Are You Ready To Take a BIG Mind Dump? In this episode, you will discover what a mind dump is and why it’s a MUST strategy to add to your tool-belt if you want to avoid the overwhelm monster.
This is our favorite way to get laser-focused on what's important, avoid stress, overwhelm and the feeling of helplessness. Let us not only show you but give you the tools on how to overcome and MASTER IT!
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Snagit ($49)
Google Drive (15GB Free)
Evernote (Free)
Trello (Free)
Last Pass (Free Password Manager)
Pocket (Free)
Manila Folders (We called them Vanilla Folders…haha)
Other Episodes Mentioned:
Ep#3: Wash Your Brain with This Daily Practice
Ep#2: Create a RockStar Vision
Transcript: (Read Time: 40 Minutes)
Siri Shakti: Welcome to the RockStar In Life podcast, where you learn the secrets to unleashing your inner rockstar so you can make the world your stage.
What's up RockStars In Life, it's Siri Shakti. Today, I have my awesome co-host joining me.
Dr Dan: Dr. Dan.
Siri Shakti: Today we have a great show planned for you guys. And I love this name that my husband came up with called take a mind dump.
Dr Dan: Insert the sound file right there, right?
Siri Shakti: Nice. Yes.
Dr Dan: The sound effect.
Siri Shakti: What is this all about Dan, take a mind dump? Can you help explain that to our audience?
Dr Dan: Yeah. This is something that's really been … it's one of the tools that I utilize every single day. I do quite a few of these things every single day. But man, this is one that I use constantly. And just today we were actually using it ourselves, both you and myself.
Siri Shakti: Yep. I was.
Dr Dan: And what it really means is you know first off your brain isn't meant to store every single idea, thought, decision, your hopes, your dreams, every single thing in your mind that you can just keep going in circles and circles, which actually I call looping, which we'll get into in a second because we have so much information being thrown at us every single day, every single minute. It's just getting crazier and crazier. I actually read something like oh man, how long ago was this? A couple years ago I heard this, there was some stat that said something like we process more information in 30 days than our ancestors processed in their entire lifetime, just a hundred short years ago. Let that sink in. Just for those of you that have ADD [inaudible 00:01:57] saying that. Myself, I'm like, “Wait, what does that mean?” Basically, a hundred years ago our ancestors in their entire lifetime that they lived they didn't process as much information that we do in just 30 short days.
A couple years ago I heard this stat, so I'm guessing today's day and age we're probably processing more in a week maybe even less than they did their entire lifetime. Isn't that just … and we're not talk about the internet of course, they didn't have the Internet. Well, I mean anything not just the internet, but just all the information because the internet and people and just everybody there's so much stuff being thrown at us. Back then in those days, you had to go out of your cave or your hut or … I'm sure there weren't in caves 100 years ago, some people. You'd still have to go out of your house or wherever you were in your village or in your neighborhood.
Siri Shakti: Little town.
Dr Dan: In your town to actually go talk to somebody. I don't know about you, but today I had at least and by what like noon, I had probably 50 text messages and I had maybe a hundred emails. Man, and everywhere else, the kids and everybody else throwing stuff at us, so there was so much going on. It's insane.
Siri Shakti: Actually, it reminds me of one of my favorite shows Downton Abbey how at the beginning of the show, they didn't have televisions. They were just being introduced to electricity. Excuse me, not televisions, telephones. Is that what I said?
Dr Dan: I don't know. I think so.
Siri Shakti: Oh, whatever [crosstalk 00:03:39]. Anyways whatever. They didn't have telephones yet. I remember they would write a letter and give it to their servant and they would send it out. And then you had to be patient to get your reply back. And now, just like you were saying Dan. We send a message and we get a response back immediately, and we're pretty impatient in that way.
Dr Dan: I bet back then they were probably overwhelmed too. They were like, “Oh, my god, Martha. I've had three telegrams in the last three months, I can't handle all this information at me.”
Siri Shakti: Right. Right. It sounds quite, that's overwhelming.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Exactly. And again, the power of brain dumping, first off it helps you make some really cool decisions and gets it out of your brain, out of your head so you don't loop and go in circles. And also, it gives you the ability to focus on new things and deal with stuff that you have to deal with right now because you're getting it out of your head. That constantly is taking a bandwidth that you could be focusing on other things in your life, whether it's spending time with your family or doing something fun or filling yourself up or coming up with new ideas.
It's kind of like a glass, right? If you fill it up with water and you have it full and it's constantly overflowing, you can't put more into it because it's constantly overflowing, but imagine if you got 10 other glasses, cups and you took that water that was overflowing and you started dumping it all into other cups too. And now, you're kind of spreading it out. And as your cup gets a little fuller, you just put it into a new cup, put into a new cup and you just keep going and going and going, and then ma.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Yeah. You're really freeing up space so that new ideas, fresh ideas can come to you. And then it also alleviates that feeling of feeling like oh gosh because I've felt it before where there's just so much information, so many things you have to remember or ideas swarming up in your head that you feel overwhelmed and even to the point of feeling stuck because there's just too much for your mind to handle.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Have you ever had, and I'm talking to the audience here, those of you that are listening. Have you ever had a time where you had to make a decision or you wanted to make a decision or you had an idea or you had something that you wanted to do in your life, but you just didn't know where to start or which decision to make and you got so overwhelmed or really stressed out about it and you started saying things like, “I don't know what to do, I just don't know what to do. I'm so confused, I just don't know what to do. I don't know where to start. Why does this have to be so hard? Why can't things just be easy”? I don't know, maybe that's never happened you guys.
