[continue from Part III: How to Become An Intelligent Learner. This is the final part.]

Put Your Information on a Map

You can remember best the information you have read once you personalise the information, by converting the incoming data into meaningful relationships. 

This process takes place through thinking about the information input, understanding it, evaluating it, and translating it into terms you can readily use.

One of the best ways to consolidate your knowledge of a topic is to put your learned information on a map i.e. to make an idea map (or a mind map, to use a term coined originally by Tony Buzan).

Idea mapping is a simple method of distilling the essence of what you know and organising it in visual terms.

According to Tony Buzan, in his book, ‘Using Both Sides of Your Brain’, our left brain, which is logically oriented, “reads” only words, numbers, lists & facts. Our right brain, which is intuitively oriented, “reads” spatial relationships, patterns, rhythms, feelings, colours & “senses” the whole. 

Both our two brains work together to process the “big picture”.

To make an idea map, take a clean sheet of paper, arrange it horizontally or landscape-wise and begin by putting your central topic or principal idea in the centre of the page. 

Start writing key words or phrases on drawn lines radiating from your central topic. Remember to print on the lines, one key word or phrase per line, and keep the lines connected.

You can add small iconic pictures and use colours, whenever possible. 

Let your associations occur spontaneously. When you feel you have generated enough material through free associations, take a look at the result: all your ideas will spread across one single page. 

As you look at your map you will begin to see relationships that will help you organise and integrate your ideas.

Connect related parts of your maps with arrows, more lines, iconic pictures and colours. Eliminate elements that seem extraneous.

Alternatively, you can look at each element & ask yourself: What does this lead to? What’s next? Jot down your thoughts and reactions. Pare your map down to just the ideas you need for your purpose. Then number them in sequence, if necessary.

Idea maps are tremendously effective as memory aids because they utilise the same structure of association as the brain: the brain works primarily through association, connecting ideas in a non-sequential manner. 

Ideas that are closely related are grouped together, reinforcing the association. 

This makes the idea map a powerful means of embedding knowledge in memory in a form that will make it easy to recall and retrieve later.

In essence, idea mapping synergises the left-brain with the right brain, thus generating a whole-brain activity. The typical outline form of note taking and writing generally serves only the left-brain style.

By implementing these strategies and techniques as outlined in these pages, you can develop the competitive edge of being an intelligent learner.

As we enter the 21st century, and in order to survive information overload, we must first become intelligent learners.

In summary, I wish to paraphrase John Naisbitt, a well-recognised global trends watcher, who wrote the well-known ‘Megatrends’ classics in the nineties:

“In a world that is constantly changing, there is no one subject or set of subjects that will serve you for the foreseeable future, let alone for the rest of your life. 

The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn.”