Mind dump practices clear mental clutter. If your are in doubt, have you ever sat at your desk to find your mind is so full of ideas yet none of them have anything to do with the work you are trying to scribble down?
Maybe you are eighty pages deep into your project or you are less than ten from done when your mind is flooded with thoughts for house projects that need to be done, worry over finances or some issue within the family that needs to be ironed out. How about all those day job issues…?
Even small stuff like going over your to do list or getting done so you can go to the movies with the family tonight can loom large before your eyes. The distractions are everywhere and many have merit or not. That matters little since they are destroying your writing time with the certaintude of a nuclear strike.
So many things buzzing around in our heads tend to exhaust every ounce of energy you have while it crashes your project and wrecks your sanity at the same time.
Living with so much clutter in our heads tends to leave us all tired, stressed, and antsy…maybe even thinking about quitting for a nice easy calm job like test pilot or explosives expert.
We all go there from time to time because you just can not turn off the thinking machine that is your brain. It will not focus. You cannot change that. Or can you?
Steve’s “Clean Thinking”
Some time ago I ran across Steve Job’s idea to declutter your mind by “…work hard to get your thinking clean…”. Steve spent a great deal of his time looking at how to simplify things for better results, and thinking clean was one way he achieved those results.
That is a brilliant concept. When we think clean we stop over thinking simple things. Less time spent thinking in clouded circles means more time taking through the steps in a more direct course to our solutions. Taking more steps forward like this has enabled me to get more done with far less frustration and far more motivation. I am certain it can help you as well.
Set your tools at your finger tips to help clear your mental clutter
The old saw says that it is better to act than think too much. Steve believed the best process for that was to dump our thoughts down on paper. You only need a pen and paper, but I have also used Notepad to type through this process. The tool is not as important as getting things out of your head.
The process is simple. Write down everything you are thinking right now. The size or importance, whether it is a problem or a goal, silly or smart does not matter. You just want it out of your head. Get it down. Do not try to edit or change things. Go as fast as possible.
Avoiding the urge to correct things instantly is likely why some people like to use pen and paper for this. This is one strong reason to do it that way, but it’s also the reason I use Notepad instead or word processing programs like Word and Grammarly. I shun auto correction and live time error marking. The point here is to avoid correcting myself and just flow with it. I kick that inner critic, perfectionist and sensor to the curb.
The only rule here is whatever is in your head, get it out.
No waiting here, just write everything down that comes to mind for a limited time, like five to fifteen minutes or even say thirty minutes for larger practices like Morning Pages. You can also use a given number of pages. Three pages seems to be the max value. More than that tends to make you too self-engrossed. With the head cleared, we can we set to work on the project itself.
Many times I have found a solution in the mind dump process itself that I had not really considered before. Most of the time I don’t. That’s fine. Getting the answer in the Mind Dump is just a bonus. I am still more mentally clear and capable of focusing on just the project at hand instead of wasting so much time with other things. My focus is on the shot here and now.
Another way to go about this process is to make it in to a part of your dayly flow. Just before I get to work, I take about five minutes to scribble out the thoughts in my head. I also use the concept as a separate practice first thing with morning pages. The tool is adaptable. Choose what works for you. Run with it.
Problem meet solution
So, if all you have to do is just dump it, then what is the problem of stopping there? Often scale is the problem, so too is the fact that like all tools one size does not fill the bill for everything or everyone. That’s where journaling comes in. It gives you another tool to work with.
Our thoughts are like dust build up in our minds. We tend to collect a lot of them daily. If we do not do something with them they will float about in our heads till we fall to their charms or we do something about them. If we want to really focus, we have to clear some mental space to get in the zone. That means we need to deal with the head clutter, the office clutter and the calendar clutter in our lives.
Journaling Clutter
Psychotherapist Carolyn Koehnline uses journal therapy to clear out our clouded thinking. She defines clutter as :
“…any object, emotion, or commitment that drains energy or distracts us from priorities.”
To deal with those issues she argues we need to “Make decluttering a transformational act“.
Physical Clutter
Objects themselves are the physical clutter we can easily see but do nothing with. They fill our space from basement to attic with manifestations of decisions or experiences we want to avoid. They create an internal conflict that can be anything from left over work reminders to relationship or grief issues. Koehnline’s solution is to make decluttering a joyful, sacred process. Her advice is to:
1. Use a Human Perspective
Make your objective meaningful in more human terms than just being free of the buildup. For instance spending time with your family or getting that book written and published. See the results in terms of how it will hold meaning and value to you.
2. Positive Focus
While working through the stacks of stuff, keep your thoughts more positive. Avoid the negative issues. Instead, when your energy slackens, remind yourself of your objectives. Use your journal for this if you like. We all need to be reminded that we are working to grow the space in our lives. Bigger picture thinking is very helpful in this process.
3. Pace is everything.
Like any long distance effort from running the 200 mile Dragon’s Back Race to running a blog, it’s easy to fall prey to weaker thinking in the process. Our thoughts pressing that we should be further ahead or that with this form we will never make it. The mental hack is to set a pace and trust it to carry you through to the end.
Your journal entries are a great useful tool for this. Those entries will remind you just how many miles you have already logged, where you are going and, likely are what you need the most at times useful road markers like where your next break is coming. Write in the small goals that can be checked off as completed.
4. Celebrate the large and small wins.
The small wins are hightly important to remember since they are more frequent than the big ones, so they are more useful for keeping our moral up. They also provide the feedback mile markers we all need to see our major project through.
My Thoughts
I use these tools regularly. They allow me to use a one two punch for where I am at at any given point. Clean thinking in a mind dump before my work day or when I need to refocus on a project is highly useful for getting to work and coming up with better ideas regularly. My moreing pages tend to get me through the run without as much slog or energy drain. Some journaling works me though my ideas in a different way than either of the other two. It saves my bacon when I need validation and fixes some feedback issues for me. It is also a great tool to think things through when I am stuck. More to the point. The day’s work gets done and I feel good about it. Give clean thinking a try.
Now try Discipline Starts Habits like Sitting Down to Write. Move Your Project Forward.
Photo by Kenzie Broad on Unsplash