Siri Shakti: I bet that it's happened to everyone. It's happened to everyone.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Yeah. If you're being honest. That was a joke guys. I don't know anybody it's never happened to. So if you're being honest with yourself, which I hope you are. Now, I know for me, I'll fall into this trap. And I still will and I have to kind of remind myself, I'll go through this loop where it's just looping and looping and again hopefully that makes sense because in my head … And looping doesn't necessarily have to be that it's repeating in my head this thought or this idea or this decision I'm trying to make, that it's trying to go through my head like every single minute or so. Sometimes it does, but other times it could be over the course of a day. So one day I'm thinking about it, then the next day I'm thinking about the same thing. And then the next day, I'm thinking about the same or sometimes I forget about it for a week or two weeks or three weeks or a month and then it comes up again.
So it's taken up bandwidth because it's looping because I haven't got it out of my head yet. That's why it's important to get out of your head and you start to train your brain. You train your brain to go, “You know what, oh this is important. So let me go and write this down and then I'll go ahead and not think about it until I need to think about it. And that's super, super important, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes. It is. Yeah. And I even think of it in terms because one thing that I encounter a lot is I come to a point in my life where something is not fitting well anymore. Maybe it's a way I'm dealing with something in my life or … whatever. Some life habit that I have that I want to change. I will loop in my head of all different ideas of how I could change it, but like you were saying it's that feeling of overload. There's too many ideas coming through that I end up feeling stuck because I am kind of lost within the different options. And so, this idea of brain dumping helps you to get it all out so then you can kind of sit back and look at all the different options and say, “Okay. Now, it's a little more clear.” And then you can start taking steps and get clear of what it is that you want to start doing and create-
Dr Dan: Yeah. Do you want to give them an example of something recently that you were coming up with?
Siri Shakti: Well, it's funny that we're talking about this because just this morning I had that experience.
Dr Dan: What? Seriously? You had it happen recently?
Siri Shakti: Just a few hours ago, okay.
Dr Dan: That was a joke, sarcasm. I was there.
Siri Shakti: Yes, you were.
Dr Dan: And this is why we're having this episode because we had this today. I was like, “Yeah. That would be a good one, let's do it.”
Siri Shakti: Well, my wonderful husband, he's so loving. I was having a little breakdown this morning, we woke up and right away this was swarming in my head. And what it is is that for a few weeks now I've been kind of coming to this tipping point where I'm just not satisfied with the flow of the household. For me, I take that as mainly my responsibility because the kids are home all the time with our homeschooling. I kind of organize how the house runs. I'm just not happy with how it's going, I feel like I end up doing all the housework. We don't have a certain schedule for everything. So it kind of came to that tipping point, it all came to … what is the word? Fruition, am I saying that right?
Dr Dan: Fruition. Yeah. If you got a speech impediment, fruition, fruition or if you're a two-year-old or three-year-old.
Siri Shakti: How is it pronounced?
Dr Dan: Fruition, mama. What is fruition? Fruition, isn't it?
Siri Shakti: I'm going to lean across this table and slap you.
Dr Dan: Isn't it fruitation?
Siri Shakti: It is absolutely not fruitation.
Dr Dan: It's fruitation or [crosstalk 00:10:37].
Siri Shakti: You know what, we're done with this part of the conversation, moving on. All right. It came to a tipping point, that's how I will explain this situation. Dan told me, which I've done many times just sit down, get it on paper. I ended up grabbing my journal. I just started putting all the different ideas on paper and what happened and this has happened other times that I've done this technique is suddenly ideas were coming out of my head that I hadn't even thought of before of how I could make things work better in the house. And also things came out on paper that I didn't even realize were important for me to get things going better. And just to kind of give you a few ideas, one of them was to have a daily chore list especially because our kids are home all the time doing their work, to make sure that they have a responsibility in the house each day of chores they are going to be doing. The other thing was have a specific time to do our homeschooling because I have a tendency to be a lot more fluid.
I've always kind of been that way, I just lik to go with the flow. But that doesn't always work when you have three kids and a lot to get done.
Dr Dan: No. Then you have some major, major looping going. And I have another word for that too, what's the other word I use?
Siri Shakti: Mental, do I have to say it?
Dr Dan: Let's take a vote, should she say? Yeah. Go for it, what do I call it?
Siri Shakti: Mental masturbation.
Dr Dan: Yes. Because it exhausts you. I don't really use it as much with you or whatever, it's usually in business that I bring this up when I'm talking to my partners or something or we're coming up with some ideas. And then they keep bringing stuff up that at that point … and it's a little bit different too because it has to do with stuff in the future like, “Oh, what are we going to do in a year from now with this?” And I'm like, “We might not even do that or we don't not even know if that project is even going to be completed, or if we're going to want to do that in year. So why even bother?”
Great. You want to write down some notes and send me an email? Go for it, but there's no reason that we're going to spend an hour, two hours talking about this if it might never happen. I'd rather talk about TV shows, or movies or something or what's going on, some fun stuff, tell some jokes. Yes. That's what I mean by that. By the way, I looked up your word for you and it's fruition.
Siri Shakti: That's it.
Dr Dan: Fruition. What a weird word.
Siri Shakti: Fru, that's a hard one for me to say. My tongue doesn't want to work like that. Fruition, there I said it.
