Feeling overwhelmed? Do a simple brain dump to reduce stress.
Take 5-10 minutes to clear your head with this simple activity.
The best time to do a brain dump
Every task that you haven’t written down continuously drains your mental capacity and energy. You are worried that you’ll forget it. You wonder if it’s really that important to do at all. Many of us worry more about doing all the things than actually doing them (or simply saying no to something). Does the following inner monologue seem familiar?
I really should do this task, this project needs more clarity and that other thing for my boss and I forgot to respond to my colleague. Ugh.
Strangely enough, the best time to do a brain dump seems to be when you are least likely to do it: When stress is high and life is busy. I recommend at the start of your work day when you’ve just “clocked in”. If your schedule is packed consider leaving one of your many meetings 5-10 minutes early (“I gotta leave this one early, folks!”).
You can schedule your brain dump, but in my experience, this isn’t necessary if you stop right after the activity (which should take no more than 10 minutes).
How to do a brain dump
If you’ve never done a brain dump before, I recommend starting with pen and paper. That way you can get a feel for the technique and not bother with any fancy digital tools or extra features that you might not need or want to use yet.
Analog version: Paper brain dump
Pick a piece of paper, preferably A4 as your notebook might feel small and limiting.
Put “Brain dump” as a header followed by the current date and time at the top. That way you can look at your output in the future and see what you’ve accomplished, what you didn’t do (but nobody cared for anyway) and also when you had these commitments.
Set a 5-minute timer on your phone.
Consider the question “what’s on my plate at work?” or “what do I have to do?”
Write everything down that comes to mind, no matter how vague or silly it may sound. Make sure to leave enough space between items to avoid mixing them up later.
Keep writing! If time runs out before you’re done emptying your brain, give yourself another 3-5 minutes.
Digital version: Digital whiteboard brain dump
Head over to your favorite digital whiteboard app (I use Miro) and create a new board or use an existing one.
Like on paper, add a title such as “Braindump - Date - Time”.
Set a 5-minute timer in your app or on your phone.
Consider the question “what’s on my plate at work?” or “what do I have to do?”
Write everything down that comes to mind using sticky notes, no matter how vague or silly it may sound. One sticky per item is a must for easier sorting and organizing down the road.
Keep writing! If time runs out before you’re done emptying your brain, give yourself another 3-5 minutes.
You’re done! How are you feeling?
Here’s what a quick brain dump resulted in for me when I did it a while back:
You might have fewer or more items. It’s not about quantity, but about how much of your brain you can free up and therefore reduce your stress.
What you can do with the output of your brain dump
Nothing or “this is good enough for now”
It’s okay to stop right there and just reap the benefit of feeling a bit more at ease with everything on your plate. That piece of paper or file will not delete itself, will it? 😉
Use a 2x2 Eisenhower Matrix to evaluate your priorities before acting
I will write more about this in the future, but I want to mention that one of my favorite techniques is to use the output of my brain dump to put it into a 2x2 Urgency-Importance matrix (also known as the Eisenhower Matrix).
Transfer items to your task management system
You might have spotted some items that you might want to transfer to your to-do list, Jira or similar. At this point, you also might realize that any item might be too vague, not actionable or something you should not be doing. It will take more effort to work through these considerations, but simply having this list makes a big difference for my stress levels and hopefully yours too.
Brain dump vs. Brainstorming: What’s the difference?
The goal of brainstorming is to create as many ideas as possible, preferably novel ones. While some ideas might not be new at all, the desire is that some will merge, evolve or develop into something useful and unexpected.
The goal of doing a brain dump is to free up your mind by pulling out all current commitments, projects and todos. With this technique, you don’t aim to put even more stuff on your plate that you haven’t even thought of before. Most items that “come out” should be known to you already, but having everything neatly documented should put your mind at ease.
Where I learned this
David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” book. The book goes much more in-depth about how to be productive and stress-free. I highly recommend reading it as it’s more than just a patted version of David’s TED talk. You will find a brief introduction on his website as well.
I hope this technique will serve you well. Give it a shot and let me know if you have any feedback in the comments! 💬