MindManager back for Mac

Posted by Jan S.
Mar 24, 2018 at 09:15 PM

Conditional on the fact that there actually are “visual persons” this would be true. However, it doesn’t seem that people should be categorized by their learning/working “style”. Of course, they can be categorized by being more visual, textual, linear, non-linear etc. But those preferences are probably not hard-wired but also learned.

For example, somebody might take notes on a text as a mind-map. Then they are tested on their understanding of the text and receive an A. Now they are convinced that mind-mapping is a superior method of understanding—- even if they would have gotten an A anyway by learning via a different method or by not learning at all. This often holds true even if the expectation of high achievement is repeatedly disappointed: they learn with mind-maps but don’t get an A. The initial reward often introduces a very strong path dependency.

This is true for many phenomena. Many people swear by underlining or highlighting passages in a text. Meanwhile different approaches have been tested again and again. Highlighting is by far the worst—- even worse than just reading. So perception and actual outcome might be quite different. Highlighting is of course perceived as work by the student. It is also observable while thinking isn’t. However, it’s not a good representation of thinking/understanding, so the two shouldn’t be confused. Successful scholars who mainly highlight texts succeed despite of their inferior methods not because of them. I would think that a similar argument can be made about many ‘productivity techniques’—- visual tools included.

Of course dashboards etc. make a lot of sense when there are to many data points to be related by a single brain.

Franz Grieser wrote:
>If you are a visual person, a visual dashboard might be perfect - and
>not overrated.