Dr Dan: Yeah. You got a new, that's the word of today. A word of the day.
Siri Shakti: I'm going to find ways to use that word today.
Dr Dan: Nice. I don't know if you noticed, but I was about to say and I was like, “I might mess it up.”
Siri Shakti: It's no fruitation, is that what you said? Something like that.
Dr Dan: Yes. I said fruitation. Actually, fruitation or something and it came up with some applesauce drink or something. I don't think it was that, bringing it to that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Well, I just want to say one more thing about my experience this morning is that after … God, that took me maybe 15 minutes to write everything down.
Dr Dan: And you were stressing about that for days and hours.
Siri Shakti: A few weeks actually.
Dr Dan: Well, a few weeks off and on.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. But then the past few days especially, I was really feeling the pressure of it. And so, it took me like 15 minutes. I wrote down my top ones that I want to do. And then tonight, we're going to have a little-
Dr Dan: What do you mean by top ones?
Siri Shakti: Oh, top things that I want happen on a daily basis in the house.
Dr Dan: Like bullet points or some ideas and thoughts. So it's just getting it out of your head, and we're going to give you guys some ideas. So that's coming up, we're not just going to talk about this and leave you hanging and have you wondering like, “Well, how do you do it?”
Siri Shakti: No. It's just a perfect example because I felt … instantly, I started to feel at ease. And I felt more empowered because suddenly I saw that there was options not just like one or no options.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And I'll go into that in a second as well. But I know for me, I'll talk about a recent example and I'll talk about a bigger, bigger example from not that long ago just a few short years ago. For me, just today's podcast and this also goes for products as well when I'm coming up with product ideas or courses or anything like that in our business. One thing with the podcast was for the last I think two days, I was kind of stressing like, “Well, what's the next topic going to be, what's the next topic going to be?”
And then once I was like, “Okay. Okay. I'm looping.” Sometimes it takes me a whole day to catch myself because the mind is kind of tricky like that because all this is different, so you got to kind of catch yourself. And the important thing is as long as you do catch yourself, and it doesn't matter if it takes a day, two days or whatever. As long as you do it, and then get better at it. We were like, “I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what to do.” And then you start going, “Oh, why don't I just mind dump this.” Brain dump, mind dump. So, I grab a piece of paper and just start writing down a couple ideas. And instantly, once you write down like three or four ideas, you're like, “Oh, there you go. Which one you want to do?” And then you narrow it down to like two, sometimes you'll know right away, sometimes you'll narrow it down to two and then you can pick the one. You're like, “Oh, perfect.”
That happened for us actually today, and I was kind of stressing about it yesterday. Once I sat down and did it, that's a huge difference. Now, the other thing was something that happened to me a few years ago. You might have remembered it from one of the past episodes if you listened to that one where I talked about where I was in the real estate market in the industry. I was mortgage loans and doing real estate, investing and stuff like that. And I just wasn't satisfied anymore, I didn't want to do that anymore, didn't fill me up. I knew there was something else out there for me, and I was searching for that.
Well, the ideal thing would have been for me to still have done that part-time bring in some income from that still and then figure out what it is I wanted to do. But the industry tanked at that point, the whole market was crashing. And this is 2006, 2007, 2008. So, I had no other choice, I really couldn't get back. It went from me knowing, probably let's say I had a hundred, I had hundreds of friends and people, acquaintances and people I knew that were in the industry, whether it be mortgages, including your mom. Your mom was doing that as well, your brother as well.
Siri Shakti: So many of our friends.
Dr Dan: Yeah. And they actually worked in the same office as me. And a lot of those people all of a sudden had to leave as well because it dried up, they couldn't do it anymore. I would say at least 95% of the people I knew had to leave because it just, it wasn't the same as it was anymore. So, I had no choice really to do any to do that anymore, so it's kind of the decision was made for me, which is great because I didn't want to do it anymore anyways. But I was stressed because we were like, “Okay. What are we going to do for money? I have no idea. What am I going to do?” And I was stressing and stressing and stressing. I had some money saved up, but I knew that was going to eventually go away if you don't have any new money coming in.
Siri Shakti: Wasn't I pregnant with our third child too?
Dr Dan: Oh, with [Bodhi 00:18:32]?
Siri Shakti: I think I was at that time.
Dr Dan: Were you already pregnant, or did you just give birth? I can't remember. No. You were pregnant.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I was pregnant. Because I remember thinking like you were having to try to figure out that next step and here we had another baby coming, which increases that pressure, that stress.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I had written down quite a few things, and I'll give you an example of how I went through that process and how I continued to do that today. But man, I was sitting there going, “Well, I guess I could do this and I guess I could do that,” and feeling really stressed. Now, I'll tell you if you only write down or if you're only thinking in your head, which is even worse. But even if you wrote it down and you just write down one idea, one decision then you do not have a decision. So, if you write down on a piece of paper, “Well, I guess I can do this one thing,” then you have no decision really because it's only one thing, you have no options. If you write down two things, now you got a dilemma, which is just going to stress you out because now you're like, “Oh, which one should I take? If I take this one, what about this one?” You're just going to go back and forth and you're going to be all stressed out.
