How To Brain Dump | Organize Your Life With This Starting Point

Have you ever felt like your brain was a tangled mess of thoughts, tasks, and worries?

It’s like trying to hold water in your hands – impossible and exhausting. That’s where brain dumping comes in: a simple, liberating tool to declutter your mind and take the first step toward organizing your life.

This post will give you insights on two things:

• 2 ways to instantly stop feeling overwhelmed.
• 1 skill to master to relieve your mind from all the clutter that piles up there daily (a.k.a. brain dumping)

You aren’t stressed because you have too many things on your mind, but because you are afraid you will forget to do some of them.

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Brain Dumping: The One Skill You Must Master So You Get In Control Of Your Life

Where to begin when your head is about to melt under the pressure of the hundreds (thousands?) of thoughts you must cope with every day?

If you…

• often wake up during the night because you just remember you must do something specific the next day…
• can’t fall asleep because the events of the day and your reactions to them are playing like a movie in your head…
• feel small and weak when it comes to handling your daily tasks, projects, and responsibilities…
• are stressed and overwhelmed and need a quick tip to take off all that load piling up on your back.

You are not alone!

We all go through those moments (weeks?) at some point in our lives.

But “going through” and “staying in that moment” are two different things, and you want to find the right way to relieve the pressure and actually enjoy your life.

How?

Where to begin?

Capturing Your Thoughts

Capturing your thoughts (a.k.a brain dumping) is the process of unloading your thoughts, ideas, tasks, and everything else that pops into your mind on a piece of paper the moment that thought, idea, or task enters your head.

If you’ve heard about braindump, you might also have moments of doubt and wonder why writing it all out can help you feel less overwhelmed.

David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done (The Bible of all organized people), talks of capturing your thoughts and creating an inbox for them as the single most valuable step to getting organized fast.

While reading his book, I was skeptical regarding that idea, but anyway, I decided to follow his advice blindly (I guessed he had more knowledge than me, and I could at least try the system).

He says that our brains are great at creating ideas but terrible at storing and organizing them.

Getting it all out and capturing my thoughts (whichever you prefer to call it) turned out to be the solution for my overwhelmed mind.

Even if I lack the discipline to create proper lists and even to take the action steps to organize my life, the simple act of holding everything on external hardware (a list on my phone, in my planner, or on the shopping list) makes me feel like it’s okay to forget about things.

Yes, I allow myself to stop thinking and overthinking insignificant little details that won’t matter even a week from now.

How do you start capturing your thoughts in one place?

It cannot be more simple than it sounds – get a big sheet of paper or a notebook and cancel your plans for the next hour – it’s writing time.

Write everything that comes into your head, every idea, a task that must get done in the next week, month, or even a year. Also, capture all of the projects you work on (at work or home).

Here’s a simple list of categories you might want to think of. Please keep in mind that not everything on that list is something you must engage with, but it might trigger some stream of thoughts.

• emergency tasks you need to get done asap;
• projects or tasks that aren’t an emergency but are time-sensitive;
• projects at your home;
• appointments you must make for you or your family members;
• shopping lists (not just groceries, but everything else you plan/want to get in the next few weeks or months, and they need some planning); PSST, see this list of 160 lists you can create for better life organization.
• every idea you want to explore – business, home renovations, garden projects;
• problems that need solving;
• conversations you want to have with your children, your spouse, parents, friends, your boss, and so on;
• habits you want to implement (yes, if you think of developing a certain habit more than twice a week, it deserves its spot on this list);
• personal growth ideas you often think of;
• books you want to read (again if you keep thinking of specific books you don’t want to forget to look into);
• upcoming birthdays;
• people you must call;
• events you must organize in the near future (even if it’s a year from now, such as a wedding);

How Much is Too Much When Capturing Your Thoughts?

There’s no limit to how many things you write on that list. Just don’t dig deeper into each idea.

If you wrote down “wedding” as a project, you don’t want to go ahead and start brainstorming regarding that event. The word “wedding” is completely enough on its own at this point. The purpose of this exercise is to take all of your ideas and thoughts out of your head and onto the paper. You will deal with each one of those thoughts later on.

Why on Paper?

Studies have confirmed that writing things on paper (yes, using an actual ancient device called “a pen”) boosts creative thinking and helps you achieve your goals. You need that creative juice flowing through your mind so you capture everything that’s floating in it.

How To Focus and Get Started When You Are Really, Really Stressed?

What if you are going through a tough period of your life? Events are scaling. You are not just stressed. You feel like a cartoon character from a Disney movie, and your brain is on fire, steam is bursting out of your ears, and you can’t focus on anything.

First, Breathe!

“Yeah, thanks, Rachel! I haven’t thought of that!” I can hear you!

But seriously, I need you to open the window and take a few deep breaths: in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Second: Affirmations

I need you to say out loud, “I am okay! I can do this!“

Say it as many times as you need until you feel it.

Does it sound too weird? Give it a chance.

Make a few circles with your shoulders and then move your hands too – make wide circles with them.

Why am I asking you to do all that?

If you’re in a state of mind where you can’t sit down even for a minute and start writing, that means you are going through a minor crisis. You must prioritize yourself first.

Everything will still be there in a few minutes or half an hour. It won’t run away, and the world won’t end because you didn’t make someone around you happy (it doesn’t matter who popped into your mind).

You want to prioritize your inner peace and calm state of being. You want to take a few moments and use them to practice self-care and self-nourishing.

You want to drink a glass of water, move your body, and repeat a few affirmations until you calm yourself. And that will happen in just a few minutes if you follow my advice.

Now you feel better and understand that nothing is as urgent and critical as it sounds. You are ready to start taking all those thoughts out of your head and onto the paper.

What to do after that? You organize your life with a simple notebook. Click the button below to see how.

Summary of Getting Organized When You Are Overwhelmed

Here are the two steps to instantly feel better if you’re stressed, overwhelmed, and feel like you’re going to lose your mind:

• Open the window, take a few deep breaths;
• Repeat a few affirmations. You could say, “I am okay! I can do this!” or any other affirmation that would make you feel better;

This might sound like an unnecessary stretch to you. However, approach your messy mind from a place of calmness and positivity. Yes, taking immediate action is crucial, but self-care and attending to your mental health are more critical.

• Capture all of your thoughts in one place. Get a sheet of paper (or a few) and start writing down everything that pops into your mind. It doesn’t matter how you formulate your thoughts; just capture those ideas and have them in front of you.

Writing it all down will relieve your brain from having to deal with them and trying not to forget.

You aren’t stressed because you have too many things on your mind. You are stressed because you are afraid you will forget to do some of them.

Also, your brain cannot organize them and efficiently categorize them. You need them written in front of you, and then your brain will start grouping them.

If you enjoyed this post, I would truly appreciate it if you’d share it with others. Also, don’t forget to grab your free copy of my 5-step system to get seriously organized.