Bullet Journal Brain Dump To Clear Up Your Mind

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There are Bullet Journal page ideas for literally anything you can think of, including fighting overwhelm and calming your mind.

Yes, this is the page we’ll be talking about today, and it’s called a brain dump.

If you ever feel like there are so many things to do that you can’t do anymore, a brain dump is a right page for you. I know the feeling of being overwhelmed very well, as well as the negative consequences it can bring to our lives.

So let’s talk about how you can calm down, soft things out, and start crossing things off your to-do list one by one with a brain dump.

With all the social roles and responsibilities we have these days, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed. You keep pushing your brain to remember all the tasks and to work on all the obligations, and it can turn into a huge messy pile of chores.

This leads to feeling anxious, overwhelmed, and generally stressed.

This is a pretty dangerous state of mind that can only lead to one thing – mental breakdown, and this is not good.

However, there is a very simple way to deal with the overload and keep your sanity – by using a brain dump!

(Psss, there is also a free printable brain dump at the end of the post, as well as some more resources to organize your mind!)

Having A Messy Mind

It happens to everyone – sometimes ou mind is just a mess. You’re drowning in worries, anxieties, and things to do.

It’s kind of like that box with “random things” you have in your house where you dump random things you can’t categorize, and it ends up being full, and it seems like it’s just a box of trash.

When this happens with my brain, I end up slacking on my routines and good habits, and with that – my entire wellness goes down.

How do you fix it? Of course, with a brain dump!

What Is A Brain Dump

A brain dump is simply a way to move the content of your brain to the paper. All the to-dos, stressors, worries, plans – everything that’s boiling in your brain causing your stress.

It’s a way to declutter your thought and get the focus back to what’s important.

Putting everything on paper is always a powerful practice, and in this case, it will also allow you to see everything that bothers you and organize your time and effort in the best way to handle it.

Just as you write everything down, you’ll feel the pressure lessening, the overwhelm stepping down. You’ll finally be able to take a big breath and start tackling everything with intention and newly found motivation.

Why Does Brain Dump Work

Putting things on paper is such a simple thing to do; it’s hard to believe it can help to deal with such huge issues as overwhelm and stress.

But it definitely can, and here is how it works.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, your mind is a mess. You have tons of thoughts replacing each other at the speed of light, and that nagging feeling that you forgot something keeps coming back over and over again.

Honestly, for me, this feeling is the worst. You’re already full of all your tasks and worries, and this little voice saying that you forgot something is that extra drop that overflows the cup. The worst!

Buuuuuuut….

If you put all of this on paper, a miracle happens. Suddenly, it’s not the worst anymore. It actually starts feeling… manageable! And the dreadful sensation those thoughts cause will stop running all over your brain cause now they are nailed to the paper and ready to be worked through one by one.

That nagging feeling of forgetting something will be gone! Good riddance! Now everything is in your journal and if something else comes to us – just add it to the list.

The second reason why it works is because you open your mind wide, and you rediscover ideas, thoughts, and plans you had forgotten, or even better, ones you never knew were there.

Once you start writing everything that’s on your mind, you discover some things that were worrying you but were completely hidden behind the piles of your daily chores and to-do lists.

Brain Dump Synonyms

Before we dive into how exactly how to create a brain dump, let’s talk about the name. 

I’m totally fine naming my brain dump as it is, but there are, of course, other ways you can name it. It can be a fun way to be a bit more creative and original in your Bullet Journal.

So here are some of the ideas to name this Bullet Journal page:

• Brain backup
• Brain drain
• Mind Sweep
• Mind decluttering
• Mind purge
• Thought catcher
• Thought garden
• Thought purge

How To Brain Dump

Ok, sounds awesome, right? Do you want to do one? Of course, you do.

Creating a brain dump is super easy. Take a piece of paper and a pen and start writing. It’s that simple.

Write EVERYTHING that’s on your mind, without exception. Friend’s upcoming birthday, groceries, a huge work project, that leaking pipe – everything goes.

Take your sweet time doing this. Don’t worry about making it pretty or organizing it. For now, the goal is for you to unload everything. We’ll work on the other things as a next step.

If you are a more visual person – try writing it as a mind map or maybe adding some doodles. Do whatever feels natural to you. Do what helps you squeeze your brain to the fullest!

The important thing in this step is to write ALL of it; it doesn’t matter how small or insignificant it looks. 

Brain Dump template

Sometimes, it can be pretty confusing to start this exercise, especially if it’s your first time and you’re not a pen and paper kind of gal. 

So, here are some brain dump prompts and questions for you that can help you get started. You don’t have to go through all of them or anything, they are just to help you get going, and soon, ideas will come flowing like a river.

• What are you worried about?
• What do you keep forgetting?
• Did something go wrong?
• What are some things that you seem to never get done?
• What are some maintenance tasks you need to perform?
• Are there any events or special occasions coming up?
• What do you think you need to change in your routine?
• What annoys you?

You can also just divide everything by – what you must do, what you want to do, and what perhaps you will want to do eventually.

Organizing A Brain Dump

Writing everything on paper is a very strong thing to do, but there is more to it. Once you unload everything, it’s time for the next step – working through all the things.

First of all, you have to go through all the things you wrote. Ask yourself some of these questions.

• Which are the most important and urgent things? 
• What are the things that bother you the most? 
• What are some things you can complete right now? 
• Are there any tasks that are actually irrelevant and should be forgotten altogether?

Once you have had your first look at the tasks, it’s time to get working!

You can go through them the way you like: start from something you can do right away, from something that annoys you the most, from something that you think is the most important, or whatever you want.

As a Bullet Journal junkie, I always recommend you create a plan and spreads for your tasks.