Now, if you have three or more, starting at three, now you have some real options. It's important, and this is what I did, it's important for you to write down every single thing that comes to mind, a mind dump, a brain dump no matter how good or how bad it sounds. Obviously, I wouldn't say I'll sell my body for money or whatever. But there are things that I wrote down that I knew I didn't want to do, but it opened me up for more ideas and I just kept writing and writing. And I was like, “Oh, I'll start a jewelry business. I'll start an underwear line.” Do you remember, I was talking about doing that?
Siri Shakti: I forgot about that.
Dr Dan: I still want to do that. My idea was I wanted to bring like Underoos for adults. And I think somebody did that after that, but from now to then. But yes, I wanted to do because there was no fun underwear. I was coming up with all these ideas and I was writing down, and I was like, “Oh, design jewelry for men, and I'll do all these other things-
Siri Shakti: Talked about designing clothes even.
Dr Dan: Designing clothes because I used to love buying clothes and jewelry at that time for men. And so, I was writing down all these ideas. And if I didn't do that, number one it wouldn't have got me out of my head and allowed me to get where I am today. It actually led me to where I am today. Yeah. One decision led me to another decision that let me do another decision, that led me to today. So it might not be the first thing that you write down or the first decision you make. If you write down let's say you know 5 or 10 ideas and things that you could do for that one decision you're trying to make or you're trying to go towards.
And out of that list, none of those things … as long as you choose one of them though, that one thing that you chose might not be the thing that actually led you to where you need to be. I should actually rephrase that. It's not the direct thing, it's not the number one. You might have chose one out of there like, “Oh, I'm going to be a car salesman.” Well, you might have became a car salesman and that wasn't what you wanted to do, but it led you to where you want to be now.
And that's what's important, you got to move forward. You can't sit there and hide in the shower or in the corner rocking yourself, crying or anything like that.
Siri Shakti: Or if you find yourself in the shower rocking yourself and crying, then get yourself up and forgive yourself and keep going forward.
Dr Dan: Exactly. Exactly.
Siri Shakti: Sure, we've all had those moments.
Dr Dan: Exactly. Yeah. Did you have anything else you wanted to give an example on that before I jumped into the.
Siri Shakti: Well, I did want to say that when I think, how I reflect or basically how I like to look at a brain dump is that for me when I'm going to do this, this morning it was a little different because I just did it in bed real quick. But usually, I like to find a place with no distractions. I've even gone as far as sitting on the beach by myself and writing, or sitting at a nice park outside. That way, it's my own space, my own time. I encourage you to … this is really a time to really just free write. This is a time where you want to just get all your ideas just like you were saying Dan. All your dreams, all your desires. This can be like your loftiest visions, just on paper even. If it seems silly, don't judge yourself because in this expression of just getting it out, you may surprise yourself.
You'll write something down and you're like, I never realized that was important to me, or I didn't realize I had a desire to do that, or I didn't even know that was an option.
Dr Dan: Yeah. One thing I want to point out is that it's important that you have some major decisions and things that you really want to sit down with. It's better to just start you, writing stuff down, like going to the beach. But that doesn't mean that you need to wait until you go like, “Oh, well I can't go until two days from now, so I'll wait.” No. Start writing now.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. That's actually a really good point.”
Dr Dan: And then schedule the time to go to the beach and get deeper into that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And actually, now that you just said that, the times that I have taken that time to go sit at the beach and so like that, it was more when I was wanting some quiet time to really focus on the ultimate vision of my life and brain dump that type of experience. But there's been many times I've just sat down at the kitchen table or in my backyard and-
Dr Dan: Or go in the closet. If it's loud and you're just like, “I need to get away for a second.” But it's important to get it on paper, to get it out of your head I should say because I'm going to give some examples of ways you can do this, and it's not just paper. So we'll talk about that in a second, but just getting it out of your head and onto something whether it would be paper or on your computer, or your phone or whatever you're using can get you to a clear picture and make a decision a lot easier and a lot better and a lot faster, and then just get you on your path to where you need to be.
Now, another thing I want to mention before I start talking about that is something I had spoken about before too is … Yeah. We talked about this in the, what was it? The [inaudible 00:25:31] what did we call it? We talked about quite a few things so far, but the daily practice where we talked about how I won't talk on the phone too late at night because then I'm in my head as well. And this kind of goes into that as well is when you've got decisions or things that you're thinking of and it's late at night. What I do is I don't just grab my phone or grab a piece of paper and just start writing down a bunch of ideas. Yes. Sometimes I do, but a lot of the times if it's something that can wait and I know it can wait, then I won't sit there and just start letting my head go and just start writing a bunch of stuff and then I'll be all wired because I have all these ideas. Instead, I kind of put it on a shelf.
I imagine there's this imaginary shelf up on a wall and I'll put it in a box. I'll put those ideas in an imaginary box and I'll put it up on that shelf and I'll leave it there for tomorrow. And I say, “You know what, don't worry brain. I'm going to put in this box, put it on the shelf and then tomorrow morning we will go and look through it and solve this stuff and start writing down some ideas. By doing that, that allows me to actually fall asleep. Otherwise, you get too wired.
Siri Shakti: Helps you to disconnect from having to figure everything out in that moment at bedtime.
Dr Dan: Totally. Totally. Because yeah, a lot of people don't know this and actually, you never met me. Never met me, you didn't know me when I used to have sleeping problems, falling asleep.
Siri Shakti: I didn't know you had sleeping problems.
