Success Habit #2: Practice Regular Brain Dumps

If you’ve ever had to do several things at once, you know how much it can divide your focus and wreck your concentration. Your brain takes longer to process things when it’s already messy because of other thoughts or tasks that you need to consider or are in the middle of.

It’s like having several tabs open on your computer and you’re trying to toggle between them and keep everything straight. The more you make your brain keep track of, the harder it gets for your brain to sort through the noise.

When your brain tries to hold onto everything you need to keep up with, your mindset gets messy. You’re less productive and more easily frustrated. That’s why you need to practice habitual brain dumps.

This is a habit where you make sure you keep the information that’s absolutely necessary, but you take the other information you need and get it out of your brain space into a written or visual medium.

You can do something simple such as making a list. Write down every task that you need to take care of – whether it’s related to the business or not. Write down the thoughts that keep overloading your brain or whatever is taking up room there.

You can write down your appointments, upcoming events, future joint ventures, networking opportunities, projects you need to create or are in the middle of working on.

But don’t just write down what you need to do.

You can also write down what you’re feeling or thinking about everything that’s going on, too. Get a journal – whether it’s one that’s digital or tangible – and write down whatever is happening.

You can use a blog if you prefer. Write about whatever is frustrating you about the business or what’s going on that’s causing you to have self-doubt. Note whatever is making you feel excited about the work or projects you might be looking forward to starting.

You can journal about projects that are going well or that aren’t. You can write about ideas that you have for that project or ones you have for future projects. You can write down your ideas in a brainstorming format or you can put them all in an idea outline so that when you’re ready to start a new project, the outline might spark a jumping off point to help you know what step to take next.

You can write down the future thoughts you have about your current niche – or ideas about niches you think you’d like to get involved with. By emptying your brain, you won’t have a hundred and one things nagging at you or demanding your mental attention.

You’ll be able to work from a clean slate without all that internal noise. You don’t have to share your brain dump with anyone else if you don’t want to. It can be just for your own personal reference.

But make it a habit to dump whatever you need to on a regular basis. Create this habit by picking a day of the week or a certain time daily to just extract it all. You’ll feel better knowing you have it some attention, and it provides you with a clean slate to focus on goals the following day.

Just in case you missed the first habit you need to form you can start here.

You can find more information and training at our Senior Income Academy membership site.