
Oh boy what a week I had last week. Besides almost every important planet being in retrograde (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto), it seems like all my projects either sped up or came to a screeching halt last week.
Things that usually worked like a charm like Google decided to go haywire. Yes, Google!
I was aware that my energy was totally scattered and that I had to make some decisions before I lost my marbles.
When I get to that place of overdoing, over saturation, or just plain overwhelm, I luckily have some tricks up my sleeve to shift my energy.
If you’re feeling the same way, here’s one trick that is a super duper priority focusor that will get your chi flowing back right again.
It involves a big, nice white piece of paper. The bigger, the better. Partner that with post-it notes, a pen or sharpies and about 45 minutes of time.
6 Steps for a Massive Brain Dump that will Free your Mind – and Soul! :
1) Catch it – Get a blank piece of paper or posterboard*. This will be your foundation or catch-all.
2) Divide it – Draw some vertical lines to separate different categories such as Personal, Household, Professional, and any other category you would like to add. Just be sure that you keep your categories to about 5. Any more than that, guess what happens? You get overwhelmed by your simplification process!
3) Post it – On separate post-its, write down things that you have to do, that is on your to-do list or on your mind, from each category. If you are using a letter sized paper, you may want to use smaller post-its. Go at warp speed and brain dump. Don’t think about it too much and make what you write on each post-it short and concise. It may look something like this, “write my bio”, “go to Costco”, “buy mom a birthday gift”, “create spreadsheet for event.” Keep writing. This is not the time to edit. Remember, brain dump.
4) Sort it – Now we get to the hardest part for most people. It’s the time to review, classify, maybe even toss what’s in the pile. Put all the post-its that pertain to Household in one pile, Professional in another and so on. No judgement, just a quick sorting. You’ll find that many of the post-its won’t seem that important anymore and, seriously, can be tossed.
5) Organize it – Look through what’s left in each category pile and take out the ones that are most time sensitive. Maybe your mom’s birthday is this week and you need to get her a gift asap. That stays. Maybe you have a business launch in Sept and you need to brainstorm with your copywriter. It’s important but perhaps that can wait till next week. As you are working through the post-its, stick the more urgent ones up in the categories and leave the others in their pile.
6) Use it – First, take a minute to stand back and take a look at your masterpiece. Aren’t you proud? If you are feeling overwhelmed, you may need to break your post-its down into smaller steps. Or you may need to take off some post-its all together. The purpose of this exercise is to simplify. Then, get going on your categories!
This process should be fun, inspiring and downright liberating. If it’s stressful to you, you may want to light a candle beforehand, make a cup of tea and set an intention for the process.
*If you’re more of a digital person, you can also do this using a program such as Evernote, Google Keep, etc. I’ve never done it digitally before but I have found that paper and pen really gives me that feeling of satisfaction.
Your turn!
How did this exercise help you? Do you make your own tweaks to it that worked for you?
Share it in the comments below. Would love to hear where you are in the process!
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