Dr Dan: No. You see me just closing my eyes I'm usually asleep. 90% of the time, I fall right asleep. When I was a teenager and younger, man I would stay up all times a night. I could not fall asleep. My brain was always going a mile a minute and I would like spend to like 2:00, 3:00 in the morning I would be able to fall asleep. By doing these things, it's allowed me to go to sleep, which is awesome so.
So let's talk about things that we use and give you some ideas, give you some real useful tools here instead of just talking about the stuff and then you having to figure it out. Now, first off, I still write on paper and pen. There is a case to be made, I've heard this before and I do believe in this that there's a different mind.
Siri Shakti: It accesses different parts of the brain when you're writing compared to when you're typing.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Yeah. So that that creativity, it does tap in differently if you are writing it by hand opposed to typing it on a computer or on your phone or anything like that. Now, does that mean that I don't use the computer or my phone? No. That doesn't, it just means that sometimes especially for me, I need to go back and forth. I go back and forth all the time. But I will say that one thing I don't like one that I used to use is I used to use journals, like a journal or a binder with all the pages inside that you'd have to tear apart if you wanted to get a page out. The reason I stopped using a journal is because I felt like I had to be too committed to that idea when I put it on paper because think about it when you're writing on that page, you can't really remove that page without ripping it out. And then where are you going to put it to keep organized? It ain't going to happen.
And not even that, but I had all these different journals and then I have like notes and ideas from events I went to or networking or I was listening to something and I was like, [inaudible 00:29:22] or I was reading a book and I got an idea. I used to always write in those journals. And to be honest, I think years later I go through my old journals just kind of like reminisce. But I don't go to them for stuff I wrote because you can't find it.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Totally. I could see that being a challenge because you think about your writing down all these great notes and information, but it's not really organized unless you're sitting there every few pages putting those little tabs, which that would take forever.
Dr Dan: Oh, yeah. Forget about it.
Siri Shakti: Little tabs or little notes.
Dr Dan: And then once you have a hundred ideas or things written down, forget about that too. And that was another thing, you can't really search for that stuff without having to go through tons and tons of notes to find one idea. And also, another thing I don't like about paper and pen or pencil is that it's not easy to move stuff around. Just like these notes for this podcast, I have all these line by line, by line bullets of stuff so I can keep my flow not be too all over the place. You're listening, right? Right now, how we're talking is actually in a flow, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes. It is in a flow.
Dr Dan: Imagine, if I didn't take notes, we would be all over the place.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. That would be fine for them.
Dr Dan: The end would be in the beginning, the beginning would be somewhere in the middle. The middle wouldn't even exist.
Siri Shakti: We would probably be talking for three hours.
Dr Dan: I'd be talking backwards probably. Yeah. As far as you can't move things around, if you write something because my brain when I write stuff, a lot of times I don't write in order. I write like maybe I have an idea and that idea should have been almost the last thing on that page. Well, how do you move that? You can't unless you're going to use a pencil and erase and keep writing and moving stuff around. But paper and pen, it definitely has its place still. What I like to use is I like to use printer paper, right? Because we have it and we don't even print that much stuff. You do for the homeschooling, I don't really print much stuff except for these notes and stuff that we kind of need. But we already have it and I can draw on it, I can write on it. I don't have to be committed to a line or something.
Yeah. If you like lined paper, that's totally fine. But I like writing on just blank with no lines printer paper and I just write ideas down. I'll go to my backyard, I'll be out to lunch or something and I'll just write and write and write. Or I'll be in the restroom writing in there. I just love to write. What I do is I have vanilla folders, those vanilla folders. Is there another name for that besides vanilla folder, I've always called vanilla folder.
Siri Shakti: I've always called them that. We're go with that.
Dr Dan: And I'll write on there. For instance, this one for the podcast notes, I wrote podcast. And I keep all my notes in there, so then that way they're all in one place. And if I have a product idea, I have a vanilla folder that says products or product ideas or course ideas or something like that. And then if it's a particular product, like after it goes from idea to mapping out exactly what it is, then I'll actually … it's a yoga course, I'll name it yoga course and then I'll put all those notes in there, so I'm organized and I can carry this around with me. Now, I don't write all my notes in there, those are just my ideas. I like to write ideas on that because sometimes you don't have paper with you, right? And also like I said, you can't move stuff around. That's just to get it out of my brain a lot of the times. Sometimes I even skip the paper and the pen and I don't even do that. I just go straight to the tools that I use.
But the reason I want to bring that up is because there are times I have to use paper and pen because it's the only time you have no distractions. How many times have you opened up the computer, if you've tried to take notes on there and you get text messages if you have your messenger on your computer and also Facebook messages-
Siri Shakti: Notifications.
Dr Dan: Yeah. And then you're like, you want to check your emails, “Oh, I'm just going to check my emails real quick. And then you're like, “Oh. Well, let me check out these YouTube cat videos, they look really funny.” Or fails of the week and seeing people fall and get hurt, and you just laughing about that stuff. Or you're tempted to see what's going on with your 5,000 Facebook friends that you don't really even know. But you're Facebook friends, so you want to see … it's important, you want to see what's going on in their life.
Siri Shakti: Oh, my God. This makes me laugh because when I was working on notes for this podcast, I think maybe six times I ended up going on to another website. I was like, “Oh, I want to learn some exercises to improve my eyesight. I'll just take a little break,” which ended up take me like 20 minutes. And then I'm like, “Oh, I found this cool doctor that knows these other exercises, I'll check him out on YouTube.”
