When your brain won’t turn off… there is a simple way to create space again.

If you’ve ever felt like your mind is constantly running—full of ideas, to-do lists, and things you don’t want to forget—you’re not alone.

In this episode, I’m sharing the simple system I use to get everything out of my head so I can actually focus, create, and move forward in my furniture flipping business.

This isn’t about productivity for productivity’s sake.

It’s about giving your thoughts a place to go… so they don’t take over everything else.

🪑 In This Episode:

• Why mental overload happens when you have too many ideas
• How writing things down creates space and clarity
• The simple way I adapted the Bullet Journal Method for real life
• How I use daily pages, indexing, and “blocks” of information
• Why unfinished tasks don’t need to create stress
• How this one habit changed the way I think and work

✨ Resources Mentioned:

• The Bullet Journal Method (book) https://amzn.to/4bUfcsz
• A list of my favorite tools, products, and resources for furniture flipping, you can grab my free Resource Guide

Curious what my system actually looks like?

I’ve shared a few real-life pages over on the blog so you can see how I use it day-to-day. → Love My DIY Home

Val Frania: Hi there and welcome to Flipping Furniture for Profit. I'm your host, Val Frania. I'm glad you're here. This is a space where we talk about more than just furniture. We talk about growth, discernment, learning how to build something with intention, without overwhelm stealing your joy.

If you're looking for common sense tips, shared experience, or encouragement along the way, you're in the right place. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of ideas, business ideas, furniture redesign ideas, content ideas, things I want to try, things I should be doing for my family, in our home, future projects. And for a long time, those ideas followed me everywhere, even into church. I'd be sitting there listening to the sermon and something would be said that connected to business, and suddenly my mind would go off in a completely different direction. I'd start thinking through a scenario or strategy or something I needed to do. Before I knew it, I wasn't even paying attention anymore.

Not good. But at the same time, if I didn't hold on to that thought, I'd lose it. And that was the other problem. I was constantly afraid of forgetting really good ideas. So I felt like I had to keep everything in my head. When you do that, it doesn't leave you alone. It's always there, running in the background, just like apps on your phone. Years ago, when we were raising our fifteen kids, I called it 'Banana Brain." Now I just tell DH that my brain is broken. I got so tired of feeling like I was running in one hundred and eleven different directions. So I started doing something really simple.

I've always written lists of things I had to do. I put sticky notes on my bathroom mirror to remind me not to forget daily happenings. I had half a dozen different notebooks with ideas on different subjects, but as soon as I wrote something down, I'd forget about it. My brain would just let it go, but then I had no way to find it again. I'd flip through notebooks, searching for ideas, or trying to find that one idea that I thought would apply at that moment. And half the time I would just get overwhelmed and toss them aside. So everything I captured just disappeared into a different kind of chaos. I knew I needed a system. I just didn't know what that system was. Then I heard about a book and a comment from someone in a membership that I'm in. It's called the Bullet Journal Method, and it really is a great system.

People use it in very detailed ways and for some it fits perfectly. There are examples of these beautiful, elaborate journals. But that's not what I needed. I didn't want fancy, I wanted functional. I just needed a simple way to capture my ideas, keep track of what I needed to get done. You know, to hold notes from courses and remember things I actually wanted to use later. I tried to do it all according to how it was taught in the book, but it took too much energy. And in my experience, when something feels like a chore, I tend to not follow through. So instead of trying to do it exactly as outlined in the book, I simplified it. I took what worked and left the rest.

What I really believe is this: when you take an idea out of your head and put it on paper, it makes it permanent. And when it becomes permanent, it frees up space for more ideas to come in. That's where the flow comes from. You're not trying to hold on to everything anymore. You're allowing things to move through. And there's actually a reason the system works. And it has everything to do with how our brains are wired. Our brains are constantly scanning for new information, new ideas, new opportunities. That's why something new always grabs your attention. That's the whole shiny object thing. It's not just you, it's how your brain works. But at the same time, your brain doesn't like unfinished things.

When you have an idea or something you need to do and you don't deal with it, it stays there, running in the background. Whether it's ideas bouncing around in your head or you're standing there looking at a piece, you just can't decide what direction to go. You may have heard me say this before, "Noise kills creativity," When there's too much going on, it's really hard to think things through. It's hard to focus. It's hard to move forward. That's why your brain won't shut off. It's trying to keep you from losing something important. But here's what's interesting. As soon as you write that thing down, your brain recognizes it, that it's captured, it's safe, and it lets go. And the people who seem really productive aren't necessarily smarter. They just have a way of capturing things, deciding what to do with them, and then moving on. They're not carrying everything around in their head all the time. That's what I needed.

It kind of reminds me of something from years ago. When we first started using computers, every once in a while, we'd be told to defrag the hard drive, to clean things up and reorganize everything so it runs smoothly again. Pick up speed to work right? That's really what this is like. Our brains need that too. When everything is just sitting there, you know, ideas, tasks, things we don't want to forget. It starts to slow us down. But when we get it out of our head and put it somewhere else. It's like everything settles back into place again. Things feel clearer, quieter, more manageable. Let me show you what this actually looks like for me, because it's really simple and I hope you can draw something from this. At the front of my notebook, I keep an index, and as I go, I number my pages. Just small numbers in the corner. Nothing fancy. If I create something I want to come back to like podcast ideas, notes for a course. I write the topic in my index along with the page number. That way I don't have to flip through the whole notebook trying to find it later.

