Written by Guest Author: HoneyStyle&Joy
If you’re anything like me, you often become cluttered with countless thoughts, ideas, tasks, and responsibilities. This mental congestion can hinder your ability to think clearly, be productive, and tap into your creative potential. Thankfully, there is a simple yet powerful technique: The Brain Dump. This is something I have been using to help declutter my mind and free up my brain storage. In this article, I’m breaking down what a brain dump is and how to create a pre-plan effectively to enhance your creativity and productivity. Your planner can do more for you and your creative process.
What Is A Brain Dump?
It’s the process that involves freeing your mind from the burden of remembering and organizing information. Additionally, I’ve heard it called a Brain Release, a Brainstorm, or even an “On my mind” list but it doesn’t matter what you call it. Above all, it’s purpose is the same… Your goal is to transfer all the thoughts, ideas, to-dos, and mental clutter from your mind onto paper or a digital platform. This in turn allows you to gain mental clarity and focus. Think of it as an external storage device for your brain, where you can capture everything without judgment or concern for time. Consequently, it becomes an organic document that moves and changes as life does.
See my brain dump process in action! Pre-plan with me:
Benefits of Brain Dumping:
- Mental clarity: By externalizing your thoughts, you free up mental space. This helps reduce the mental load and increasing clarity of mind.
- Stress and anxiety reduction: A brain dump helps alleviate stress and anxiety by capturing and organizing all your concerns. This allows you to address them systematically.
- Idea generation: Emptying your mind onto paper stimulates creativity, enabling you to generate new ideas and insights. Additionally, it helps you plan out your week without worrying that you’re missing something.
- Prioritization: A brain dump allows you to see the bigger picture, helping you effectively identify and prioritize tasks and goals.
- Enhanced productivity: By offloading mental clutter, you can focus more on important tasks. This helps improve your productivity and efficiency.
I’ve experienced all of these and more just by taking the extra step of balancing the books (the planners, stickies, calendars and all the things). And I’m happy to say I get to see many of my planner friends doing it as well. So, here’s how I do it every week to save me time and keep me on top of my tasks.
Creating A Brain Dump
In order for me to set myself up for success, I had to be honest with myself. Once I was, I accepted that:
I don’t like having to pull out a notebook for every little thing. When I do happen to pull out sticky notes and books, I tend to lose them. And if I try to ‘carve out’ some time to brain dump on paper, I never remember everything.
If that’s also you, I’m with you boo! My solution is in the process.
Digital planning for to-the-minute updates and schedules:
Ultimately, I use my regular old notes app that came with my phone to jot down things that come up in conversations that will result in a task for me. I have a list for each month and it is my first point of contact for tasks that I’ll want to consider doing in the current month. Also, I use my Google calendar for scheduling because things can get updated faster there than they will in my planner.
So I highly recommend you find a place where you can have the most updated version of your to-dos and appointments. For you, this may be your planner, a notepad, voice notes, etc. If you’re already holding on to a lot of things in your head, don’t count on you being able to remember it when it is time to sit in front of your planner. Better safe than sorry!
Capture tasks AND ideas:
Jot down any ideas, tasks, or reminders that pop into your mind. Write them down as they come, ensuring that nothing gets overlooked.
Free writing:
Again, you’re writing down anything and everything that comes to mind. Don’t worry about grammar, structure, or coherence. Simply let your thoughts flow onto the paper without judgment.
Technically, you can stop here. You can create your list any way you like but keep it close by so that everything remains in the same place. But I like to go a step further. This is where the pre-plan happens.
Pre-Planning
I find a quiet and comfortable space where I can concentrate without distractions. It’s usually when I’m getting ready to plan for the upcoming week. Then, I bring all of my lists together in an organized way I can use to plan the upcoming week. This means:
- My notes app list. I often print this out but it’s not necessary.
- All of my planners: My hourly, daily, and budget planners all come out.
- My Google Calendar schedule for the week I’m planning. I almost always print this out and use it as my baseboard for gathering all of my tasks. Again, you can leave it on your screen if it’s easier for you to do so.
Reconcile
I flip through all my planners to see what outstanding tasks I haven’t completed from the last week. I’ve also started flipping back through the last 3 months every quarter or the last 6 months twice a year. Everything I think I can get done in the next week gets jotted down with my schedule. If I don’t think I can do it in that time, it gets added to my notes app where I won’t forget it.
Curate
Now I look at my notes app and decide which of THOSE tasks I can or need to get done in the upcoming week. Here’s a good time to consider if there’s any time specific tasks that need to be prioritized. I also tend to prioritize tasks I find from months before that haven’t been done. Remember, you’re not supposed to be doing everything in one day – some tasks WILL be left behind but that’s why you have a MONTHLY list.
Categorize And Organize
Once I’ve completed the brain dump, I review what I’ve written and group similar ideas, tasks, or themes together. Then I create categories or sections to bring some organization to the chaos. This is all done on one sheet of paper in my pre-planning notebook to be used as a reference when laying out my week in my planner.
Prioritize And Take Action
Assess the importance and urgency of each item. Highlight, mark, or list in order the tasks that require immediate attention. Therefore, you must factor this into how you set up your tasks in your planner. Make sure you check off or cross out items from your pre-planning page when you’ve assigned a day/time for it to be completed so it doesn’t get abandoned!
Review And Refine
Regularly revisit your initial list in your notes app, planner or notepad to update, add, or remove items. This process ensures that your list remains a valuable resource for your thoughts and tasks.
Tips for an Effective Pre-Planning
Embrace non-judgment. Don’t filter or censor your thoughts. Let your brain dump be a safe space to capture even the most mundane or random ideas.
Find the right medium. Experiment with different mediums like paper, digital documents, or note-taking apps to find the one that works best for you.
Set a time limit. Consider allocating a specific amount of time for your pre-planning sessions to prevent it from becoming overwhelming or time-consuming.
Combine with mindfulness. Practice mindfulness techniques, such as deep breathing or meditation, before and after your pre-planning to enhance focus and clarity.
Use visuals and diagrams. Truly, sometimes words alone aren’t sufficient. Feel free to incorporate visuals, diagrams, mind maps, or doodles to better express your thoughts.
Time-block. I can’t stress enough how much easier it’s become to get things done since I started being honest about how long it will take me to complete certain tasks. This prevents overwhelm and overscheduling and I swear by it!
Try it and see how it’ll work WITH you and FOR you
Creating a brain dump and then turning it into a pre-planning document is a powerful technique for decluttering your mind, boosting creativity, and enhancing productivity. The most important thing here, though, is to THINK THROUGH YOUR
PLANS. Think through what the tasks you’re putting down are moving you towards.
Think about how to break down your goals in a way that you can feel yourself getting closer to it. Having this as part of my planning process has been making playing with stickers and adding the visual element to my planner more enjoyable because I no longer feel like I’m decorating while things aren’t getting done. I stopped feeling like my planning system isn’t working because I’m missing things that I’m just not recording the right way.
I hope you consider adding this to your planner workflow and that it becomes something that makes all of your goals feel more attainable. Uniquely, I have found that this brain dump process can apply to students, freelancers, or corporate employees alike. It doesn’t matter who you are, I am sure that this process will promote creative inspiration and overall wellness in your mind.
About HoneyStyle&Joy ♥
My name is D. Christine, and I love using planning and organization to manifest a beautiful life. I am a web designer, business owner and content creator so creating systems to reach all of my goals a big priority for me! I’ve been in the planner community since 2015 and I’m so happy I get to share planning, budgeting and time management tips on Instagram (HoneyStyleJoy) and YouTube (HoneyStyleJoy).
