New Year's Resolution Step 1: Brain Dump

I was actually very surprised but I got several emails and comments on my recent post about my one and only New Year's Resolution - Simplifying. I have to thank everyone for all of the encouragement, kind words and suggestions to help me get started! It absolutely has kept me focused on the end goal and given me a good push to get started, despite my incredible level of exhaustion and inability to stay awake past 8:00PM at night. Ha! Like I said in my post, who knows how long this will take, it certainly will not be an overnight fix and a lot of the details are still TBD, but in order to keep things simple, I decided to start at absolute square one, with a "Brain Dump".

I have been doing some looking around on the Internet on some pretty cool sites that have great ideas and I came across this blog, called Success Your Way. Granted, the title is a little cheesy but it actually has a TON of stuff and some very cool articles and helpful tips for just about anything. In checking out the site, I came across an article on Reducing Stress. One of their ideas was to start with a "brain dump". Basically, the idea behind it is that when you’re brain is full of everything you’re trying to remember and accomplish, it leaves little room for actually doing anything. So, rather then constantly spinning your wheels and stressing yourself out about this endless list that circles your brain, you simple do “brain dump” and get it all out onto paper. Okay, so you are probably thinking that it's no different then a to-do list, and that's what I was thinking too, but I did it, and it actually really helped just to get everything out of my head! Once I finished my brain dump and it was all out of my head and written down, I took a few minutes to start to organize my list.

Now, keep in mind that a brain dump isn’t supposed to be pretty or organized, which I found myself immediately doing and wanting to type it up on the computer in a cool spreadsheet with due dates, etc (okay, I'm an engineer and we love spreadsheets haha). As the website says, "the key to successfully brain dumping is to actually write down every little thing that’s on your mind – no matter how small, silly or inconsequential." I think overall I did a pretty good job. My list has 36 things on it as of now, and has everything from packing my hospital bag in preparation for Jackson's arrival, to creating a watermark in Photoshop for the pictures I post on the blog, to starting Emma and Jackson's college funds, to creating a sustainable and easily trackable budget. Yup, that's my official brain dump in all its glory shown above!

As I read back through my list, it became pretty clear that there were about 5 different categories that I could file everything into.

1. House Needs
2. Financial Needs
3. Getting Ready for Baby #2
4. Overall Organization
5. General

My next step is to walk through each category and prioritize the list accordingly. Since my due date with Jackson is March 23rd, obviously there are things in Category 3 that will need to be done before, and are a higher priority then say, cleaning out the inside of both of our cars. But I have to say, that it truly does feel better to have everything out of my head and on paper as a start. It was kind of amazing to see how many things came flooding out as soon as a sat down. No wonder when I wake up at 2:00AM and my list starts running through my head I can't go back to sleep! These aren't necessarily life long goals, or wishes by any means, they are simply the things that keep me awake at night thinking about how much I have to do in my everyday life.

To be continued....