For someone who makes a living from putting words in the right order, it might seem odd that I’m putting forward an argument about the greater value of pictures before words.
Pictures, doodles and drawings are great tools to help you think about things and an easy way to communicate ideas. Around 65% of us are visual learners. You’ll know if this is you because you like to draw out ideas or crack out the post-it notes when you’re doing some of the complex big thinking.
The other 35% either learn by hearing or learn by doing (or a mix of all three). But our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text and 90% of the information we receive is visual.
So it makes sense that we like to write things down or draw them out to help us see a problem from a different angle and then find a creative solution. Like mind-mapping out content ideas.
Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is just a fancy term for a spider diagram. Those things in school you used to revise for your exams. Simple words on a page in circles (or clouds) and you can colour-code them if you’re being particularly fancy.
Mind mapping works as a memory aid but also to help you get down ideas. Like a newsletter, for example. Every two or three months, I sit with a blank page and map out subjects I can talk about in this newsletter. Then dig down into each word I put down on my spider diagram.
I don’t know why it works better than making a list. Probably because to do this, I need a pen and paper and not a screen. But it works. Sure, not every idea is great. When I flick back to it a few weeks later, I can spot some real howlers. Yet, as a way of planning content, it’s really very simple.
Visual content planning
There is a tendency to overcomplicate things like content planning. You don’t need a spreadsheet, you need this app. Or you need to include everything in one place rather than break things down into a system.
In fact, if we pause for a minute and think about any fancy content planning app, all they are doing is making the information more visually pleasing for you. When something looks pretty you think you’re going to use it more and therefore stick to it more.
Although we all secretly know that’s not how it works. (You’ll only use something if you make it a habit and that’s not a pretty picture or app).
But drawing your plan out on a piece of paper first can help you visualise how it’s all going to work and what you need to do. Making it more likely that you’ll put the plan into action on whatever tech you use.
One of my tutors said: “you’re not learning unless you have a pen in your hand.” And this is a golden nugget of advice that’s stuck with me ever since.
If you’re planning out content, creating a strategy or doing any of that big, deep thinking, then you need to have a pen in your hand. Even a digital pen and you draw it all out on one of those remarkable things.
There is something about hand-drawn images that we are naturally attracted to.
This is paraphrasing something illustrator, Amy Nolan said in her podcast interview with me and has also stuck. You see, we’re bombarded with photos, graphics, stock imagery and videos every single day. But that hand-drawn doodle, that’s what stands out and stops us in our path.
Communicating through content
This leads me to another way we can use this visual communication.
I signed up for DrawTogether with WendyMac with a view to getting the kids to do some art prompts on a weekend. It’s instead turned into me doing art prompts on a weekend at what she calls the Grown Ups Table.
Last week, we were prompted to draw a diagram of ourselves. The newsletter talked about drawing out diagrams, using Venn diagrams but also bringing in some storytelling.
It reminded me of the doodle notes that Amy Nolan creates to record events (she posted a lovely one on LinkedIn this week about her trip to London).
And there are so many possibilities for using this kind of content. You can doodle out your blog, or explain an idea or theory. You can doodle out what you do and communicate your brand message in a way you know will engage people.
It’s like a better version of an infographic.
What makes these great is that it adds flourishes to your personality that you can’t get from stock photos or graphics. And, as I said at the start, you are easing those lines of communication.
Our brains like images, we’re drawn to them. Imagine being able to delight and communicate better with mind maps and doodles.
But I can’t draw!
Drawing is a deeply personal thing. It’s a bit like writing, you need to be vulnerable and put something of yourself on the page. Which makes it difficult for many people to do and to want to share.
I’ve been doing a sketch each week with the kids. Most of the time they laugh at how bad mine is and I’m ok with that. I’ve not picked up a pencil to draw in years.
But the more I do it, the more I want to show off my progress. Last week we did some manga-style sketches and I drew out some karate moves that surprised me. Then we turned each other into Manga characters.
They are not perfect by any means but they are progressing.
If you’re excited by the idea of drawing out your message in a way that is truly personal, start by doing a bit of drawing each day. Build your confidence.
I’m not ready to share my drawings with the world just yet, but I can see a time when I might be. And until then, I do enjoy doing simple line Venn diagrams (as the people on my blogging course will confirm). Imagine doing these on paper first instead of getting the perfect circle shape on the laptop screen. That’s an easy way into communicating and creating content with your own hand.