Thinking in the background vs drowning in thoughts and threads. does anyone else experience something similar?

haciaelvacio said:

Sometimes, when I try to focus on something directly, I just can't. I'm flooded with many, or too many, threads and their fragments.

I used to get this as I had a very busy work life and a lot of hobbies that required a lot of planning and co-ordination so I would regularly find myself with a whirlwind of thoughts where focussing on one thread was nearly impossible.

The solution that worked best for me was to shift from relying on my mental processing to deal with these on its own and shift to using visualisation techniques to capture these parts of thoughts and nail them down so I could build around them.

What this means in reality is having a bunch of sheets of paper in front of me, a bunch of post-it notes and write on each the subject of each category of thought that I have on the go, so perhaps I have a list like:

• work performance review - need to write achievements and objectives list
• partners birthday present to decide and order 
• motorbike suspension repair to order and perform
• start on tax return
• write a review on the book I just finished
• document a recurring dream I have to talk to my therapist about it.

Each items gets its own sheet of paper and I start writing each strand of thought on a post it and stick it on the paper of the relevant subject.

After 10 minutes or so the stream of thoughts starts to reduce, almost like the need to hold these in my brains active processing buffer has passed and the brain trusts that I have that thought secured on paper in its rightful place.

Now I take a break for a coffee / tea and a biccie then return to start on each page, fleshing out the other things I need to consider for it to be dealt with, rearranging the post-its to clump around different areas or categories then finally write these on the page using a technique called "mind mapping" to show them in a sequence of shaped boxes that tell me if something is simply descriptive, a task to be performed or information to be gathered.

At the end I will have a long list of smaller tasks and research things to take care of from all the sheets of paper but this is much easier to deal with and I just start doing them in priority order.

The need to hold those thoughts in my mind passes - I keep copies of the sheets on my phone (using the camera) and whenever I need to reflect on them I can look at the pictures and perhaps email myself a note to add to it when I am back home.

The result is a quieter mind, more effective focus and much better sleep (I always keep a notepad by my bedside in case I awake to remember a detail I need to write down).

I think of it as a way to harness my mind and make it work for me.

haciaelvacio said:

Sometimes, when I try to focus on something directly, I just can't. I'm flooded with many, or too many, threads and their fragments.

I used to get this as I had a very busy work life and a lot of hobbies that required a lot of planning and co-ordination so I would regularly find myself with a whirlwind of thoughts where focussing on one thread was nearly impossible.

The solution that worked best for me was to shift from relying on my mental processing to deal with these on its own and shift to using visualisation techniques to capture these parts of thoughts and nail them down so I could build around them.

What this means in reality is having a bunch of sheets of paper in front of me, a bunch of post-it notes and write on each the subject of each category of thought that I have on the go, so perhaps I have a list like:

• work performance review - need to write achievements and objectives list
• partners birthday present to decide and order 
• motorbike suspension repair to order and perform
• start on tax return
• write a review on the book I just finished
• document a recurring dream I have to talk to my therapist about it.

Each items gets its own sheet of paper and I start writing each strand of thought on a post it and stick it on the paper of the relevant subject.

After 10 minutes or so the stream of thoughts starts to reduce, almost like the need to hold these in my brains active processing buffer has passed and the brain trusts that I have that thought secured on paper in its rightful place.

Now I take a break for a coffee / tea and a biccie then return to start on each page, fleshing out the other things I need to consider for it to be dealt with, rearranging the post-its to clump around different areas or categories then finally write these on the page using a technique called "mind mapping" to show them in a sequence of shaped boxes that tell me if something is simply descriptive, a task to be performed or information to be gathered.

At the end I will have a long list of smaller tasks and research things to take care of from all the sheets of paper but this is much easier to deal with and I just start doing them in priority order.

The need to hold those thoughts in my mind passes - I keep copies of the sheets on my phone (using the camera) and whenever I need to reflect on them I can look at the pictures and perhaps email myself a note to add to it when I am back home.

The result is a quieter mind, more effective focus and much better sleep (I always keep a notepad by my bedside in case I awake to remember a detail I need to write down).

I think of it as a way to harness my mind and make it work for me.