All it takes is a pen and paper to change your life.

A thread on "brain dump" journaling:

One of the most powerful habits I get my coaching clients to start doing:

Journaling.

But not the “dear diary” way of journaling.

A method called brain dumping.

Brain dumping is simple. All you do is:

1) grab a pen and paper
2) write down everything on your mind

Good, bad, neutral.

Business, personal, or otherwise.

Write it all down.

You'll likely fill a page (or more) with a chaotic mess of

• to-dos
• thoughts
• questions
• worries
• problems

related to where you are now and where you want to go.

I recommend brain dumping at least once a day.

But you can do it more than once a day if you’d like.

It’s a tool you can use any time you feel stressed, overwhelmed, or otherwise emotional.

I also recommend having a dedicated notebook for brain dumping.

Many of my clients like reading back over previous brain dumps.

This lets them see the progress they’ve made over the past weeks and months.

You may be wondering…

Why do I have people do this?

Here are 3 benefits of brain dumping:

1) It clears your mind

If you’re like most people, you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of to-dos.

It’s hard to keep track of everything.

It’s almost impossible to work or rest because you have so much on your mind.

You’re overwhelmed and underachieving.

Writing down everything on your mind helps clear your mind.

Then, you can do what you need to be doing right now - whether that’s work or rest.

Many things to one thing.

Tip: Try doing brain dumping shortly before you go to bed. You’ll find it’s much easier to get to sleep.

2) It leads to new ideas

Imagine a time when you were talking to another person about a problem you were having.

As you were explaining your situation, a solution popped into your head!

The other person didn’t even have to say anything helpful!

Communicating something causes your brain to think about it in different ways.

This increases the chance of your brain finding new ideas/solutions for the problem.

When you’re writing, you’re communicating with your paper. So as you write, you’ll find yourself having new ideas.

3) It lets you bring order to chaos

Once you’ve transferred the chaos in your head onto your page, you can start ordering the chaos.

Rewrite what you wrote further down the page or on the next page.

This time, organize things into categories:

- business(es)
- work
- school
- health
- relationships
- and so on

After you’ve done this, you can then go through each category and think about which items are the most important…

...and which items aren’t important at all.

Before brain dumping:

You might have 20 things bouncing around your head.

After brain dumping:

You might only have 2 or 3 - and you’ll be better able to focus on those and find solutions for them.

This is seriously one of the most life-changing skills I help my clients build.

If you'd like to help more people see this simple strategy, please RT this thread! https://twitter.com/heyjoeyjustice/status/1497223339169005568

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