Recently I’ve accepted that fact that I suck at taking notes. I get that taking notes is required at certain times and I’m competent enough to get by when this is the case. But, when it comes to actually taking information and developing really strong ideas, bullet pointed notes just don’t seem to do it for me. To help figure this out I’ve been looking for inspiration to help me put ideas on paper, and in doing so have come across a lot of great resources for thinking visually.

David Armano, author of Logic+Emotion is great at thinking visually and his examples prove it. You can check out his Flickr set to see some of these awesome examples. David recently released a presentation on visually thinking. In it, he outlines 6 steps to thinking visually:

1. Empathize: See the world as a child
2. Memorize: Commit thoughts to memory
3. Analyze: Take a step back
4. Synthesize: Filter signal from noise
5. Visualize: See it, then do it
6. Materialize: Make it tangible, make it stick

I’ve started putting some of this to practice and have been amazed at how quickly I’m able to expand on ideas. For now, it seems promising. I encouarage you to give it a shot and please share any other techniques you use to expand on and communicate ideas.

Here is David’s presentation on Thinking Visually: