Bullet Journal Brain Dumps: The Ultimate Guide To Being Calm
Do you often feel tired, irritable, stressed, or anxious?
Maybe your mind is a mess and you can’t figure out where or what to start with and when you do begin to let your thoughts run free, you’re suddenly overwhelmed and unfocused?
It happens to all of us. More than you might think. The practical solution to this would be to start a brain dump.
What is a brain dump, you may ask? A brain dump is the act of ‘dumping’ all your thoughts down onto paper, such as those that are stressing you the most, the things you need to do, or general things that might be annoying you. It is an effective way to declutter your mind and thoughts while reducing built-up stress.
Just as our body needs sleep in order to give it some time to recover, your mental health is just as important.
We tend to undervalue how important taking care of your mental health is.
Let’s take a deeper look as to why a brain dump might be the best thing for you right now.
Why Do I Need a Brain Dump?
It’s quite simple. If you ever had troubled to untangle your messy thoughts, a brain dump will effectively help clear up your thoughts.
It’s one of the best ways to let go of stress and feel like a load has lifted off your shoulders.
When you’re so busy with all the different kinds of thoughts running through your head, you need a place to capture each thought or feeling in one place.
Ever had that moment when a new idea pops up but a few minutes you’ve forgotten what you were thinking about?
Never lose those ideas that could lead to greatest accomplishments.
All you have to do is grab a pen and page, and write those ideas down.
Later on, you can focus on making sense of each thought or idea.
Advantages of a brain dump
Here are a few key points to remember when it comes to brain dumps. I
f you’re still sitting on the fence, these might give you the push you need to actually start a brain dump!
- You’ll be able to let go of nagging thoughts
- Great way to let go of stress
- Identify habits and bad patterns
- Work on creative ideas
- You’ll feel relaxed
There are many more advantages or benefits to a bullet journal brain dump and as you work your way through a few, you’ll eventually feel the difference in your mind and body.
Is Brain Dumps and Brainstorming The Same?
Though they are similar in some ways, there is a huge difference when it comes to brain dumps and brainstorming.
Brain dumps are a basic collection or list of your thoughts to help clear your mind.
On the other hand, brainstorming is an active and focused way of exploring certain ideas or topics where more time and detail is given to each concept or idea.
Brain dumps are more general ideas or thoughts while brainstorming focuses on specific details in order to solve a problem.
What Supplies Do I Need To Start?
Like with any bullet journal activity, you’ll need the most common supplies – a pen and a journal.
You don’t have to worry too much about making the brain dump spread look fancy.
At the end of the day, you’ll want to make sure you focus on writing down your thoughts more than anything else.
If you do want to venture out into the artistic style, you’re going to need any of these supplies:
- Brush pens,
- Color pens
- Markers washi tape
- Stickers
How To Create a Brain Dump
It’s incredibly simple to start your first brain dump. As soon as you have your notebook and supplies ready, you can begin.
Turn over to a new clean page and start writing down all the ideas and thoughts that come to mind.
Do not obsess or be critical of each thought.
The idea here is to let go of each and everything that might be cluttering your mind.
That’s all there really is but if you need a little nudge on what you can talk about or explore, then see below a few handy brain dump prompts that will guide you.
Important Brain Dump Prompts
- What are the things that you need to do?
- What is worrying you the most lately?
- Do you have any important events to attend?
- What makes you happy?
- What makes you unhappy?
- What household tasks do you need to do (pay bills, contact someone, meal plan)?
- What borrowed items need to be returned?
- Is there anything that needs to be repaired?
- What are your favorite hobbies?
- What are the new skills you’d like to learn?
- Is there a vacation that needs planning?
- Which areas of your home need deep cleaning?
- Which self-care appointments do you need to schedule?
- What are the things you’d like to donate?
- What is something that’s not working right now for you?
Ideas of Different Brain Dump Pages
Types of brain dumps
There are many different brain dumps you can try but here are a few basic ones you need to know:
1. Targeted Brain Dumps – These brain dumps are only for specific things that require action.
For example, let’s say you have a trip to plan.
You’ll want to go ahead and list everything that is needed for this trip such as shopping for certain items, packing clothes, making sure documents are in order, travel plans, etc.
2. Morning Brain Dumps – These are great if you want to declutter your mind before you begin the day.
Write down every thought that pops into your head but make sure not to read the list as you go.
3. Random Brain Dumps – These dumps are especially for those times when you need to get things off your chest and let go of troublesome thoughts.
Whether that’s having to buy groceries on the way home, a meeting to attend, a project to turn in, any random thought that pops up, write it down.
Other questions you may have:
How often do I need to use a brain dump?
A brain dump can be used whenever you want to, especially when you feel like your thoughts are running wild or you need to write something down immediately, then that will be a great time to do so.
Depending on the type of brain dump, you can do this daily, weekly, or even monthly but it really depends on how you’re feeling and where you are in the moment.
Should a brain dump be organized? If so, here’s how.
A brain dump doesn’t necessarily need to be organized but sometimes they can be useful if you have different things to do and each thought or idea belongs in a certain category.
One of the things you could do to have an organized brain dump is to have brain dump lists.
For example, if you have things to do, create a brain dump list page to write down everything that relates to this page.
If you have a brain dump list page of your emotions or moods, then, of course, you’d write down everything you feel on this page only.
Another option would be, after you have dumped your thoughts on to the page, later on, you could always pull each individual thought and go rewrite them in a section that it belongs to.
Let’s say you have a task to take out the garbage and this went on your brain dump page.
You could then take that task and jot it down in your weekly planner.
Next step: Get Things Done
Setting up a brain dump in your bullet journal is easy and simple to do.
If you want to be more productive and never forget another important task again, then having a brain dump is the way to go.
Also, if you enjoyed this brain dump idea, be sure to check out this collection of things you can bullet journal about. It will keep your journal fresh and exciting!
Let us know your thoughts and experience with using a brain dump in your life and also how it’s changed your life for the better!
