When things get crazy or I feel stressed or overwhelmed or even when I simply know I need to write down some of the thoughts floating around in my brain I grab a pen and notepad and do a Brain Dump.
It sounds weird and slightly gross right? But an effective brain dump is quite literally one of the easiest ways to declutter my mind. Decluttering one’s mind is an amazing tool to use in taking care of your mental health. Just the fact that an under ten minute exercise (that doesn’t involve actual exercising) helps my mental heath makes it one of the ways I usually turn to in my routine. You know how much I love when people prioritize their mental health.
A brain dump can be done with a pen and notepad, a computer, or a phone. This makes it accessible to techies and us more old school leaners. It also means that you can brain dump literally anywhere. On your commute, in a waiting room, or sitting at your desk. I’ve even used the voice memos app on my phone to get the ball rolling while I was driving in the car! How you choose to brain dump is your choice, pick one or try all of them to see which is easier for you.
When you first start doing a brain dump you are going to want to put it in some sort of organization but resist! Dump first, organize later. If you starts organizing while dumping you’re going to miss things rolling around in your brain. Go with what you keep thinking about and after writing down all of those things down you can go back. Go back to the first one on your list and branch from there, think and write down everything that you can think of from that first item on the list. Then go to second and do the same thing, third etc.
This is not simply a “to do” list the brain dump is so much more. Think of it as a list of everything that’s going on in your brain. When you’re writing things down you will want to add questions, concerns, feelings, goals, thoughts in addition to anything else you just need to do. This brain dump is an ANYTHING & EVERYTHING list. If it’s in your mind then write it down; remember you can sort it later.
When I first started doing these brain dumps I was thinking that I would “schedule” one once a month and now that just sounds ridiculous to me. You can of course schedule them monthly, weekly, bi weekly whatever you need but honestly I don’t have to schedule them anymore because I do them all the time. I find I don’t get through crossing off the entirety of the first brain dump list before I want or need to start a new one. You can think of them as regularly scheduled maintenance but I bet you’ll find them incredibly useful so you’ll end up doing them more than how you have them scheduled.
I told you how an effective brain dump can help your mental health. I would say it does this because it frees up space in your brain or gives you the ability to ‘let go’ of feelings of pressure or stress. Crossing off things to do are always welcome to my brain but sometimes I even write down a feeling I’ve been having lately and I decide on a course of action to deal with it or I decide to let it go.
