When we learn a new fact or skill it is not written on a clean sheet of paper, but rather overlaid on preexisting similar stores of information. That is why it is often easier to learn additional elements in a field already mastered. The key element is that the brain does not organize information in a linear fashion, one element after another, but rather clumps similar information together with new ideas building on the old. This systems places great emphasis on the relationships between ideas, which is wholly lacking in paper and pencil systems. Multidimensional tools overcome this deficiency by allowing a visual representation of the relationships between ideas.
Daily life abounds with examples of the power of visual representation of ideas.
Newspapers and magazines are filled with charts, diagrams and illustrations of key ideas in the stories. Textbooks likewise rely heavily on visual communication to explain complex concepts. Lets take the structure of litigation as an example. Strategy Within each of these elements we can identify subtopics. After adding subtopics, the outline would look like the following.