Here I am again. It’s 0542 so I’m doing better at waking up, though I always wake up early on Sundays. We have to leave the house 1.5 hours before Mass begins to get there in order to have a few minutes for prayer or Confession. Typically I have to start powering through the morning by 0630 so I like to get up early so I can drink my coffee with ease and read the Scripture readings for Mass. I may journal or do a brain dump as well, if time permits.
Have you ever tried a brain dump? I came across them years ago but it just didn’t click. Then I found David Allen’s Getting Things Done and read the book twice, implementing a lot of his system. I strived for perfection, didn’t attain it (which a wiser Laura could have told myself), and tried again, this time without the goal of perfection, and it’s been an incredibly helpful system.
One thing in the system is a Capture List. Again, if approached with perfectionism in mind, you’ll “fail” but the idea is to get everything out of your mind and onto paper. David uses multiple capture devices but often trusts a single piece of paper for each idea that comes (because of how he processes his “inbox”). If you’re interested in a 5-step system for getting things done (and that really is what happens!) I highly recommend the book.
Recently I found Mystie Winkler’s podcast. I had heard about her from Pam Barnhill over the homeschooling years but never looked into her. One day recently I came across her brain dump workshop on YouTube and decided to check it out. In the workshop she actually had prompts and gave us 2 minutes per prompt to write. Those prompts lead to great insight into my life and heart. Right there on paper I saw my failures, my desires, my hopes, and what I was putting in my way from achieving those hopes.
Now, a few months later, I brain dump almost every day. I sit down with a “brain dump notebook” and just write out everything that’s in my mind. Now, as David Allen would say, you cannot just leave it as a list because your brain won’t learn to trust you to actually deal with the items on the list. Next you need to pull out what’s important, figure out your next action, process these items and choose a way to keep track of what is important to you. But it starts with a brain dump.
Brain dumps help you live intentional lives. You also see the lies Satan weaves throughout your day. And you get a chance to look down and reject those lies. As women, our brain dumps often end up with feelings as well as tasks. That’s the part that’s missing from David Allen’s book – the woman’s perspective. Women and men are so different (this is scientifically proven) and that’s where Mystie’s study and practice of this has been essential to my development of the habit.
So, I think I’m off to brain dump. 🙂 I find it very soothing and it creates room in our brains for higher level processing. We can only hang on to four ideas at a time. No wonder we forget the milk! 😉
Do you have a system for keeping track of thoughts that works for you? Please share!