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I have a list. It’s a list that gets bigger almost everyday. It’s my to-do list for my business that serves two purposes. First, and perhaps most importantly it stops my brain from exploding. My list acts as a mini brain-dump allows me to get thoughts onto paper so they don’t get lost somewhere in my head. Secondly of course a to-do list gives me some direction and tasks to be completed.

I can’t remember where I sourced the brain dump idea, but many months ago I read an article about brain dumping for business owners. Basically the idea is to write down every thing you want and the steps required to get there. We are talking everything from the little day-to-day things to the big picture, ‘I want a house, wife and two kids’ deal. I did a haphazard brain dump after reading the article but decided that full on brain dumps weren’t for me. I can’t focus long enough to get the entire contents of my brain onto paper and then prioritise it.

However I did continue to use the brain dump concept on a daily basis. I maintain a collection of simple text files on my desktop. One is a ‘things to do’ file, another is an ‘ideas’ file and then I have separate ones for certain business projects. I also walk around with a notepad wherever I go to be certain I jot down any revelations I have while out and about. You would be surprised how many great ideas you can have just doing the daily commute walking from place to place.

The best thing about these little textpads is that they reduce my stress. You ask how? Simple, once I write something down I forget about it. I don’t worry about needing to do it anymore because it’s been filed away for me to look at again sometime in the future. If I didn’t do this I would have a thousand business ideas floating around in my head and an amazingly disorganised pile of things to do scattered throughout my brain.

The funny thing now though of course is that I spend more time writing down things to do rather than actually doing them!

Yaro Starak
Young Entrepreneur