Just imagine this. You start the day with a freakishly long list of things to do, and you don’t know where to start first. You waste an hour trying to determine what to do, and then you’re back on your timetable, and you don’t know how you’re going to do it all. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to imagine, because it actually happens on a regular basis? If that’s the case, the brain dump would be your new best friend. Yeah, the brain dump. It sounds pretty, doesn’t it? Brooke Castillo calls it a brain download, which I have to say is a bit fancier.
No matter what you call it, taking your worries out of your mind will make a world of good for your emotional well-being. Brain dumps are important for peace of mind. With a calm mind, the day will be deliberate without obstacles or brain fuzz getting in the way. Think of the memory dump like a reset button on the subconscious. In this post, I’m sharing the brain dump tool that I use to detect my mind and organize my to-do list. If you feel exhausted and indecisive, try this 10-minute brain dump process.
How to do a brain dump?
Write down a list of everything on your mind. You can do this online, on paper, or you can grab a free brain dump workbook online to make things faster. Please try not to filter yourself or second-guess whether or not you can add anything to the list. The aim is to clear the nooks and crannies of your brain.
Dive a bit deeper down. To make sure you don’t miss something, here are a few things to worry about: What’s going to occur next week or month? What appointments are approaching or need to be made? What home duties would you like or need to do? (e.g. washing, cleaning, organization, grocery shopping, supermarket list). What kind of job responsibilities do you want or need to do What are the different things you want or need to do? (e.g. get petrol, set up a budget). If something different has come to mind, add it to the brain dump list.
Try to eliminate, delegate and defer. Your list can be extremely long at this stage. To stop being overloaded, check your list to see if anything can be eliminated, delegated or delayed. Eliminate–get rid of the tasks you just don’t need to think about. Delegate – ask someone else if they should pull it off your plate. Defer –Take it off the agenda right now if it isn’t applicable in the near future.
You can try to create some categories as well. Your brain dump list may be a little bit all over the place that’s all right. Let’s find it less difficult by planning. Next to each object on the list, write down the group to which it belongs. These types are completely up to you, based on your lifestyle, so here are few ideas: home, work, family, health, finances, and hobbies. Create a separate list for each category. In another spot on your paper, create columns labeled with each of the categories you came up with from the previous task. Add the tasks to the corresponding category.
Plan your day to day tasks. Now that you have a super-organized and sorted outline of the things you need to do, it’s necessary to take action. Your ‘Today’ list will be a long one, so you need to determine what to do first. The easiest way to do so is to find out what the goals are. On that basis, you can find out the order you want to work on your assignments. My life goals right now, for example, are school, fitness & wellbeing, job and family (in that order). If I want to work out, finish some homework, and clean up my bedroom today, I’m going to do it in that order. Knowing your goals will help you organize your day effectively without spending time struggling to determine what to do.