Your brain needs
to take a dump
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or in fear of forgetting
things, maybe you could do with a braindump. I know some people don’t like the
term, maybe they prefer Shower Thoughts, Sandbox, Idea Log or a Free-my-brain
List. But call it what you will, brain dumping is a great way to clear your
mind and get things out of your head.
To be clear, and semantics aside, I’m not talking about a
brainstorm – which is when you think
of one topic and write as much about it as possible, often trying to think
outside the box. Brainstorming sessions are invaluable, and can be an important
part of kick-starting (or jump-starting) projects!
But to have our brains free to rain glorious ideas in a ‘storm’,
I believe a helpful first step is to ‘dump’ the unnecessary load that it is
carrying. In his incredible book The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the
Age of Information Overload, Daniel Levitin says “The most fundamental
principle of the organized mind, the one most critical to keeping us from
forgetting or losing things, is to shift the burden of organizing from our
brains to the external world.” So basically, if it’s written down somewhere
logical, then we free up some bandwidth, so that our brains don’t have to be
concerned with holding on to data unnecessarily.
So let's do this! The process I use is made up of 3 parts: Dump, Trim and Sort.
I created a FREE printable to help you through the process I suggest below!
Please download it by clicking this button:
1. Dump
Get. It. All. Out. Write down all the tasks that have been rattling around in the corners of your mind. Pull from old scraps of to do lists, any notes you’ve made on your phone, random post-its, last year’s diary, you name it– get it all into one place.
Look at your desk, walk around your house, see if any to do’s pop into your head…then dump them on the page. If you dare – look at your emails to gather tasks. If that is too daunting, put “declutter emails” on to your Purge list. The point isn’t to get overwhelmed. The point is to collect all the random thoughts and tasks together in one place so that you can clear your mind.
Don’t try to be neat or to categorise anything at this
point, just get it out of your brain and onto the paper. While your focus can
be on tasks that need doing, brain dump any
thoughts you’d like to keep, even if you don’t need them at the moment. You’ll
find that some of what you write down is actually just the tip of the iceberg
in uncovering a dream or goal, and you’ll need to carve out a space and time to
explore those thoughts more. But there is huge power in just writing things
down and getting the ball rolling.
Okay. So have you finished your brain Dump? I’m serious.
Take 15 minutes and do it now. I’ll wait. When you’re done, we’ll look at step
2…
2. Trim
Your aim is to be left with a list of tasks that you need/want to do.
As the saying goes…”If it’s not a ‘hell yes!’ then it’s a
‘no’!”
You need to check if there is anything there that
can/should be delegated to someone else, if so, do it immediately and cross it
off your list. If there is anything there that belongs somewhere else – like
maybe on a brainstorm of dreams and goals, move it along.
Marie Forleo uses a powerful mantra often…simplify to
amplify. Doing less, but with greater focus, is key. But it’s not necessarily
easy to say goodbye to things that have been in the junk drawer of your mind
for ages. As Marie says “it takes courage to pursue a dream, but when that
dream no longer fits, it can take even more to end it.”
3. Sort
We can now look more closely at the tasks you coloured [WORTHY]
and [WORTH CONSIDERING] and sort them out so that we know what needs doing
when.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a framework intended to help people prioritize a list of
tasks by first categorising those items according to their urgency and
importance.
I suck at using the classic Eisenhower Matrix. Goodness
knows I’ve tried. My problem is, I assume that everything left on my list is
urgent, important or both (the Trimming step was challenging enough as it is!).
So I use a variation which categorises according to impact
and effort. Here is my take on it:
Basically, you categorise your tasks depending on how
much effort they will require versus how much impact they will have (remember
the use, need, love questions?). For example, me sending a message to connect
with a prospective client would be a low effort ‘quick tick’. While writing
this blog post is a higher effort ‘biggie’. I feel that both will ultimately
have a high impact (I hope!), but there is a big difference in the effort
required before I can call them done.
You’ll find that the lower impact tasks are those that
you hesitated about during the Prune phase, but decided to keep after all. They
might deserve to be on the list, but they don’t deserve your best attention.
Lower effort ‘fillers’ on my matrix include exploring the app of the bank I’ve
just moved to and sorting my sewing cupboard. Higher effort ‘tough slogs’ for
me include hemming our new lounge voile curtains and sorting my recipe books.
If you’re trying to work out how much effort a task will
require, it helps to think of it in terms of what it will cost to get it done –
both in terms of time and money. Lela Burris of
Organized-ish says that pulling these factors into the mix will help you to further
prioritise (and you may even decide to delete tasks!).
take your prediction and add 25%.
When packing clothes for a trip, do the opposite.
Now that you have categorised all those tasks, you should
already have an idea of where your focus will be best spent going forward.
Anything that was in the “higher impact” row is automatically prioritised. And
tasks from the “lower effort” column will be perfect to tackle when you only
have a few minutes to spare.
You will be able to fill in your monthly/weekly/daily to
do lists based on this plan. If you focus on the higher impact tasks first, you
will feel heaps more productive, and the momentum you’ll build will have you
zooming through your list in no time.