Friday unloading brain to improve concentration

What is a brain dump

brain unloading idea was described in the famous book by David Allen's "How affairs in order»(Getting Things Done). This technique will help you gain more control over their lives and learn how to bring the case to the end.

Many people have the habit of leaving small things for later, and even some of the larger, too. As a rule, these are important, but not urgent things. They have no deadline for execution, so you keep constantly postponing them. These cases may relate to finances (to start planning your budget, try to use the application to account expenditure and income), or may be a purely domestic (disassemble things in the closet, to make the menu to the next week).

Small business periodically pop up in your mind, making it difficult to concentrate on the important tasks. For example, you think about some important project - and here again! - in the head suddenly a thought: "But it is necessary to get out of the closet, there is so much rubbish." You switch on the thought of the closet, and the project moves into the background.

These smaller tasks constantly interrupt the train of thought and hinder the focus, thus greatly reducing your productivity. Unloading of the brain - a great way to deal with this problem. Here's how it works.

The principle of operation of the brain unloading

1. Take a sheet of paper and a pencil. Of course, you can create electronic sticky notes, but a hand-written, as a rule, better remembered.

2. Listen to intrusive thoughts about the outstanding matters. Think of all the things that are periodically arise in the mind, distracting you from your work. If you can not remember everything, looking for clues in his notes on stickers - wherever you point out that you need to do.

3. Leave the sheet on the table for the whole day. Most likely, you will not be able to remember everything that needs to be done. So leave the paper with things on the table for a few hours or the whole day. As soon as the problem will emerge in the head, immediately write them down on a sheet and continue to go about their business as usual.

When the sheet is filled with challenges, you will feel that made it easier to concentrate. Recorded cases will no longer take up space in your mind, as if the thought of them still there, then do not take up so much time. You just think, "I wrote this thing, will deal with him later."

You may find that your list is not very urgent cases get the real length - more than 100 points or so. Do not worry, this is normal.

4. Make a list on Thursday or Friday. If your list of more cases of work-related component of his on Thursday, if dominated by domestic or personal affairs - on Friday.

How does the brain unloading

So, you have on hand a ready list. What's next?

Now we have to organize things and distribute them by categories to make it easier to navigate.

First, mark all autonomous affairs - it is the case that easily can be done in half an hour or less. It is better to write them on a separate sheet of paper. Let's call it "Leaf of activity."

If some things are similar to stand-alone, but require more time - an hour and a half, you can break them into smaller pieces and to write on the same sheet of paper. It is possible to mark their hands to make it clear that they are linked.

Now you have only great challenges to the implementation of which needs at least two hours. Think about the things on the list needs to be done as quickly as possible, and what can wait. The works that so far can not do, write on a separate sheet of paper titled "Someday."

Now you have only urgent and important tasks. Write down on a separate sheet of each of them and break it into steps that can be done in half an hour or less. That is, on each sheet with a major task list you will be autonomous affairs. Some of them may depend on the other - that's fine, just make a note of it.

When each major task will be divided into steps autonomous, discharge the first steps in each task its activity sheet.

As a result, this piece you are left with a long list of short tasks that you can perform for half an hour or less.

Brain dump on Saturday

So, early Saturday morning you get up from the bed, picks up a finished piece of activity and begin to carry out all that is written there. Set a goal to fulfill all that is in the list, so that these things no longer take place in your mind, distracting from what's really important.

Believe me, at the end of the day you will feel just great. This day can be stressful, but at the end you will experience a lot of positive emotions. This satisfaction from the fact that everything is constantly postponed things finally done, and a sense of freedom from minor problems, and pride in what you had so much today.

Do you feel ease as if you took off with the goods that you no longer notice because he had become accustomed.

Try to perform a brain discharge at least once a month. Spend a weekend on what to do all the things on my list, and on Monday you will feel themselves just fine, you will be much easier to concentrate on the important things, nothing will you to distract.

And the best part is that this effect is maintained for a long time - from one week to a month, depending on how quickly you accumulate things.