The Power of Reading

Want a great, colorful life? Start Reading.

Want to fuel your imagination? Start Reading.

These are just two of the reasons to start reading although am sure you can find many more reasons to start reading. Reading does not equal seriousness. So relax it won't turn you into a 'geek'. On the contrary you can have much more fun than your friends who don't read - Try it.

I read to relax, to educate myself, to pass time, to explore new ideas,to gain more time etc

Some of my favourites are

Comic Strips - Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert

Novels - by Sidney Sheldon,Erich Segal,Richard Bach,Paulo Coelho,Dan Brown

Wealth - Rich Dad,Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Investments - One up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch and

- The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

Strategy - The Art of War , Sun Tzu

Productivity - Getting Things Done by David Allen

Management - Winning by Jack Welch

- Getting the Right things Done by Peter Drucker

Relationships - Intimate Communion by David Deida

Motivation & Inspiration - 'Awaken the Giant within' by Anthony Robbins

' First Things First' by Stephen Covey and

' The monk who sold his ferrari' by Robin Sharma.

The impact on my life has been mind-blowing and I've been able to have an en-riched life for that.

Build your library of great books which you can re-visit from time to time. Believe me it will be one of your best investments over time. Finally - Remember to Share

MindMaps an Interesting Tool

Being always a seeker of better ways to do things and the constant thirst for ideas led me to pick up a book titled 'How to Think like Da Vinci' by Michael J Gelb. Little did I realize that it would completely change the way I think or analyze in terms of the process. One of the topics I came across in the book fascinated me. It was the topic of Mind Maps.

In its most simplest form its just a way of depicting information about a topic which encourages free thinking and removes the shackles of linear thinking. It's been such a great asset to me that I would like to share briefly about it with Illustrations.

Steps involved

1. Begin with a symbol /picture/Topic at the center of the page. This opens the mind to free flowing thoughts.
   
2. Write down keywords relating to the central picture.
   
3. Connect the keywords with lines(branches) radiating from the central picture
   
4. Print one keyword per line
   
5. Use colours and Pictures/codes for greater association and emphasis.
   

   

   
   

   In this Sample using Free Mind I have used an example from my work.
   

Some tools that can be used for mind mapping are

1. Freemind (A Free java based tool) available at http://freemind.sourceforge.net which requires Java Runtime atleast version 1.4.0
   
2. Mindjet's MindManager available at www.mindjet.com
   
3. Smart Draw available at www.smartdraw.com