For my day to day, I use a fresh page each day. I date it at the top and write things down as they come. Tasks, ideas, reminders, dates, important events. Nothing is separated. It just goes on that page. I do use a few of those simple symbols that the bullet journal method explains, and I place them just before each idea or thought. Just enough to know where something stands, a dot for something I need to do and X when it's done. An arrow if I move it to the next day, and sometimes a star, if it's something really important that I have to take notice of, or I have to have done that day. And at the end of the day, if something isn't finished, I don't stress about it. I just move it to the next day. So nothing gets lost. Nothing is just sitting in my head either. And in between those daily pages, I create what I call blocks of information. That's where I dedicate a few pages to one topic, podcast ideas, real ideas, notes from any course, anything I want to keep and come back to. Then I add those page numbers to my index so I can go right back to them when I need them. I also keep a one page calendar, a real simple one for each month as it comes, just to track what's going on at a glance. And that's it. Easy. Simple. That's my whole system. It's not complicated, but it works. And I probably only use a small portion of what that bullet journal method teaches.

Now I do use digital tools too. I use Notion for a lot of my business, you know, things like podcast episode, copy notes information I want to keep long term. I keep things like gardening notes, videos I want to reference, instructions I've copied and saved and it works really well for that. But when it comes to ideas and the things that are bouncing around my head, things I need to take care of, I still come back to paper and pen, because it's fast. It's right there. There's no distractions. I don't have to open my computer and risk going down a rabbit trail. Because let's be honest, if I open my computer, there's a very good chance I'm going to see kitty reels or a recipe that looks amazing. And then suddenly an hour is gone and it feels like five minutes. Know what I'm talking about? Have you seen those baby goat videos? Oh my goodness. I just can't resist those. And that's exactly the problem.

For me both have a place. But writing things down, that's what clears my mind. Years ago I attended a Women Counseling Women training. It was a week long. Very good training. And one thing the speaker said, really stuck with me. She said, when something is weighing on you, you think about it for about five minutes. Decide what your next step is, how you're going to take care of it, or what you think a solution might be, and then intentionally move your mind away from it. Decide to think about something else. It has to be intentional. She found that a lot of times people get stuck or they run into trouble because they dwell on something too long. I've been following that advice for years, and it works. And that's exactly what this system helps me to do. I capture it, I decide what to do with it, and then I let it go.

I've been on the other side of this. I remember one of my first projects, a China cabinet, that we split into two pieces. I was finishing the bottom part as a buffet and I kept getting drag in using the poly. It was streaking. I couldn't figure it out. I researched every day. I went to bed thinking about it. I woke up with it still on my mind. It followed me everywhere and it dominated my every moment. But I don't live there anymore. I do still have moments where my brain feels broken. Trust me. Especially after working for hours on something frustrating like tech. But I'm not afraid of losing ideas anymore. I write them down, go back to what I was doing, and then they're there when I need them. And recently, I have taken this a step further. I bought a large blank book from the dollar store. It's almost like a sketch book. And I started organizing things by topic, by pages, business in the front, gardening in the back. And each page becomes its own little space. Which quick question... why was that sketchbook five dollars and a dollar store? Anyway, I made it creative. I use markers, titles, notes, sometimes stickers, quotes. It's kind of like a junk journal, but with purpose. I really enjoy it, and it helps clear out the cobwebs sometimes. And it even has an added benefit. It's something I can hand down to my very creative granddaughter when I'm done with it. This has been a way for me to bring that creativity back into everyday things that might otherwise feel a little boring.

And this reminds me of a verse, first Corinthians fourteen forty. "Let all things be done decently and in order.' Sometimes we think that that only applies in spiritual settings, but the more I've lived life, the more I've realized that these principles really speak to how we're actually wired. You know, the God that made us knows how we work, right?

Scriptural principles show up in everything, in our daily routines, in our business and how we work with people, and even how we manage our thoughts. We're not meant to carry everything in our heads. We're not meant to live in constant mental clutter. When things are in order, even something as simple as writing things down, there's a sense of peace that comes with it. And that's what this has given me, not just a way to keep track of things, which is important, but it's a way to quiet my mind so I can focus on what is actually in front of me. Simple but powerful. And sometimes simple is exactly what we need. So if your mind feels full and you feel like you're constantly trying to hold on to everything, try writing things down. Not perfectly, and not in some complicated system. But just start. And if you're someone who likes a little more structure, I'll have the link to that bullet journal in the show notes. You can get it on Amazon because you might really enjoy the full method. And I'll share a few real life pages over on my blog so you can see how I use it day to day. If you're curious what my personal system looks like, I'll also include a link to my resource guide. It's a simple place to start if you want direction on what to focus on and how to move forward. We don't need fancy. We just need real.