FROM IDEAS TO IMPACTFUL ACTIONS TOOL #1 BRAINDUMPING
This post is part of the #10Tips10Days campaign in Linkedin
BRAINDUMPING is one of the tools that tremendously help in moving impactful ideas forward. Let’s face it, we are bogged down on a daily basis with lots of information and having a system to get everything that is clogging your mind and making it visible can help in setting priorities, eliminating unimportant activities and create structure for our daily actions.
David Allen, author of the world famous “Getting Things Done” methodology, swears by braindumping as a practice to free up mental energy and allow freethinking.
WHY BRAINDUMPING?
Braindumping can accomplish two important things — first, getting your ideas onto paper simply helps calm your brain. Ever had the experience of not sleeping well and with thoughts swimming in your head? A brain dump can help you get your ideas out of your head and they will stop keeping you up all night.
Second, making your ideas visible will help you evaluate them and determine whether they’re good enough to continue to explore, or if they should be filed away for later consideration.
HOW I DO IT?
I prefer using my trusted notebook in writing down things based on the different roles I have. This allows me to fully look at the different aspects of who I am. From there I decide on which activities to proceed with. Which ones are easy to do (will not take a few minutes) and I start getting them out.
Contrary to Brian Tracy’s Eat Your Frog, wherein he advises to start first with the top tasks that can move your ideas forward, I prefer to “Eat My Snacks”. Those bite-sized, easy to do activities that give my brain and my ego a boost.
Ticking things down as I accomplish them gives me a celebratory feeling. It has been studied that celebrating and happiness activates the frontal cortex of our brain, which helps us to see more possibilities, build on proof and motivates us to keep moving forward. The more times you succeed at something, the longer your brain stores the information that allowed you to do so well because because each success, is treated to a release of dopamine.
Not only do I feel greater concentration when I get off things in the list (those easy tasks that will not take me more than 5 minutes), dopamine also flows into my brain’s reward pathway (the part responsible for pleasure, learning and motivation), making me inspired, energized and excited to re-experience the activity that caused my dopamine release.
This is why the cultivation of small wins is crucial to propel to bigger success, and why integrating small achievable goals and ticking them off can help in priming our brain for success. So the next time you braindump and decide on what to do next, try to pick those small wins, get them out of the way and get your brain buzzing with dopamine to handle the other stuff.
