Declutter Your Mind, Regain Focus.
A 15-Min Brain Dump Routine by @FadedAestheticsGram
New research suggests the average human being has over 6,000 thoughts per day. With that in mind, and before you get sucked right into your work day, find out how to set out daily intentions to achieve maximum productivity.
Sometimes all it takes to get things done without stressing yourself or becoming overwhelmed is a good brain dump.
What is a brain dump? Think of your mental space like your precious bedroom. The more cluttered it is with mess, the longer it will take to clean it out. We have to make time for this type of clean-out, otherwise we might wind up with a mental mess.
Why? When tasks add up in your head, it may feel like everything is super urgent and of utmost importance which in return causes anxiety. A brain dump, or a brain downloader in its more sympathetic name, gives you a clearer look at those important and unimportant tasks.
In this post, I’m sharing a 15 minute brain dump method that I use to declutter my (very cluttered) mind and organize thoughts into tasks and those tasks into a clear to-do-list. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, anxious or indecisive lately, I highly recommend giving this a go. Get ready for a brilliant #RemoteWork routine!
Step 1 — Find your ideal place and gather the essentials.
Your brainstorming journal, a pen, 3 different colored highlighters and, if you have, at least 9 sticky notes. You can do this digitally too, but analog writing has been proven to get us into a proper flow state.
Tip: Clutter in your mind is natural. Take a few deep breaths before starting.
Step 2 — Start a 10-min timer and begin free-writing anything that is on your mind. Some questions to consider:
Tip: Don’t overthink! Concentrate on becoming aware of the thoughts in your head and just jot them down. If you’re not so keen on “free writing”, feel free to list in bullet points. The point is to write down anything that is sitting at the forefront of your mind.
Step 3 — Stop when the timer beeps unless you feel a bit more writing time will help untangle some more important thoughts.
If it takes more than 15 minutes, don’t worry, it’s totally natural — especially in these strange pandemic times. Perhaps you’re overwhelmed with life or dissatisfied about something that’s limiting your productivity. If this is the case, I recommend a morning meditation routine! Feel free to reach out and I’ll send you my favorite morning meditations. They really help get you back in sync with yourself.
Simplicity begins the moment you stop believing everything you think — Courtney Carver
Step 4 — Set another timer, this time for 5-minutes, and categorize.
Highlight sentences into 3 categories of your choice, so you can get a clear understanding on what to focus on later. This will help you eliminate any irrelevant thoughts. I recommend using 3 different color highlighters to tag or categorize thoughts into (1) Work Priority, (2) Health (in-your-face sticky notes), (3) Stressful things.
Tip: You don’t have to follow these exact categories. Some more ideas could be Home-related, Family-related, Finances, Hobbies or whatever you think is relevant for yourself. It’s about your productivity, not anyone else’s!
Step 5— Figure out which 3 “thoughts” you would like to start prioritizing for the day and add them to your daily to-do list. Track your progress — if you successfully finished them before your desired time, go back to your categorized list and pick another few to finish up.
Here’s a personal example from one of my brain-dumping sessions a couple days ago (transferred to digital format for ease of reading):
Red is Work Priority | Green is Health | Yellow is Stressful
From all this random writing, I summarised into —
Last notes for you to consider —
- Consider keeping track of your to-do-later tasks on digital platforms like Notion.so, which is an amazing all-in-one workspace for creatives (and free for personal use).
- This method isn’t a set template, so experiment with it all you like. For me 10 minutes for the free writing + 5 minutes to organize/prioritize using colors works the best.
- When categorizing, dig a bit deeper and add last notes that will ease your process later on, such as a contact number for that appointment you need to set.
- Don’t bother about grammar or spelling, just go ahead with the writing.
In the end, brain dumps (or downloads 😉) are a fantastic tool for clearing out the mental clutter that builds up on a daily basis, and with these simple methods, you’re bound to eliminate much of the stress and anxiety of work.
P.S — Here’s our favorite Remote Work Playlist on Spotify, created for all the creative entrepreneurs, freelancers and digital nomads in need of a musical flow for a successful work day 🎧
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