Go through your bigger, most intimidating tasks and see if they need separate collections: trackers, lists, or full-on goal spreads.

Fitness Bullet Journal spread will help you with your health-related tasks. A Bullet Journal habit tracker will be perfect if you’re changing your routines.

For smaller tasks, plan them out and add them to your Bullet Journal weekly or monthly spreads.

Remember! Having a plan is halfway to getting it done!

Dividing Brain Dump Into Categories

Usually, a brain dump is just to unload everything at once, a stream of consciousness. 

But I find it to be more useful if I have a bit more structured approach and divide things by categories.

In case this is also your jam, I thought it might be useful to share several ways you can organize your brain dump.

Life Areas

Probably my favorite way to divide my brain dump is by different areas of my life, kind of like level 10 life categories.

So I would usually use these: work, family, friends, personal development, and goals.

Top 3, Easy 3

This is a way to work with your brain dump when you’re done offloading it.

From all the tasks you have in your brain dump write down your top three – three most important things that must be accomplished.

Then write three easy – three tasks that are pretty easy to complete and will help you to create motivation and gain momentum to start accomplishing things.

Energy Level

It can also be a fun idea to divide your tasks by the level of energy you need to accomplish them. That way, you always know you do what you can do with the energy you have and do not try to overwork yourself.

You can divide by low, medium, and high energy. And there also might be some tasks that are more fun than a chore, so maybe include a special category for those.

The Eisenhower Matrix

If you don’t know the Eisenhower matrix, let me explain in a few words.

Basically, it’s a page divided into four categories. So you divide the tasks into urgent important, urgent not important, not urgent and important, and finally – not urgent and not important.

Depending on which category you choose, you have different options on what to do with your tasks.

When To Use A Brain Dump

An important thing about using a brain dump is to use it on time. Not when you’re already so far up the stress that you can only explode, but before you get to this point.

For that, it’s pretty useful to understand your triggers and what situations generally lead you down this path.

A brain dump is a fantastic tool that can help you immensely, but sometimes, we’re way too deep in this mess to even realize what’s happening and that it’s time for this technique.

My tip for you here is to write down the triggers and the situations that usually lead to overwhelm. It will help you to be more mindful and realize that you need help at the right time.

Here are several sample situations to get your brain juices flowing:

• When organizing big events
• When it’s time for a family reunion
• When you’re working on a big work project
• When your schedule is super packed
• Before the holiday season
• When the house is a mess
• When you start having meaningless fights with people in your life
• Before traveling
• When it’s tax time or any other financial issues

How Often Should You Do A Brain Dump

It’s up to you, of course, but here are several tips.

First of all, every time you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Look back at your list of triggers and be sure you’re mindful of how you feel to start using your brain dump as soon as needed.

Create a brain dump every time you feel stuck with some particular issue, it will help you free up more brainpower to find a creative solution.

If you’re struggling with sleep and feeling too worried, consider doing a small brain dump before you go to sleep. Now you’ll have your mind calm and ready to rest because all your troubles are there on the paper.

I also like doing a brain dump once a month, just for general mental health and to be sure I’m not forgetting anything and know what I need to work on during the month.

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Brain Dump Supplies

Now that you know so much about using a brain dump, I bet you’re thinking of what kind of supplies you’ll need to create one.

You can use whatever you like for this exercise! Maybe you just want to have a piece of printing paper to write on, or maybe like me, you prefer to add this as a spread in your Bullet Journal.

Either way, here are my recommendations:

• A good writing pen, because you will be writing a lot. My favorite writing pens are Pilot G2 or Muji Ballpoint Pen.
• Highlighters. Something to help you prioritize and organize all your entries. I always go with Zebra Mildliners.
• A journal or a notepad. I actually prefer doing brain dumps in my journal, but I also have a separate kind of brainstorming journal for that as well. But you can also go with just a notepad; I recommend the Rhodia notepad so you don’t damage any of your markers.
• A brush pen. I really feel like making things pretty will make it easier and more motivational to work with. Brush pens can help you easily add a bit of fun to your spread, and I recommend trying out Tombow Fudenosuke pens.

Free Bullet Journal Brain Dump Printable

Of course, I didn’t want to leave you here without a freebie.

If you want to have a prettied-up brain dump, I’ve got you covered – there is a free printable in the Resources Vault!

It has two pages. The first is to unload it all; create that giant list as you go.

The second page is in case once you write it all, you’d want to organize it before starting to plan out how to tackle each task. So it’s divided into four parts for your convenience.

If you don’t have access, just sign up in the form below.

Here is how to use it in your Bullet Journal.

1. After downloading the printable, use a PDF Reader like Adobe Reader (100% free and safe download) to open the file.
2. Find your print button and print your documents. Do not print double-sided and be sure that you have selected ‘Actual Size’.
3. After printing, carefully cut out the printable and use a glue stick or adhesive tape to add it to your pages.

More Resources

Looking for more ways to organize your life and manage your time with a Bullet Journal?

I’ve got you covered! Here are a few more blog posts I think you’ll love:

• How To Create A Mind Map In Your Bullet Journal (Visual Brainstorming)
• Creating Routines In Your Bullet Journal For Success And Structure
• Bullet Journal Time Log For Successful Time Management

And for more ideas on how to create a fun brain dump page that fits your style and theme, check out my post Bullet Journal Brain Dump Page Inspirations.

Your brain is a powerful machine, and it’s so easy to overload it. Take good care of it, and make sure you give it a rest with regular brain dumps.

Have you ever tried this technique? Share your experiences with us in the comments!

I hope this post was interesting. If you find it so, please share! If you enjoy my content and want to show appreciation, please consider supporting me with a cup of coffee.

And remember: Keep Bullet Journaling, and Don’t Be a Blob!

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