Dr Dan: No. Totally. That's why it's important, you can just shut everything down. Put your phone on do not disturb or night shift mode, or not night shift. That's to make it a yellowish, but to turn it off so that way your airplane or do not disturb so that way it goes straight to voicemail. And you don't get those distractions, and then you can just focus with pen and paper. And you can just focus on taking a nice long mind dump.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Do you ever take your written notes and then go back to the computer and type them there ever, or?
Dr Dan: Okay. What I do with that is I use the paper and pen to get ideas. And then what I do is I'll grab a computer. And I'll explain which actual tools I use to do that. But yeah, I'll actually start writing it out. Sorry, I won't commit … it depends on how much time I'm committing to writing on the paper and pen. But once I do, then I have them in front of me. And yes, I grab the computer and I start typing everything out because now I can put it in order. I'll just type it all out and then I'll just start moving stuff around. I'll move around, like I'll just copy and paste, put this higher up, put this down below and move it around, right?
Some of the tools that I used to use is I used, and I'm sure some of you guys probably have done this as well is I used to use word Docs. I know you still do this sometimes Siri Shakti. You'll write in a text document or a word document or-
Siri Shakti: I do it all the time.
Dr Dan: Or Apple pages. Yeah. You still do it, but-
Siri Shakti: Every day.
Dr Dan: I'm getting her to stop doing that, but okay. Here's why I don't like doing that is because the notepad or any of those things on your computer or on your phone they're on your hard drive, or it's on your phone. So in order to update it or add anything to it, you have to be at that computer. And yeah, I know that Apple does have like their cloud thing now where you can keep it on multiple devices. But again, there's times that either it won't sink correctly or you'll have a duplicate of it or you'll forget exactly where you put it. That's why I don't like using those things, especially like … another thing I used to do and I know you've done this before and sometimes I still do email yourself notes.
Siri Shakti: Oh, my God. I'm so famous for doing. And then you know what, same thing with the journaling, it's all unorganized. They're all over my computer.
Dr Dan: Once you send it to yourself, you're never going to find it again, or you're never going to look for it again. I do that myself still, but only if it's a reminder for tomorrow. I have reminders I send, and I have other things that I do on the calendar. But sometimes I'm just like, hey, I'm thinking about buying a product or something or a piece of software. And I will email to myself just so I can take a look at it tomorrow because bookmarking it or putting it somewhere else and there's another software called Pocket that's really cool. It kind of like bookmarking things and being able to search for them. I use that, but it doesn't remind me to look at it tomorrow. At least it might, but I have to go in there and play with the settings. It's just easier to email myself that thing. But another thing too is so you can stay organized and you can search for ideas and notes and things like that. My favorite is the cloud.
Some people, I don't know, do you even understand what the cloud is or no?
Siri Shakti: I always just think of it as they're just floating around in the clouds.
Dr Dan: That's exactly what it is, I couldn't have said it better myself, wow.
Siri Shakti: I should give a presentation about how much I know about the cloud.
Dr Dan: It's in the cloud, it's in the cloud. Where is it? In the cloud. Please enlighten us. Well, it actually reminds me of the movie Rocky. It actually, it's not the movie the Rocky, but it was actually the Creed, the last one that he did. Rocky had written out a workout plan, a training plan for Creed's son. And what was his name, Adonis, I think it was, Adonis. And he wrote it up and then he goes, “Here you go.” And he was handing it to him and Adonis took a photo of it. Rocky is like, “Do you want this? Are you going to take this?” And he goes, “No. I got it.” He's like, “I got in the cloud.” And then Rocky is like, “The cloud?” And then looks up in the sky like, “Is it up there?”
Well, basically the cloud just means that it's not stored locally, meaning on your own phone or computer or whatever. It's somewhere else that can be assessed in other places, that's all the cloud means. So it's not really the cloud, it's on a server still. It's on some hard drive somewhere or on some drive somewhere, but it's just not on you as you can access it [crosstalk 00:39:34].
Siri Shakti: So it's not taking up space on your computer then?
Dr Dan: Correct. Correct. Now, obviously, I don't want to get too deep into that because it still can take up space if you are using something like Dropbox or Google Drive, which I had to figure out the hard way because if you set up the app then it also stores it locally on your computer as well and in the cloud because I remember I was like, “Why am I losing space on my computer, I have this in Dropbox?” I didn't get it at first and I had to … nobody explained, I had to kind of figure it out like, “Oh, that's why.”
Siri Shakti: Got it.
Dr Dan: Be careful if you use those apps and you use the app for your desktop, it can actually take up space if you don't set which folders you want to show on your computer. That's an instruction thing, tutorial that and we could spend some time on explaining. But my favorite is the cloud. I used to use something called Evernote, but it had syncing issues. And sometimes, I'd end up with duplicates and things like that. I don't know if it's gotten any better because it's been a while since I've been using it that much. I still use it sometimes for certain things, but that's only because I've used it in the past and I haven't already set up. Trello is also another good one, that's good for certain things like organizing projects. There's some other advanced tools out there. But it is pretty simple to use. It's called Trello, and you can use it to collaborate with other people or your team and stuff like that. But my favorite to use that I probably use 99% of the time is Google Drive.
