Mind mapping can be broken down into three different levels of skill. When mind mapping is done at a skill level of level three, it's legitimately one of the most powerful learning techniques that you can master.

It improves your memory, it increases your processing speed, it makes it easier to think about more content more deeply.

But when mind mapping is done at level one, it can be a complete waste of time. For me, being able to do a level three mind map every time is a big part of what gave me the confidence to run a business full-time while going through medical school and then later my full-time Masters, for which I ranked first in my year.

Now, the first step in actually being able to level up your mind mapping is to be able to look at a mind map and identify what level it's at.

Once we can figure out the difference between the different levels of mind map, we can then focus on the processes that help us bridge each of these levels.

So I'll show you some examples of each level of mind maps. See if you can spot the difference.

So these ones are level one, and then these ones here are level two, and these are some level three.

Now you might think that the main difference is that a level three mind map just looks simpler or more comprehensive, but it is so much more than that.

And the difference between a level one and a level three is probably the difference that separates a top 30% learner from a top 1% learner. But before we get into that, let's take a deep dive into level one.

So here's the example of the level one mind map again. Now, the level one mind map has two important characteristics.

The first thing is that it has nonlinearity of ideas. So if you have a look at this.

You can see that it's not just going left to right down the page. Uh, all of these things, it's trying to represent the ideas spatially around the page.

And the second thing is that there are connections between the ideas. Uh, you can see that they're trying to express these connections with these lines and arrows.

Now, the difference is actually a lot more obvious when we go back a level to what's even before level one, which is level zero note-taking.

And level zero note-taking looks a little bit more like this. And these are actually my old notes from like over 10 years ago, and I can tell you that the thousands of hours I spent on writing notes like these were ultimately a waste of time.

So, at level zero, there are five characteristics that you should definitely avoid.

Firstly, it's very linear. Uh, secondly, it's usually very wordy. And thirdly, it's pretty superficial. Uh, it doesn't go into the content very deeply.

It doesn't really look at how ideas are related to each other because frankly, trying to write that all down through level zero linear note-taking would be completely overwhelming.

There's often a lot of highlighting and sometimes there's a lot of annotating, and at the end of the day, it is uselessly time-consuming in that it takes a lot of time, but it's not really helping with our retention or our depth of understanding.

So, level one really represents this first point where someone's trying to break this old linear mold. But the important thing is not to just recognize the characteristics of each level.

It's to know what the process is that takes you from level zero to level one. And there are three key processes that someone is engaging in to go from level zero to level one.

The first process is that they're looking at how they can use arrows and lines to represent information instead of just writing it out as full sentences.

So, no full sentences. The second thing is that we're trying to cut down on how wordy it is.

We're often doing a little bit more summarizing. And the third part is getting a little bit more comfortable with just representing information spatially and without using words.

When we follow these processes, we go from Level Zero to Level One. Now, at Level One, we're not really getting a strong benefit from mind mapping.

The real power of mind mapping comes from Level Two and Level Three. And in fact, Level One often looks pretty messy.

However, Level One is not bad. Mind mapping is a skill, and like any other skill, there are levels to that skill, and you can't just skip a level.

Level One is necessary because it allows us to break out from Level Zero to then work towards Level Two.

It's kind of like training wheels on a bicycle. And a lot of people will say, "Oh, I gave mind mapping a go. It didn't really work for me," but they actually only reached Level One.

And you're right, if you only reached Level One, it's not really going to work for you.

So, let's have a look at Level Two, where you should see some benefit. Here's an example of the Level Two mind maps again.

And once we're at this Level Two skill, we should be feeling a lot more comfortable with expressing information non-linearly. And at Level Two, there are three characteristics to look out for.

First of all, we have groups of information, and these groups are related to each other. And as a result, there is a clearer flow or structure to the information.

You can see these groups being represented here in the brown, as well as the flow of information with the arrows being a little bit cleaner.

And if your mind map has these characteristics, it's probably at Level Two. And by the way, let me know what level you are in the comments so that I can help cater my future videos to you.

So now that we know what a Level Two mind map looks like, let's think about what the processes are that take us from Level One to Level Two.

There are again three main processes that we want to focus on here.

The first one is that we're thinking a little bit more about how ideas are similar or different to each other. And by thinking about how similar things are to each other, this allows us to put them into groups.

We're arranging them by those similarities. Number two, we're now thinking about how the information actually flows and influences each other.

