Taking Out the Trash

I learned this exercise in a writing group with Serene Calkins, and it immediately brought me back to a practice I leaned on over a decade ago called the 'Morning Pages' from The Artist's Way.

Serene calls it “taking out the trash.” The idea is simple. You set a timer for two minutes and you write down whatever is on your mind. The mental clutter, the to-do list, the half-formed thoughts, the things circling that don’t quite land anywhere.

You don’t shape it.

You don’t fix it.

You don’t even reread it.

You just get it out of your head and onto paper (or into your notes app, ect., whatever works for you).

This practice has been so helpful for me because there’s a kind of fullness that builds from juggling personal life, professional life, and the layers of heaviness that emanate from current national and international events.

It accumulates; and all of a sudden I notice that I'm feeling stretched, scattered, and a lot less like myself.. And when that feeling shows up, it’s easy to think; "I just need to get organized", "I need to be more productive", "I need to figure out what to do with all of this".

But that can quietly keep us spinning, caught in a loop that doesn’t really offer an exit. I notice this especially with the shift of seasons (Welcome, Spring!)

“Taking out the trash” isn’t about doing something with what you’re holding. It’s about placing it somewhere outside of yourself, even just for a little while.

There’s something quite relieving about giving your thoughts a place to go without the pressure of trying to figure out what to do next. What I appreciate about the two-minute limit is that it doesn’t ask much, especially when capacity already feels maxed out.

It doesn’t turn into a practice you have to maintain or another thing to get right. It's a brief moment where nothing has to be useful or meaningful or complete.

This is actually how we begin our build sessions inside the Practice Container.

Not with strategy or structure, but with a few minutes to clear what’s already there.

It creates just enough space for things to feel a little more doable and a little less overwhelming.

And when the timer ends, you get to choose what happens next. You might rip the page out and throw it away (my personal favorite). You might close the note and never open it again, or move it to the side and come back to it later.

There’s no right way to “use” what comes out. Not everything is meant to be kept. Some things are just meant to move through.

Sometimes what comes out is logistical: emails I need to send, things I forgot, pieces of the day still hanging open.

Sometimes it’s more subtle: a worry I didn’t realize I was holding, a feeling that didn’t have words yet, or something I might not have named otherwise.

And sometimes it’s just noise: fragments, repetition, a page of "what the actual ffffff ". But even that has value because it’s no longer sitting inside taking up precious space..

I think a lot of us are moving through our days holding more in our systems than we realize. Just from being in relationship with our work, with other people, and with ourselves.

This isn’t about turning that into something, fixing anything, or figuring anything out. It's simply two minutes to take out the trash and give your system some much needed relief.

If you’re building a KAP, Brainspotting, or other brain-body offering and want support doing it in a way that feels sustainable you’re welcome to join the waitlist for the next cohort here.