I’m all done, I’ll create a Summary section.

Ideas 2 Consider:

Map a book you want to absorb such as Drive, or Predictably Irrational.

Give the gift of sharing. Make it a public Mind Meister map and put “Book Summary” somewhere in the title. At the moment, searching public maps in Mind Meister is horrible. However, I’m hoping they are going to improve this soon.

Try the paper and pen approach. I’ve tried a lot of pens over the years. My favorite is the Triplus Fineliner Porous Point Pen, 20 Color Set. When you’re done, you can scan the results into a PDF doc and publish on the web.