Mind Mapping For Lawyers

The Mind Maping Laws

As mentioned in previous posts, the genius who codified the concept of mind mapping was Dr Tony Buzan.  

After some tweaking and improvement over time, Dr Buzan has created a set of rules for mind mapping that he deems to be the most effective way of communicating with your brain. I must admit, I can’t disagree with him … for the most part.  

Now let me be totally frank here. I said “for the most part” but you do need to take into account that Dr Buzan is the true genius behind mind mapping … so I strongly recommend that you Read the rest of this entry »

Professor Randy Pausch

This is a re-post of a post I previously wrote on my private blog back in February 2008, however, it will never age in its relevance to each one of us. It has been amended as necessary to reflect its new post date in January 2010: 

It has often been said, “you can not truly live life until you conquer your fear of death”. 

One professor who knew exactly what that statement means was Professor Randy Pausch. 

Professor Pausch gave a lecture titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA on 18 September 2007. It was part the “Last Lecture” series. 

The “Last Lecture” concept is Read the rest of this entry »

Hand drawn v computer generated mind maps

Mind mapping can be done in one of two ways:

• on paper by hand; or
• by using a computer program (mind mapping software).

For the same reasons that we write business letters on computers using word processing software, I also recommend that most of your mind mapping for work or study should be done using a purpose built mind mapping software program.

In some instances you may prefer to mind map with just paper. Those instances may include: Read the rest of this entry »

Mind map what?

So far in this blog I’ve spent a lot of time writing about the benefits of using mind mapping if you’re a law student, practising lawyer, trial lawyer/barrister and even law lecturer. But what exactly could you use mind mapping for?

Here’s a list of tasks that you could use mind mapping for to accelerate your speed and efficiency and to dramatically improve your understanding and retention of legal concepts: Read the rest of this entry »

Mind mapping: It's fast!

So why is mind mapping a useful skill for lawyers? Why should we spend time to create mind maps when the information we receive is all in text and we often have to deliver it to third parties in text?

The answer is simple.

1. It’s faster! … and
2. Unlike you might think, you often do not need to convert the information back into text form.

Let’s expand on the above two answers. Read the rest of this entry »