Many people I work with have a black and white view when it comes to drawing. They think they either can or can’t draw.

For this reason, teaching any form of visual note-taking to students, such as mind mapping, is often accompanied with loud groans and much resistance.

“My teacher already taught me this”, “Oh no, anything but mind mapping!” and “I can’t draw for *#$%!” they say with distressed looks on their faces.

What students often fail to realise is this – you don’t need to be good at drawing to take visual notes. All you can manage are stick figures? Stress less. This is actually a great place to start.

Here’s the thing: any picture is better than no picture when it comes to taking notes. Why? Well, research demonstrates that students that draw pictures when they learn retain 30% more information than students that don’t draw pictures.

So you can relax. Your pictures don’t need to be perfect. As long as you can understand them that’s all that matters.

Which means that even simple, rough pictures are fine. But if you’re not satisfied with your stick figures, the good news is you can improve your drawings and it doesn’t have to take you years of hard work and practice.

Don’t get me wrong, practice can make you really good at pretty much anything (drawing included). Take my friend Sharon for example. She’s been drawing since the age of 3 and slogged away at art school and as a children’s illustrator for many years. Now, she whips out fun, little drawings at amazing speeds with ease whilst watching television. She regularly reminds me –

“The more you draw, the better you’ll get”.

But let’s say you want to improve your drawing skills and don’t have years to devote to this activity like my friend Sharon did. How can you fast track your drawing skills and take them to the next level?

There are some amazing resources out there that show you how to draw the basics and the basics are all you really need if your taking visual notes for subjects like law, psychology, environmental science or history.

So if you’re keen to progress from drawing stick figures, I highly recommend exploring the following useful resources –

Make a world by Ed Emberley: This classic book shows you how to draw almost anything in a number of simple steps. Ed Emberley states that if you can draw some basic shapes (e.g. a triangle, circle and square) then you have what it takes to draw all the pictures in his book (and there are dozens) – horses jumping, Vikings, pirate flags, camels, etc.

Austin Kleon’s Blog: Austin Kleon is a poet with a difference (he takes newspaper articles and blacks out the words he doesn’t want with a thick black marker to create his poems). He’s also an awesome visual note taker to boot. He has taken visual notes for conferences and written several blog posts on visual note-taking. Check out a collection of his blog posts on this topic here.

Visual Note Taking 101: A group of visual note-taking gurus (Austin Kleon, Mike Rohde, Sunni Brown and Dave Gray) spoke at a conference on the basics of visual note-taking. The audio was recorded, synced with the slides they used on the day and uploaded online. Whilst it’s a bit slow to get into and a fair bit is lost by not being able to see these people speak, there is gold in this 58 minute session. It’s well worth seeing samples of their visual notes and hearing their tips.

Whether it was a teacher or a school student that told you couldn’t draw, you shouldn’t let those conversations stop you from taking visual notes in your classes. It’s actually a lot of fun. And what we know from the psychology of learning is that:

Fun = Greater understanding + retention of information = Better grades

When I received my graduation certificate I thought to myself “How did I do it? What helped me get through the past 8 years of study?”

One thing automatically sprung to my mind: Mind Maps.

Anything that I was required to learn at university, I had to mind map. Why? Because rote learning no longer worked at Law school. For my legal units I had to really understand the information and mind mapping it all out allowed me to do this.

Interestingly, a few weeks ago someone sent me this question:

“I know the mind maps with a main idea on each branch can give a great review of the most essential ideas but the point is that law is full of data, definitions and I’m not sure how to present them….
So could you share with us some of your legal masterpieces?”

I would hardly call my mind maps ‘legal masterpieces’ but I’m happy to share them with everyone if it will help to break the illusion that legal mind maps need to be works of art or look a certain way.

Unlike my legal mind maps, the mind maps on this site (under the resources section) contain very few words. Ideally this is how you want your mind maps to be. Tony Buzan states in his book ‘How to Mind Map’:

“Use one key word per line. Why? Because single key words give your mind map more power and flexibility. Each single word or image is like a multiplier, generating its own special array of associations and connections…Phrases or sentences dampen this triggering effect.”

In theory, I really like this idea, but when it comes to the reality of studying several subjects at University and having a heavy workload, I just don’t think many of us would feel totally confident creating mind maps with only one keyword word per line. Speaking for myself, there is this fear that when it comes time to revise these mind maps just before exams, there may not be much triggering action taking place (and instead just a whole heap of confusion and stress).

How to Mind Map Legal Subjects

Let me show you one of the mind maps I did for my favourite unit, International Environmental Law (click on image to enlarge).

You’ll notice I haven’t stuck strictly to Tony Buzan’s advice of writing one key word per line. Based on my experience, I believe that for subjects that require you to learn large amounts of complex information in a short space of time you want to put down important points of law (in more than one word) and perhaps even write whole definitions. If you feel the need to write out a definition on your mind map, make sure that you break it down into pictures (the more personalised, humorous and exaggerated the better).

Create a Simplified Mind Map of your Mind Maps

Once you’ve done your detailed mind maps, it’s a good idea to create an overarching mind map that contains significantly less text. You want to do this on one big piece of paper to bring together all the information and clarify things for yourself.

Mind Mapping Legislation

Mind maps will be your savior when it comes to understanding confusing and/or complex legislation. Often statutory laws are worded in convoluted ways and have a lot of exceptions. In order to fully understand these laws, I found I had to break down each law into different parts using pictures and coloured pens.

For example, section 48(1) of the Sale of Goods Act 1895 states:

48 Action for price
(1) Where, under a contract of sale, the property in the goods has passed to the buyer, and the buyer wrongfully neglects or refuses to pay for the goods according to the terms of the contract, the seller may maintain an action against him for the price of the goods.

This is how I broke down section 48(1) using pictures and different coloured pens:

Breaking Down Tough Assignments

It’s very easy to get overwhelmed by hypothetical legal problems that our lecturers throw at us. In order to decrease my stress levels and get clear on the facts of the scenario, I would always mind map out my assignment questions.

Not Sure How to Mind Map?

If you are new to mind mapping and not so sure how to go about creating mind maps, I recommend that you read my blog post on How to mind map for study success and also try to get a copy of Tony Buzan’s brilliant little book ‘How to mind map’. Tony Buzan has written several books on mind mapping (some of which are incredibly thick and contain a bit too much waffle). In my opinion ‘How to mind map’ is his best book by far as it is a simple, easy read and gets to the heart of mind mapping (it took me about 30 minutes to read).