Fuel Flow State with Visual Notetaking
Sharpen your attention skills and fall in love with focus
Abstract
You're already drawn to visual thinking, but something feels off. Maybe your mind maps feel rigid, your sketchnotes seem forced, or you're still struggling to maintain focus as you listen.
The problem isn't that visual thinking doesn't work—it's that most note-taking methods have built-in limits that weren't designed for how your brain actually processes information.
Brandy brings her can't-miss combo of lightbulb moment context-setters alongside concrete, repeatable techniques, so you can:
- 💥 Grasp the hidden assumptions and cognitive trade-offs built into popular note-taking methods
- ⬜ Discover why a blank sheet of paper is the real engine of focus and flow
- 👂 Recognize which of the 5 Visual Listening skills you're already using (and which you're missing)
- 🧠 See exactly how visual thinking supports your executive function
Time to fix what's been feeling off, and give your brain the fuel it needs.
Speaker Bio
Brandy Agerbeck
Brandy Agerbeck has spent 28 years proving that visual thinking isn't a mysterious talent—it's a learnable life skill that can transform how your brain works.
Known as "the godmother of visual practice," she's the author of The Graphic Facilitator's Guide and The Idea Shapers, and creator of The Agerbeck Method online course that's created lifelong visual thinkers in over 40 countries.
More recently, an executive dysfunction diagnosis led Brandy to research, synthesize, and visualize the executive functions for adult audiences. In her workshop Befriend Your Brain, she teaches hands-on visual tools that that help fast, unruly brains find focus and flow — and most importantly, lead you to being kinder to yourself.
The Idea Shapers: 24 concrete visual thinking techniques to help you organize thoughts, solve problems, and communicate ideas.
Watch the Session
Session Summary
Brandy Agerbeck presented a session on Fueling Flow State with Visual Note Taking, positioning visual thinking not as a mysterious talent, but as a learnable life skill that transforms how the brain works. Her central thesis is that the additional choices inherent in visual thinking keep the "fast brain busy" and create the perfect conditions for achieving flow state.
The Core of Visual Thinking and Note-Taking
Brandy defined visual thinking as tackling life's challenges with paper and pen, making the intangible tangible, and granting a sense of agency over one's thoughts . It is "drawing as writing with more choices," utilizing elements like size, color, shape, and placement to achieve deeper meaning-making (sorting, grouping, and pattern recognition) . Personally, she uses it to reduce overwhelm and get grounded .
The presentation critiqued traditional note-taking (linear, top-to-bottom) as treating the note-taker like a recording device operating on autopilot, driven only by the rule of getting "everything down" .
The shift to visual note-taking means treating oneself as a present learner and stronger listener . This develops five essential thinking skills:
- Discern: Getting clear on what information is worth capturing .
- Distill: Capturing information succinctly and in one's own words .
- Place: Asking where an idea should go on the page, fostering spatial thinking .
- Connect: Seeing and illustrating the relationship between ideas .
- Organize: Fitting all points together to show their structure .
Different note-taking methods add these skills in varying degrees: Cornell Notes enforce distilling with a summary section ; Zettelkasten (index cards) makes thinking modular and spatial ; and the Triple Note Tote explicitly uses dual coding (concept + verbal + image) to aid memory . Mind Maps act as a "gateway drug" by introducing a central hub and hierarchy .
The Iceberg Model and Visual Choices
A key insight is Brandy's Iceberg Model, which asserts that the focus of visual thinking should move away from simple iconography (the "tip of the iceberg") . Focusing on translating every word into a picture is binary thinking that limits potential .
The true leverage lies below the water line, in using the 24 foundational visual choices (called Idea Shapers) that have nothing to do with pictorial representation . These include:
- Line: Thickness, character, and direction (e.g., showing relationship strength or potential) .
- Color & Shape: Used to organize and draw attention .
- Scale & Hierarchy: Showing the relative importance of ideas .
By using all these choices, the note-taker can create a dynamic, non-linear page arrangement that reflects the actual flow of thought—a "Brandy version" that transcends the often linear columns of traditional sketch notes .
Visual Thinking as Flow State on Demand
Brandy linked these visual choices directly to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow State . Flow is achieved when a task is not so easy that it's boring, nor so challenging that it causes anxiety . Because visual thinking offers an infinite number of visual choices, it consistently provides this "beautiful challenge," keeping the mind engaged, focused, and growing . This allows one to evoke flow state on demand .
Echoing physicist Richard Feynman, she emphasized that the drawing is not a record of thinking; it is the thinking process itself .
Key Practical Insights
- Process Over Product: To combat the stress of perfectionism, treat drawing as a verb (a process), not a noun (a masterpiece) . A messy drawing that aids understanding is superior to a tidy one that gives a false sense of security .
- Embrace the Physical: Using physical materials (non-bound paper, index cards, sticky notes) allows for "unloading" of thought, utilizes body movement, and offers less friction than digital tools, making iteration easier .
- Break the Line: Beginners should start by simply turning a blank sheet of paper to a landscape orientation, immediately shifting away from ingrained linear habits .
- Just Keep Moving: The most important thing when learning a new skill is to keep moving and accept that what is drawn may not be right; covering mistakes with a simple label is an easy fix .