How to Declutter Your Mind with Brain Dumping

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Are you constantly feeling overwhelmed?

Do you struggle with having a million thoughts swirling around your head at once, and they make it nearly impossible to focus on the task at hand?

Do you desperately need a way to declutter your mind, so you can give your work and life your full attention?

If so, you’re not alone.

Unfortunately, it’s more common in our society today to be a multitasker instead of someone who focuses on one thing at a time.

You’re expected to get all your work done on time, while still being accessible via phone and email 24/7. Both of these expectations clashes, resulting in mental stress and overwhelm.

Luckily, there’s a solution for this, and it’s called brain dumping.

Brain dumping is a way to declutter your mind, and it can help you feel lighter, more focused, and reduce your stress levels. 

What is brain dumping?

A brain dump is exactly what it sounds like—it’s a way of getting (or dumping) all of those things cluttering your mind out of your head. It’s physically moving thoughts and ideas from your head onto a piece of paper or a digital document.

A brain dump can be useful for both work and life tasks.

We have so many thoughts running through our minds at once. Brain dumping is a way of stopping those thoughts in their tracks and capturing them before they run wild and pull us away from whatever we’re working on.

Benefits of brain dumping

So, why should you consistently do a brain dump?

There are so many benefits to brain dumping that can positively have an impact on your life.

For starters, the act of moving thoughts, ideas, and to-do’s from your head also moves the weight and stress they carry.

When you don’t brain dump these things, you’re putting more of a mental strain on yourself by trying to remember them. You’re less likely to forget about miscellaneous things because you’ll just write them down as they pop up.

Brain dumping can prevent you from getting distracted from what you’re currently working on.

If you’re writing Instagram captions, for example, and you remember you need to put a load of laundry in, you can simply write that thought down and refer back to it later.

Brain dumping declutters your mind of any thoughts that aren’t serving you in the present moment.

You’ll feel lighter because those thoughts won’t be there any longer, and that’s what helps reduce stress.

How to do a brain dump

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Keep your brain dump in the same place

If you have your brain dump scattered throughout six different notebooks, that may be more of a hassle for you than it’s worth.

Instead, choose a location for your brain dumping and stick to it.

This could be one notebook, a set of sticky notes, or even something digital like a Google Doc or Word Doc. Whatever you choose doesn’t matter as long as you keep everything in one place.

Have your digital or paper notebook on you at all times

Now that you know where you’ll be keeping your brain dump, make sure it’s accessible to you at all times.

You need to be able to pull up that Google Doc or open your notebook as soon as a thought arises in order for your brain dumping to be effective. 

Jot down thoughts or ideas as they come up

As soon as you have a new thought or idea that isn’t relevant to the task at hand, write it down in your brain-dumping location of choice.

Don’t dwell on it or allow it to suck up your time and attention. Jot it down, and there will be a separate time for reflection later on.

Have a set time each day to refer back to your brain dump

A brain-dumping notebook isn’t where thoughts and ideas go to die; in fact, quite the opposite should happen.

This is where thoughts and ideas are given the proper space to grow and develop.

In order for this to occur, try to have a set time each day to refer back to your brain dump list.

You can glance over it at the beginning or end of each day to make sure nothing urgent needs your attention.

Prioritize your brain dump by importance

Your brain dump list should eventually turn into actionable tasks or projects.

Before that can happen, you should make sure your brain dump is prioritized by urgency.

Does something need to get done this week, or could it be saved until next week or month?

Prioritizing by importance can be done when you refer back to your list each day. Or you could do this at the start of each week.

Use your brain dump list to plan out your weekly and monthly tasks

Now for the fun stuff—bringing your brain dump list to life!

Brain dumping is essentially the ideation phase of new projects.

Thoughts of ideas may come up, you write them down, and eventually, they can become new tasks that turn into projects. Look through which things are the most urgent right now.

From there, you have a guide for how you want to plan out your tasks for the week and month.

Start a new brain dump list as needed

Eventually, your brain dump list may get pretty extensive.

You may want to date your list and start a new one each week, or maybe just whenever you need a fresh start.

When you do this, carry over any items that were not addressed with the previous list.

This will ensure that your list is never too overwhelming to look at, and you’ll always feel confident that nothing gets overlooked.

Final Thoughts

Are you convinced that brain dumping could serve you well and make your days a little bit easier and more intentional?

Use this post as a guide to help you start and stay consistent with your brain-dumping practice.

Once you get into it, you’ll notice how it helps declutter your mind and improve your quality of work and life!