Still Stressed After Your “Brain Dump?”
The step you’re missing to get into action
--
It’s possible you’re rehearsing your shopping list, cleverly turning everything into a word that starts with S to make it easy to remember, mentally going through client calls to return, conversations to have, and CRAP that financial report was due yesterday, not tomorrow!
Dang it, now you can’t remember the third thing on the seven-item shopping list… and you never gave Jill the data you promised for the new business proposal. Didn’t Jill just get a puppy? We should send a card (make that “sentiment” to fit the S themed list)…OH HECK! When is my dog due for her rabies shot? This year? Next year?
Now you can’t remember half the list, and seven isn’t an even number so you can’t forget half…but it is a prime number and you meant to cancel Amazon Prime before the charge hit your account this morning. GAH!
On the bright side, your Versa 2 watch just congratulated you for making your “active minutes” target this week. You feel guilty for a moment getting those minutes without actual exercising. (Yes, you get credit from Fitbit for stressing your way to 150 active minutes per week. I won’t bring up my July and August.)
First a review
Get it out
Feeling perpetually behind and carrying the stress of a mental list of things to tend today, yesterday, and three years from now isn’t productive. You knew that. As Mike Vardy put it, “the brain is meant to be a factory, not a warehouse.” Admitting the limitation of memory and the lack of capacity for creative thought, you pull out a notepad and pour a cup of coffee. Time to get thoughts and mental threads onto paper.
Wait, what?
Yep. Paper. The benefits to typing your brain dumps (or mind sweeps, if you prefer the more genteel sound of swishing around the brain attic to the harsh sound of dumping a bin of Legos on a hardwood floor) include speed — most people write faster than type — and flow. It’s too easy to critique your words and backspace typos. That interrupts the flow of thoughts once the gates are opened, which potentially reduces the benefit of this process. Just write as quickly as the thoughts come.
