Let me guess. You have tried to do lists. You have written them on sticky notes, in notebooks, in Notion, in the Notes app on your phone. You have colour coded them, prioritised them, starred the important ones.
And you still feel overwhelmed every time you look at them.
Here is the thing. It is not the list that is the problem. It is what you are doing before the list.
Start with the brain dump
A brain dump is exactly what it sounds like. You take everything that is currently living rent free in your head and you get it out onto paper.
Not a screen. Paper.
Everything. Business stuff, home stuff, the car MOT that is coming up, the appointment you need to book, the email you have been meaning to send, the thing your mate said last week that you need to follow up on. All of it. Every single thing you are holding onto.
It does not need to be neat. It does not need to be organised. It does not need to make sense to anyone but you. If it comes out messy and scattered all over the page, that is exactly right. That is what your brain looks like right now and that is fine.
The point is to get it out of your head and onto something external. Your brain is not designed to hold all of that at once. No brain is. But a neurodivergent brain trying to juggle all of that while also trying to actually do things? That is a recipe for paralysis before you have even started.
So first. Just get it all out.
Now here is where the magic happens
Once it is all on paper, put the pen down. Pick up two different coloured pens.
With the first colour, look at your page and circle three things you are drawn to. Not the most urgent things. Not the most important things. The things your eye lands on for whatever reason. Maybe they feel manageable today. Maybe they are things you actually want to do. Maybe you just cannot explain it. Trust that.
Circle three. That is your focus for today.
Now with the second colour, circle two more things. These are your Brucie Bonuses. If you get through your three and you have got something left in the tank, these are what you go to next. No pressure. They are a bonus, not an obligation.
That is it. That is your to do list.
Why this works when normal to do lists do not
Most to do lists are actually brain dumps in disguise. You write down everything you need to do, look at the page, feel immediately overwhelmed, and either freeze or avoid it entirely.
Because a page full of thirty things is not a to do list. It is a brain dump. And brain dumps are not meant to be actioned all at once. They are meant to empty your head.
Here is what is actually happening when you look at that list and cannot start. Your brain does not have the capacity to process everything on it at once. So instead of picking something and starting, it does nothing. It is not laziness. It is not lack of motivation. Your brain has looked at thirty things and genuinely cannot figure out where to begin, so it shuts down.
That is why the two pen method works. You are not asking your brain to process thirty things. You are asking it to process three. That is a completely different ask. And suddenly starting becomes possible.
Once your head is empty, then you can choose. Three things. Drawn to them for whatever reason. That is your day.
Your brain gets to feel the relief of everything being out of your head, without the crushing weight of feeling like you have to do all of it right now.
The brain dump and the to do list are two separate things. Once you treat them that way, you will find it so much easier to actually start.
A few things worth knowing
You will not get everything done. That is not the point. The point is that you did three things your brain actually engaged with, instead of nothing because the list felt impossible.
The Brucie Bonuses are genuinely optional. Some days you will smash through all five and feel amazing. Some days you will do one and a half and run out of spoons. Both are fine.
Do the brain dump whenever your head feels full. Some people do it every morning. Some do it once a week. Some do it at 11pm when they cannot sleep because their brain will not stop. Whenever it is, just get it out.
And please, write it on paper. There is something about the physical act of getting it out of your head and onto something you can see and hold that screens just do not replicate. Try it properly before you decide it does not work.
Want to try this with other people around you?
That is exactly what our body doubling sessions in NeuroThrive are for. Sometimes the brain dump works better when you are not doing it alone. Come and try it alongside people who get it.