We've created these groups, we've looked at how things might be related and similar to each other, and we're thinking, how do these ideas connect together in a coherent structure?

Which leads to number three, we're actually thinking about intentionally creating more of a structure as opposed to, for example, just drawing a bunch of lines and arrows connecting things all over the place.

And overall, the difference between Level One and Level Two, the major difference is that we're spending a lot more time thinking about how we want to arrange the information and organize it, as opposed to just getting used to organizing it non-linearly.

And by thinking about how to organize the information in Level Two and later also in Level Three, we're forcing our brain to engage in that higher-order thinking, which is one of the most important cognitive processes that you can do to understand, remember, and apply what you learned properly.

In fact, the OECD has even come out with a statement saying that higher-order thinking skills is one of the most crucial things that a modern-day learner needs to know to be successful.

So what that means is that if you are mind mapping and you're not noticing improvements in your understanding or your memory or your ability to apply the information, it probably means that you're not engaging at that higher order of thinking.

And that would be common because most people tend to avoid higher-order thinking since it takes more mental effort and it can feel uncomfortable, which basically means most people are avoiding the type of thinking that helps build stronger memory and deeper understanding in the first place.

This is famously called the Misinterpreted iFIT Hypothesis, which I've talked about in lots of my other videos.

And this is important because there's essentially no point in using mind mapping as a technique if we're not engaging in the right type of thinking.

And it's actually really easy to demonstrate the difference between Level Zero, Level One, and Level Two. So I'll show you using this article on metacognition, which is just taken from Wikipedia.

It could be from a textbook or from lecture slides, uh, it doesn't really matter.

This is just a demonstration. So at Level Zero, let me show you what my note-taking would look like. I'll type it out for you so you don't have to struggle reading through my handwriting.

So as I'm writing these notes, all I'm doing is I'm reading a sentence, I'm summarizing it a little, I'm transcribing it down.

Honestly, I may as well have just used ChatGPT or something to do this because it takes no mental effort and my brain is almost asleep.

Uh, no real learning is happening in the brain.

Now, there actually is a way to still do linear notes while still getting level three results, uh, and I'll show you that one later. Okay, so I'll just end that demonstration there because I'm losing brain cells.

Let me do the same passage at level one. And so here, as I'm writing, I'm mentally doing the same thing.

I'm basically just reading a sentence, I'm summarizing it a little, uh, maybe a little bit more concisely, and then I'm just writing it down.

And I'm basically just looking to see if it's connected to anything else really obviously, and I'm putting some lines and arrows down as we are progressing.

You can see it's starting to get a little messy, and honestly, like it's already kind of overwhelming in terms of just there's a lot of lines and arrows going everywhere.

Um, and this is usually when a lot of students will say it's not working, since it might actually feel worse than just linear notes, which were at least easier to read.

But anyway, that was level one same content, same stuff, but done through level one mind mapping.

And you can see some similarities with the examples that I showed you before. So now let's do level two, exactly the same content again.

Now here, there's a big difference in thinking compared to before because instead of just going sentence by sentence and putting it down, I'm actually, uh, reading more.

I'm actually thinking about it back and forth. I'm actively deciding how I want to structure this information in a way that makes sense.

And I'm also actively trying to group related ideas together. You can see it's looking tidier. It's, there's more groups.

It's a little bit easier to follow, and it's actually a lot more engaging. In fact, it's actually even a a little bit of fun and I can feel that the information uh sticks in my head a lot more easily, while at level zero and then level one, I barely remember what I wrote down.

Uh, also, it's a little hard to see from the video, but the time I spent just thinking about what to write before even writing anything down in the first place is a lot longer.

So at level zero and level one, I'm basically writing something every 5 or 10 seconds.

I'm pretty much writing non-stop. And at level two, I'm thinking about things for like, you know, 20 or 30 seconds or even more before even writing it down because I'm just trying to think about how I want to arrange it.

That's actually um one really good way to see if you're thinking about things enough to learn effectively. It shouldn't really be possible to think at level two depth and also write constantly.

So that is level two. And now going from level zero to level two is probably enough to give you a decent little grade bump of like 10 to 15%.

But level three is where you start seeing some serious improvements. Now, before we go into what a level three mind map looks like, I just want to preface by saying that mind mapping is a complex skill.

It took me like over a decade of trial and error and reading research to really master it, and I'm glad that I did because I'm able to save time for you uh with videos like these.

