Writing things down
and peace of mind
Does writing down a list of things that have been on your mind feels so good, but remains a struggle when it comes to the writing part? Here are a few tips from me.
1. Why organising your thoughts is so important
When everything is falling apart or that you are struggling to initiate a task (executive dysfonction1 anyone?), a quick fix to the overwhelm can be as easy as organising your thoughts through a list of tasks.
Why? Because writing things down takes some of the mental load off of your shoulders. You don’t have to constantly make the effort to remember all those things you have to do, because it’s all written down.
And this can help you feel like you are regaining some sense of agency on your life, when some other aspects may feel out of your control. Personally, it soothes my anxious brain, especially when I’m sure that everything I need to remember is stored in the same place.
2. Obstacles to actually writing things down
The problem with writings down thoughts, although it might help in numerous ways, is the risk of loosing them all and never remembering again what was your genius idea you had last week or the groceries list for your friend’s birthday.
And this is a special mention to my inattentive pals. Have you ever lost tons of lists, forgotten where you had written your last list, felt discouraged by having to go through your paper agenda, your Google calendar, your phone Notes and various little pieces of lists to put a coherent body of reminders together? If this sounds like you I have gathered some organisational tips for you.
3. The keys to organising your thoughts for peace of mind
Although I just love grabbing a pen and paper and start frenetically brain dumping, the inherent risk to lose track of your lists is to big of an obstacle and will not help you feel more peaceful.
The best solution I have found is to keep all of my to-dos, appointments, big and small ideas all in one place. And stick to it. There are two possibilities for this:
A physical notebook
Personally, I have tried having a single notebook for all those things but I was not carrying it at all times with me. This ended up in notes on my phones and flying pieces of paper, which was not ideal. If you think you can carry a notebook with you all the time and find a way to have all necessary functions in it great go for it and stick to it!An online notebook
I have tried various apps such as Google calendar, Milanote, my phone notes and reminders which may work best individually but which forced me to scatter information through all of them.
I will cut it short, my life changed when I discovered Notion. Notion is a free website and app which can help you organise many aspects of your life, such as your business, your personal life, to track habits or projects. It is not the most intuitive platform to set up but there are many free templates which can help you start easily.
The perks of having an online app is that you can use it on your computer, but also on your phone! With the Notion app I have automated a button to easily brain dump any idea that comes to mind and which we end up in a folder I check every week. I can also save interesting websites directly into my brain dump on Notion from my phone, instead of keeping a thousand tabs open “for later” (rather, never).
If you’re interested in getting a free template to start out with Notion, they’re coming very soon on my Etsy shop. In the mean time, if you’d like to see a tutorial on how to automate create a brain dump database on Notion, a button for a quick access to brain dumping any idea you get or any other organisational tip on Notion, let me know!
That’s it for today. Hopefully this will help you organise your thoughts better and make your brain feel a little bit lighter.
Executive functions (EF) make possible mentally playing with ideas; taking the time to think before acting; meeting novel, unanticipated challenges; resisting temptations; and staying focused. Neurodivergent people tend to struggle with EF, which directly impacts their organisation and action initiation skills.