A brain dump is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s taking pen to paper and getting all your thoughts OUT of your brain. It’s a release and it’s also you facing facts. It’s taking every thing you’re worrying about, questioning, feeling, needing to do, and organizing those thoughts OUT of your brain and putting them somewhere ELSE.

It’s taking the things that you think about DAILY but don’t ever do out of your mind and creating a game plan for them. It’s basically a time to organize your thoughts, which we’ll get more into. Intrigued yet?

How to do a brain dump

There are many ways to do a brain dump, but one way is to follow these steps. For more ways, see the links below.

1. Write down EVERYTHING. Grab a pen and paper or your computer (and fave note-taking app) and just write down everything you’ve been thinking about and clogging up your head. Don’t hold back and don’t limit yourself. Cover everything you need to do, should do, have thought about doing, should think about doing, anything and everything without any sort of priority. What is bugging you? What is distracting you? What are you most dreading? What do you feel like you should be thinking about doing? What is necessary? What is important? Urgent? Write it all down. Let yourself be random and unorganized.

2. Add some order. After you have spent some time getting everything out, look at what you've written down and start grouping things together. What are must do's, personal stuff, important but not urgent, later things, etc.

3. Step away and come back to it later that day. It is important to give your brain a little bit of a break.

4. Organize your list. Circle anything that you can handle THAT designated day, which is usually a lot, and just do it. These are usually the “easy wins” and things that you can just GET out of your head and be DONE with! For the things that you can’t do that day, prioritize them and mark in your calendar, right then and there. Give them a space in your life to actually address them or get rid of them. For the things that are emotional or more personal (feeling blah about your weight or your closet is a disaster), schedule things that will help: sign up for a class, go to the store for healthy food, schedule time to clean out your closet and whatever else you think might help.

Links on Brain Dumping

4 Simple Steps to Brain Dumping

How to Untangle Your Mind with a Brain Dump

Brain Dump 101