How to Do a Brain Dump (and Why It Changes Everything)

You sit down to plan. You open your planner. And then... nothing. Or worse, everything. 🫣 Every half-finished thought, every thing you forgot to do last week, every vague task floating in the back of your head suddenly wants attention all at once. Or there’s nothing going on up there. 🧠

So you close the planner and scroll your phone instead.

Been there. Done that. So. many. times. And the fix isn't a prettier setup or a more complicated system. It's something a lot simpler: a brain dump.

What a Brain Dump Actually Is

A brain dump is exactly what it sounds like. You get everything out of your head and onto paper (digital or analog .

Undone tasks. Ideas. Things you're worried about. Errands. Things you said you'd do. Things someone else said you'd do. Random thoughts. Grocery items. All of it.

There are no rules. The brain dump is not a to-do list. It doesn't have to be organized or complete. But it also can be organized and complete.

That act of getting it out is where the relief lives though.

How I Do My Weekly Brain Dump

I do my brain dump at the start of every weekly planning session. It takes maybe five to ten minutes, and it's the part that makes everything else easier.

Here's what it looks like for me:

Step 1: Open to a fresh space. I use the Monthly Brain Dump page from my Imperfect Practice Kit, the Laurel Denise brain drop notepad, or sometimes just a random piece of paper. The format doesn't matter.

Step 2: Set a timer for five minutes. This one is important. A timer keeps me from overthinking it. I'm not trying to write a complete list. I'm trying to write a real one. Once you get better at brain dumping, you won’t need the timer, you’ll get a feel for how much time you need to feel the relief of a brain dump.

Step 3: Write without filtering. I go through a few mental categories loosely: work tasks, personal tasks, things I keep forgetting, things I'm anxious about, things I want to do for fun, things I need to buy or research. Sometimes I write them in categories and sometimes I just let them come out in whatever order they arrive. It just depends on my mood for me.

Step 4: Stop when the timer goes off. Seriously. You could keep going forever. The goal isn't to empty your brain completely…I’m not sure that’s actually possible, is it? The goal is to get enough out that you can actually see what's floating around up there.

And that's it! Done!

What to Do After the Brain Dump

This is the part people skip, and it's where the brain dump truly becomes useful.

Once your list(s) exists, you do three things with it:

Migrate. Look at what's on the list and figure out what needs to happen this week. Not everything does. Some things belong next week, next month, or nowhere at all. Move only the truly time-sensitive or important items into your weekly plan.

Prioritize. Of what's left, pick the things that matter most. I usually aim for three real priorities per week. Everything else is a bonus.

Slot in. Put your priorities somewhere in your weekly schedule. Specific day, specific time if it needs one. Anything without a home is just a wish.

The rest of the brain dump stays on the page as a reference. You can come back to it, or you can ignore it. Either is fine. Just getting it out of your head was the win.

If you want a framework for the full weekly planning process from start to finish, this post on pre-planning your week walks through how I approach the whole setup.

Why This Works So Well for Overthinkers

If you're a perfectionist or an overthinker, here's what happens in your brain when you sit down to plan without doing a brain dump first: you try to hold every task and priority in your head while simultaneously figuring out how to organize them. That's too many things to do at once.

The brain dump separates two jobs that were trying to happen at the same time: getting information out, and deciding what to do with it. Once those are two separate steps, both of them become so much easier.

You can't organize a pile of stuff you can't see. The brain dump puts the pile somewhere you can actually look at it.

And because there's no wrong way to do it, there's no reason to procrastinate it. Messy is fine. Incomplete is fine. Writing the same thing you wrote last week is fine. The bar is just: did you open a page and write some things down? Yes. Great. You did it. 🎉

That's the whole Imperfect Practice in one step. Lower the bar until you always clear it.

Start Here If You Want to Try It

I made a free one-page planning sheet called the Imperfect Practice Sheet specifically for this. It's the starting point for my whole system, and you can download it for free.

It won't fix everything. But it will give you somewhere to start, which is usually the hardest part.

Download the free Imperfect Practice Sheet here.

If you want the full system, the Imperfect Practice Kit includes the Monthly Brain Dump page, the Practice Sheet, a monthly focus page, a quarterly reset, a rhythm planner for meals and logistics, a project page, and a catch-all. It's $17 and it's the exact set of pages I use every week. You can find it in the shop at imperfectplans.com/shop.

I do all of my weekly planning in my Laurel Denise Anne planner. It's the layout I can always count on. If you're looking for a planner that gives you enough space for lists and time blocking, it's worth checking out. Use code IMPERFECT10 for 10% off at Laurel Denise.

Looking for more on the weekly planning routine? This post on the five steps of my weekly planning practice breaks down exactly what comes after the brain dump.