Being a home schooling mum means I’m fairly busy most days, so it might seem a little crazy to advocate adding a habit on top that may take up some more time in the day, but what i hope to show you in this post is that journaling actually makes you more productive.
Your journal as a brain dump
On most days, I’m being pulled is so many directions it’s crazy. My husband works abroad and is only home weekends, so most of the time I’m a single mum, who’s also my hubbies PA!
If you ever meet me in person, you’ll see one of my own journals in my handbag. It’s one that I carry around all the time, and use it to brain dump. It’s my to do list, appoitment planner, mindmap holder and so on. Whathever is going on in my life get dumped there. And the best bit is, doing this is like decluttering my brain. I’ve got so much on sometimes that things can fall through the cracks, but writing things down helps me destress, because I knwo it’s written down, and I knwo where it’s written down.
When I get really stressed, I get overwhelmed and shut down completely. In the fright or flight options, I take freeze. So journaling helped me get unstuck and stay unstuck.
Sort out your priorities
With so much going on, sometimes, you can see the wood for the trees, so by writing things down, you can work out what you have to do (I wrote a Master To Do List for this reason), and then tackle one job at a time.
By prioritising you and your time, you can start to focus on what matters, and let go of what doesn’t. It’s surprising what you can achieve when you’re focused on just one thing.
Make time to de-stress
As I’ve already said in aprevious post, journaling about your emotions is really cathartic.
Letting go of emotional clutter helps you get productive by helping you focus. When you’re stressed, you’re not thinking about what you need to get done, but what you’re stressing about. By writing it down, and working through the problem, you can reduce your stress and find a solution to what’s bothering you. I find that writing things down helps me gain a better prespective on things, espcially if I look at things for a different angle or view point.
Build mindfulness into your day
Mindfulness is about being aware of what’s happening in the moment, and one of the best tools for this is your journal. Past and future are filtered out allowing you to focus on the here and now. The more focused and present you are, the more you can get done.
Many people have asked me how I get so much done, and this is my secret: journaling.
Give it a try. You don’t need to buy one of my journals or notebooks to do it, but many of the tools I’ve created are tools that work for me, and could probably work for you too.
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Don’t forget, you can join my 30 day journaling challenge any time and if you’re looking for a journal to write in, then I’ve created one or two on Amazon.