If you’re like me, you have about a million different thoughts and ideas throughout the day. Like, how many tabs can a human brain have open at once? Or a laptop for that matter.
The truth is this can actually have adverse effects on your mood, productivity, creativity, and more.
When your thoughts and ideas are chaotic and in disarray, it can fog up your outlook and decision-making in the outside world. Not to mention, it can lead to decision overload, excess stress, and even relationship issues.
If this sounds like you, learning to organize your thoughts can help you stay more focused, energized, and productive. And most importantly, sane. There IS something you can do about that crazy mess of thoughts, ideas, and feelings wreaking havoc on your mind.
Now, here are our practical and effective strategies that can help you learn how to organize your thoughts and use your intelligence and skills to their maximum potential.
How To Organize Your Thoughts
We’ve all experienced having way too many things going on at once.
It’s normal to feel overwhelmed from having too much on your mind. The feeling is REAL. But we can help get rid of this feeling by compartmentalizing your thoughts and prioritizing them with actionable tasks.
Because when your head is clear, your whole outlook on any situation changes, your mood changes, and so does your ability to get shit done.
So, how can you organize your thoughts? Let’s get into it.
Try Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a tool that helps you organize thoughts and ideas in a way that makes them easier to understand. It’s like creating a bubble map for your thoughts.
When you’re using a mind map, you start with one central idea and then dive deeper into the details around it. This can help you organize your thoughts by establishing which deserves the most priority and help you make connections between your various ideas.
Here are some great instructions for creating your own mind map.
Create A Priority List
This is a habit that is so worth it once you get into it. You’d be amazed at how much more productive you can be when you can just write down your most actionable ideas, and then put them in order of importance or urgency.
Find a journal or planner that has many useful prompts that include a TO-DO section where you can write down your top priorities. My personal planner is broken down by day and my to-do section is the most written-in section filled with things for work, home, and general life.
Do A Daily Mind Dump
Take out a piece of paper and start writing out your thoughts and ideas. “Mind” or “brain” dumping is that simple. You don’t have to be a writer, it doesn’t have to be fancy, and you most certainly don’t have to worry about spelling or grammar. Just start writing—and don’t stop until you’re done. Typically and unfortunately for me, this tends to happen at night when I am lying in bed ready to shut off.
Once you’ve written everything down, keep going. Now, it’s time to reflect. Go back through it and ask yourself: What are the most important things here? What do I need to do next? How can I organize these ideas so they make sense? Don’t worry if it takes some time—you’ll get better at it as you practice.
Utilize Your Calendar
Whether it’s on your phone, a desk calendar, or a planner (or all 3), keeping track of appointments, birthdays, events, and activities is very helpful. I am a very written person and my planner is my bible. But I also try to make sure that everything is translated over to my digital calendar as well so I have it on my phone when I’m on the go. Once they’re out of your brain and placed somewhere else, you can free up mental space for other things that are important to you.
Do Some Journaling
You don’t have to be a writer to benefit from journaling. (See all the amazing benefits of journaling here.) Journaling can help you organize your thoughts, reduce mental clutter, realize patterns of behavior, and help you find clarity about what you’re thinking about.
It’s important that once you’ve started writing that you don’t worry about how it sounds or how well it flows. Just get words on the page. If you’re not sure where to start, start by simply jotting down all the random thoughts you are having – they don’t have to be in any sort of order. You’ll feel so much better when those thoughts are out of your head and on the paper. Here’s an adorable journal & my favorite pen to get you started.
So there you have it, a step-by-step guide to organizing your thoughts. Let me know any of your thought organization tips below. As always, thank y’all for stopping by and reading. I will see y’all back here next time.
