Hey friend,
You know that thing where your brain is holding 38 problems at once and they all feel equally catastrophic?
Yeah. That was me the other day.
Broken dishwasher. Missed deadline that’s now REALLY missed. That text I haven’t responded to for five days. Existential career doubts. The fact that I need new tires and keep forgetting to schedule it.
All swirling. All urgent. All apparently my brain’s responsibility to solve RIGHT NOW AT THE SAME TIME.
Everything felt impossible. So I did nothing. Which made everything feel more impossible.
If you have ADHD, you know this loop. The paralysis isn’t from one hard thing. It’s from 38 medium things your brain can’t prioritize.
Here’s what I do when this happens (which is... often).
The 5-Minute Brain Dump
Step 1: Set a timer for 5 minutes
Not “sit down when you have time.” Not “when you feel ready.”
Right now. Literally right now. I’ll wait.
Okay, timer set?
Step 2: Write every single thing down
No organizing. No prioritizing. No “is this reasonable to worry about?”
Just vomit it all onto paper (or Notes app, or Google Doc, whatever).
The format doesn’t matter. Literally write:
“dishwasher is broken”
“that text to Sarah”
“am I in the right career”
“tires???”
“the thing I said in that meeting that maybe came out wrong”
Every thought that’s taking up space in your brain. The big stuff, the small stuff, the completely irrational stuff.
Step 3: Stop when the timer goes off
Even if you’re not done. (You’re probably not done. There’s always more.)
The Sort (This Is Where It Gets Good)
Now divide everything into three piles:
Pile 1: Quick Fixes (under 5 minutes)
Respond to text
Schedule tire appointment
Email that person back
Pay that bill
Order that thing on Amazon
Pile 2: Actual Projects (need planning/time)
The missed deadline
Career doubts
Major decisions
Things that require other people
Stuff you need to research first
Pile 3: Not My Problem (genuinely can’t control)
My company’s bad policies
What someone thinks of me
The election
Whether someone responds to my email
The past
What I Do With Each Pile
The Quick Fixes: I knock out immediately while I still have momentum.
Set another 15-minute timer. Bang through as many as possible. Don’t perfect them. Just DONE them.
Reply to Sarah: “Hey! Sorry for the delay. Yes to lunch next week, I’ll send some times tomorrow.”
Schedule tires: Open app, pick appointment, done.
The goal isn’t quality. The goal is to clear brain space.
The Projects: I pick ONE. Just one.
Everything else goes in a note on my phone called “Future Tyler’s Problem.”
Not “someday maybe.” Not “I should really...” Just: Future Tyler will handle it. Present Tyler has one thing to focus on.
Yesterday’s one thing: the missed deadline. Emailed the client, explained the delay, sent what I had so far, set new deadline for Friday.
Not perfect. But done.
The Can’t Control Stuff: I literally cross it out with a line.
My brain will try to pick it back up. That’s fine. But at least now I have visual evidence that I already decided it’s not mine to solve.
What Happened Yesterday
My brain dump had 23 things. TWENTY-THREE things all feeling equally urgent.
After sorting:
6 quick fixes → Done in 12 minutes
1 project (the deadline) → Took an hour, now handled
16 things → Literally not mine to solve or Future Tyler’s problem
My brain genuinely thought all 23 were equally urgent fires I had to put out simultaneously or my entire life would collapse.
They weren’t.
Most of them weren’t even my fires.
The Part That Still Sucks
This doesn’t fix the ADHD overwhelm permanently.
I’ll do this again Friday. And next Tuesday. And probably tomorrow.
My brain will continue generating 38 catastrophic problems on a regular schedule.
But the dump gets me unstuck when everything feels impossible. It gives me a system for when my brain is lying to me about urgency.
And weirdly, sometimes just WRITING it down makes half of it disappear. Like my brain was only holding onto it because it was afraid I’d forget.
Your Turn
What’s currently swirling in your head that might not actually be your fire to fight?
Grab 5 minutes. Do the dump. See what actually needs your attention today versus what your brain is just... carrying around for no reason.
Report back if this helps (or if your brain dump is somehow 78 things and you need someone to witness the chaos).
I see you,
Tyler
P.S. If you’re realizing that this brain dump thing is useful but you need like... 50 more tools like this? I built an entire toolkit. 10 chapters, interactive worksheets, Notion templates - the systematic approach I’m using to work with my ADHD instead of white-knuckling through life. Not therapy. Not a cure. Just practical tools to experiment with.
It’s called the “So You Were Diagnosed with ADHD, Now What?” complete guide.
Check it out here → Interactive ADHD Guides