But what about other skills that are not mind mapping? Brilliant question, and Brilliant is the answer. Brilliant is a sponsor of today's video, and it is where you learn by doing.

You learn by experimenting, solving problems, making mistakes, and learning from them. There have thousands of interactive lessons on subjects like data analysis, math, programming, and AI.

Brilliant helps you to build knowledge that you can learn and then apply within minutes.

You can also fit it in whenever you've got time, which helps to build a habit of learning something useful every single day. And their hands-on problem-solving approach makes it much faster and more fun than the traditional boring old lesson.

It's an opportunity to train your critical thinking and real-world problem-solving skills, which are part of those crucial higher-order thinking skills that I mentioned earlier, as opposed to the normal kind of pointless memorization, which is very lower-order.

Brilliant has recently launched a bunch of new lessons on data analysis and probability, which is a subject that I'm personally pretty interested about.

It uses real-world data and trains you on how to find trends to make better decisions. It's perfect for learners at any level, and you also get to see the real data from companies like Starbucks, X, and Spotify.

To try everything that Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days, go to brilliant.

org/justinsung or click the link in the description.

You'll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription if you use that link. Now, let's dive back into the level three mind maps, which is where the real power of mind maps comes in.

Here's an example of my maps at level three again, and there are three characteristics that you need to know at level three.

The first thing is that the structure and flow is much clearer.

You can clearly see where the information is going throughout this map. Number two, there's more emphasis to some groups and arrows over others. For example, you can see that these arrows are a little bit thicker compared to, for example, these arrows.

That visually indicates the importance of information and relationships.

And this last one is harder to notice, but the groups themselves are more intuitive and easier to remember. So if we kind of zoom in a little bit here, we can see that the actual name of the groups that have been used are not always the same terminology that is taught for the topic.

They've actually relabeled the group so it makes more sense for them at an intuitive level. It's actually easier to understand the difference between level two and three by talking about the processes that we need to engage in to go from level two to level three.

Now, by the time we're at a level three skill, we're used to writing nonlinear notes, we're used to thinking about how things are similar, we're used to grouping things together, we're used to creating structures and flows.

What we're focusing on with the process at level three is the quality. So we're improving the quality of the connections and relationships that we're forming.

We're also increasing the quality, and when I say quality, I'm talking about how intuitive the groups that we're forming are.

Yeah, sure, we can connect this group to this group, we can connect these ideas to these other ideas, we can group these things together, sure, but which way of grouping is actually the best for us?

Which makes the most sense? Which is the most intuitive? Which feels like it's going to be stickier in our memory?

Which means number three, we have to spend time to identify alternatives and then make an actual judgment on which one is the best.

For example, here's that little map that I made before at level two, and then here is the exact same map with essentially the exact same information but just grouped and structured differently.

So, at level three, I'm actually thinking about these alternative ways of structuring the information and arranging them in a way that makes more sense to me.

At level three, our mind maps are becoming cleaner, more intuitive, more deliberate. The lines and the arrows and everything that I'm putting on there is more intentional.

Now, for most people, the difference between level two and level three, uh, may not seem like much. After all, we're still just grouping and organizing information, but the difference between level two and level three in terms of how much it affects your performance and results and memory and depth of understanding is probably more than the difference between going from level zero all the way through to level two.

Being able to create a level three mind map consistently is very uncommon and probably translates to a top 10% level of performance.

3 Levels of Mind Maps Every Student MUST Master

Interested in finding how your brain learns the best? Take my learner type quiz and get a detailed PDF report about your learning strengths and weaknesses for FREE: https://bit.ly/3PtWLk6 🤯

Hey there! I'm Justin Sung, a learning coach (for the last decade), former doctor, top 1% TEDx speaker, education author, and social entrepreneur.💡

I'm also the co-founder and Head of Learning at iCanStudy, where we've pioneered the world's first cognitive retraining program, focusing on self-regulated higher-order learning (i.e. learning to learn REALLY efficiently) 🚀. We've helped transform over 15,000 learners across 120 countries 🌍

Before this, I spent 7 years working in the non-profit education space in a social enterprise I founded in NZ, helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds enter healthcare careers.

On my channel, I share evidence-based learning strategies and self-management methods that I've tried and tested for busy students and professionals.


3 Levels of Mind Maps Every Student MUST Master

Scripts