I love it. Because Google out of anybody or any service I've ever used, you can collaborate with somebody. Right now, I have today's episode notes on Google Drive. And you can actually from your computer, you can log in to Google Drive that I've shared with you this Drive, this folder and you can go and you can actually start typing on that document. And I will see you typing on the document, which is insane because everything else like Evernote and the other ones that I've seen, I won't see you typing out and it will a lot of times cause syncing issues. Like all of a sudden, your version is a little different than mine and I'm like, “Oh, man.” It'll give you error or something. I've seen that happen a lot, maybe some have gotten better. But Google Drive is definitely a lot easier.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. This is my first time really because I know you've been telling about Google Drive for a while and it wasn't until we got started our podcast that I started accessing it because you were sharing information with me. And I am loving it, I love sharing information with you. If there's something I need to find that you've uploaded there, I can just go on there and find it like piece of cake. Everything is divided so nicely, you have folders where you keep everything.
Dr Dan: Yeah. You have to create the folders.
Siri Shakti: Well, yeah. But it's really easy.
Dr Dan: So I can create one folder called mind dump. That what we're talking about, and that's where you throw all your ideas into. You would create Google Docs to keep Google documents, think of it as like a Word document, you create a Google document in there. Don't throw in there a word doc, don't create something on your computer and then just drop it in there. Instead, go into Google Drive and then you create a new file in there and make it a Google Doc or if they even have like their version … I forgot what it's called. But they have their version of a CSV Excel type sheet or whatever you call it. They have their own thing, they call it … I don't know what they call it but okay. So you can do that as well, and if you do it that way then yeah, it's easy to collaborate back and forth because you can write on it.
Creating a Google Doc, and then one we have for example is in there is I created a folder. And the folder is called Siri Shakti.
Siri Shakti: Wow, that's a cool folder.
Dr Dan: And then Siri Shakti folder. And that's the one that I share with my wife. So anything that we need to collab on, I put in there because then it's organized opposed to what some people do is they'll create like a document and then they'll just like share that one document with somebody that they need to collab with a lot, and then it gets just so disorganized. You want to share that folder with that person or persons so that way anything you put in there they can access as well.
Siri Shakti: Now, that's cool.
Dr Dan: Yeah. So we have a folder inside of that folder that's called podcast. And then inside there is podcast notes, episode notes, topic notes that's one. Then we also have another one that's called images that we can use for the site or for whatever we want to use. And I also even have one that I called tutorials. And then I created a document and then I put links in there for her to watch either YouTube videos that somebody else has made or a video I made to explain how to do certain things that she can go through.
And I do this for myself too, so if there's something that I know I'm not going to remember later on, I'll put tutorials that other people have made like, “Oh, here's how you set up a podcast. I'll put in a link there, or I'll put in there like, “Oh, here's the podcasting course on how to do stuff that I paid for and I'll put a link to that too that member's area and I'll put the username and password there too so my wife can access it too. If she ever needs to go in there, she access that.
Siri Shakti: As you're talking about this, I'm seeing so clearly how this could be such a great tool for brain dump because you create your folder in Google Drive that is called brain dump. And that's just the general idea, right folder. And in there you can do your brain dump. And then you can separate it into other categories like when you get everything on paper, you can divide it into the different topics that you've written out.
Dr Dan: Yeah. For me what works best is I'll create one document and I'll name it mind dump. And in that one document, I'll just write down a bunch of ideas bullet by bullet, by bullet, by bullet. And then from there then if I'm like, oh, I want to move forward or I want to come up with more ideas, then I might take that and then I'll take that one bullet or that one idea and then I'll create a whole new document in that folder still mind dump, and then I'll name it whatever that idea was. And then I'll continue from there.
Siri Shakti: Writing about that one bullet.
Dr Dan: Yeah. That's not every time do I do that. Sometimes, I'm ready to just like write down a bunch of stuff. So what I'll do is, if that's the case then sometimes I'm not even creating a new one, I'm still writing on that one mind dump and just writing under that one idea and just going nuts on it because it's all coming to me. I'm just like writing it all out because it's all coming to me. Then I'll copy it over and paste it into its own document still in the mind document, into the mind dump document. I also do that with bookmarks too, there's quite a few times like you bookmark things and it's just so disorganized inside … I have a folder that I call resources and tutorials and I'll put in products in there that I'm thinking about buying or that I come across and I'm like, “This might be kind of cool to use or to take a look at for something in the future.”
So then I'll create a new document and name it things to look at later or something like that. And I'll put links in there and maybe a little description of what it is because you can always go back and check it out. All this stuff can be searched in the Google Drive as well. So just make sure you remember you or write down enough notes for you to be able to find it later. Little things like that. The other thing I do too is if it's something that I want to remember how to do or if I'm taking notes on a course or how to do something like a video I saw, I can take screenshots and whether you use your own computer or the built-in screen shot thing that they have, or I use Snagit. Snagit is an awesome tool to take screenshots and I use that. And what I do is I'll take screenshots and I'll copy that that image, and then I'll paste it on that page of that tutorial or whatever notes I'm writing down because now I have a visual.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I love Snagit, I use it all the time to take screenshots of images and different things. I actually used it just this Christmas when I made my Christmas cards.
Dr Dan: Oh, yeah. I use it all the time, I'll draw arrows and descriptions of here's how you do this. If my parents are like, “Oh, I can't figure out how to do this.” I'm like, “Hold on,” and I'll take a screenshot and throw some arrows and then send it to them or I'll make a video or something like that. You can put these all inside of a document or inside of one document or in a folder. Just think about how you can organize these things and then that way it'll just be less for you to have to think about later.
