Do you have what it seems like a never-ending task list?
Whether it’s keeping up with your personal agenda or your work projects, life is busy. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to try and stay on top of everything without having a tool to help you.
Try Brain Dumping
According to a Canadian researcher, the average person has over 6000 thoughts per day. It is hard to believe that we can stay on top of all these thoughts on our own.
Give brain dumping a try to help you keep up with your thoughts and the “to do” list in your head. Brain dumping is when you release all the thoughts that are taking up space in your head by writing them down. This can help you avoid forgetting tasks and keep you from getting overwhelmed by your always growing list of things to do.
Brain Dump in Microsoft To Do
Whether you think a task is simple or complex, important or not important, release it by writing it in Microsoft To Do. Releasing these thoughts will free up space for you to continue to come up with new ideas and reduce the chances of you getting overwhelmed or forgetting something.
Open the web app and click on New List to create a new list and call it “Brain Dump”.
From the “Brain Dump” list you created, add all the items and to dos that you have floating in your brain. Type every possible thing you can think of that is taking up space. These can be items like “Pick up dog food” or “Drink more water”. If you are trying to get into the habit of “brain dumping” you can even write “Brain dump” on your task list.
With each of these individual tasks, you can add due dates to make sure you are completing them when you need to. The tasks with due dates will then show up in your Planned list. You can also add reminders and re-occurring statuses to tasks to help you stay on top of each item in your list.
The best part of Microsoft To Do is you can add checklists within a task. Let’s say you have a task called “Complete August Project”. To make this big task more attractive to your brain, you can break the task into simple steps. The checklist can include “Call Wendy to get numbers”, “Write numbers in Excel spreadsheet”, etc. Your brain will always seek tasks you can win. As you complete these simple steps within the tasks, you are also building your confidence and accountability. A win-win!
You can review your My Day list which allows you to prioritize your tasks for the day ahead of you. Add tasks from your brain dump list that you want to complete today.
As you finish a task, click on the complete task and it will be removed from your My Day list. Each time you hit that complete task button, you get a nice little dose of dopamine that keeps you wanting more tasks to complete and boosts your productivity.
To make sure you are on top of your tasks, check in with your Microsoft To Do list at the start of every day. This way you know what to expect for the day ahead of you. You can also keep an eye on your tasks throughout the day by adding them to your computers task bar. If you step away from your computer, you can download the app and login to your account to see all of your current tasks and add to them as needed. Microsoft To Do Twitter shares pro tips on this great productivity application.
