Just how much mess is cluttering up your brain?

Perhaps what I really want to explore is the effect of all those little unfinished jobs that are running around in your brain and occasionally pop out at unexpected, and maybe even unwelcome, moments. You know – that little voice inside your head that says “You never sent Auntie Ethel a birthday card” or “Whatever happened to that memorial bench you were going to buy for your dad?”. Those little things to which you committed yourself at some time, yet somehow never seem to have got done – let’s call them Incompletes.

Here’s an exercise – make a list of them. Get out a sheet of paper and a writewith – start writing, one per line, all those little promises, committment, ideas… that you have still to deliver. NB I do not mean the big stuff – “Redecorate the house” or “Build a garage” – but the smaller, realtively easily done stuff as in my earlier examples. Keep writing, most people (me included!) make a rather long list – when you think you have finished, go for a cup of tea and come back and add whatever it is you have remembered whilst making the tea; maybe you can put the list on the fridge or somewhere else handy so that you can add to it as you remember things.

My guess, indeed my experience, is that you will start completing them now you have written them down – and more so if you put them where they are easily visible.

Every one of these tasks has been cluttering up your brain, and stopping it from being as effective as it/you might be. It is as if each little Incomplete was occupying a bit of grey matter, the more incompletes you have, the more grey matter is tied up in unproductive effort. Once you actually do the action, the grey cell is free to concentrate on more pressing (and important?) matters.

So, whatever it was cluttering up your brain, this is a simple little exercise to start to clear the decks for action. Let me know how it goes for you….