Siri Shakti: Oh, yeah. Yep. That's right. I know we're getting close to doing our rockstar mission. But I just wanted to add something before we wrap this up, that in reflecting on this topic I really, really encourage you to use this tool to use this in your daily life and whenever you feel like you need it because the truth is that we really have our answers within us. But oftentimes, we're just not seeing it because we're overloaded, overwhelmed with too many ideas. Maybe we have things swarming in our head with all the responsibilities that we have in our day-to-day lives. And so, when you just take the time to get it out of you and on paper, you are going to be just amazed and surprised to see that you know exactly how to take care of the things in your life and how to figure out your path.
Dr Dan: Yep. To make room for the things that really matter. That's really what it is.
Siri Shakti: Finding solutions.
Dr Dan: Exactly. All right. Well, before we get into the Rockstar mission for today, we are going to remind you to go to rockstarinlife.com to get all the links and resources mentioned in this episode, to grab this episode's transcript, download my free books, training, yoga, meditation, homeschooling advice and so much more that are being added every single week. So you want to go to.
Siri Shakti: Rockstarinlife.com, and join the RockStar In Life revolution today.
Dr Dan: I love it, yes. All right. Are you ready for your rockstar mission everybody?
Siri Shakti: They're ready.
Dr Dan: Siri Shakti is, I'm feeling it.
Siri Shakti: I'm doing it. Yes.
Dr Dan: All right. Here's what you're going to do. Write down three or more decisions that you've been putting off or haven't decided on because it just feels too stressful. You've just been putting it off and you're like, “Oh, later, later, later. Someday, I don't know. I'm just so confused,” or whatever it might be, okay? Now, to start of those three or more decisions you've been putting off, choose one of those just one that you finally want to make a decision on today. Choose that one. Now, from that one, I want you to write down at least three options. More is better, but start by at least writing three options down, three paths that you can take and just keep writing. No matter how bad or good they sound, just write them down because remember, you got one idea or one option and you have no decision, right? There's no options. You got two, now you got a dilemma. You got three, now we're starting to get somewhere. Now, you actually have a decision you can make.
So write down at least three or more of those options like I said. Now, if it's a big life decision. Let's say you're deciding whether or not that your marriage is working, or relationship.
Siri Shakti: Or moving to a new location, moving your family.
Dr Dan: Moving to a new country or state or something like that. Or if you're you're thinking about quitting your job and telling your boss to shove that job because you want to pursue your life dream of running a flea circus, then you need to write more than just a couple ideas. In that case, you're going to have to write down some pluses and minuses and bring some other people in on this decision as well. But in the case of a marriage or relationship, you might want to go, or I would recommend going to see a marriage counselor or something like that. Don't just sit there and write, “Oh, here's my four ideas that Dr. Dan told me to do. And now, I'm doing it. Sorry, honey. I'm leaving, I wrote down my four, or my three and this is the one I'm choosing.” Take a little longer on that.
But the important thing is to get it out of your head and start writing some stuff down because you know what, as long as it's not one of those big life decisions and you're just jumping in on it, you might choose the wrong decision or the wrong path, and it might lead you to the right one. Obviously, like I said, if it's one of those life decisions, be careful with that obviously. But get it out of your head and start writing it down. And with those other decisions that are not the crazy life and death or marriage or anything like that, this will allow you to take you towards your path to where you need to be.
Even if it is marriage, well one of the decisions is go speak to a marriage counselor or it is about your job. Seek advice from people you want to be like, somebody that owns a flea circus or not a flea circus, if that's what your goal is. But if you want to start a business, talk to the people that you know own a business similar to what you want to do. If they're an entrepreneur or whatever it is that you're thinking of doing, speak to those people you. If they're not your friends, either hire them or find a way that you can reach out to them and talk to them. That's the important thing to do.
Siri Shakti: That's right. Yes.
Dr Dan: Now, the next step after that, after you've made that decision you start taking action on it doing whatever it needs to be done to do it now is to repeat this process with the remaining things on your list. And chunk it up, don't do it all tonight. That'd be great, but maybe choose one a day or one a week that you're going to come [inaudible 00:54:52] you know what, one a week is a heck of a lot better than what you've probably been doing, which has been looping in your head and stressing yourself out for the last couple weeks or months or years. I think once a week or even once a month would be better than that.
Siri Shakti: Yes. I am agreeing.
Dr Dan: I love it. Don't let the overwhelm monster, chunk it up. Do one of those a day or one of those a week or one of those a month.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And you'll really begin to see how there's this opening in your life as you begin to get clear and getting things out of your head and just finding that clarity of what it is that you want and how to make that happen.
Dr Dan: I love it. That's it.
Siri Shakti: All right. Well, this was awesome guys. And please, if you need any help with this, please don't hesitate to send us a message. We love to hear from you guys.
Dr Dan: All right, everybody. This was awesome, I'm so glad we got to talk about this, and this is something that's definitely dear to me and something that's very important, that's allowed me to get where I am today, and made me the person I am today and got me out of my own head because I probably would have been in a padded room if I didn't learn this lesson early on, right. All right, everybody.
Siri Shakti: Me too.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Totally. All right, everybody. Remember to be a rockstar in your life.
Siri Shakti: And make the world your stage.
Thanks for listening to RockStar In Life, your source for unleashing your inner rock star. For more tips, training and free stuff, be sure to go to rockstarinlife.com and join the RockStar In Life revolution today. Thanks again. And don't forget to make the world your stage.
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