The Tangible Solution to Overthinking | 4 Visual Thinking Pointers & a Rule of Thumb
I'm going to say the quiet part out loud.
When you're a smart cookie with a fast brain, everyone assumes you've got it all figured out. Ideas come easily to you. You make connections and see patterns others miss.
That's your gift.
But here's what nobody talks about: there's a massive gap between brilliant ideas and completed projects.
How many of your best ideas are still sitting on the "someday" pile?
How many breakthroughs are trapped in your head, waiting for you to figure out where to start? And how exhausting is it to carry all these crashing ideas around in your brain, all the time?
These unrealized dreams aren't just annoying—they take a real toll on your confidence and sense of self-worth.
Not because they're bad ideas, but because they've never left the intangible world of thought and entered the tangible world of action.
That's what we're about to fix.
Video Transcript | Click to expand, or keep scrolling for article format
Pointer #1:
Support your Executive Function with external tools.
Executive function is all the heavy mental lifting that executes what your mind envisions. It happens in your prefrontal cortex—the motivation, organization, and self-control that gets you from to-do to done.
For ambitious people, these functions work overtime. You're juggling multiple projects, switching between creative and analytical thinking, balancing long-term goals with immediate deadlines. Plus remembering to pick up that prescription and feed yourself.
No wonder you feel overwhelmed.
My number one tool for this? The Tangible To-Do List. When I'm juggling multiple projects and feeling overloaded, I grab different colored sticky notes. Every task crashing around in my head gets its own color-coded note.
Even looking at a giant pile of jumbled sticky notes brings immediate relief. Then comes the crucial work: sorting, grouping, prioritizing, sequencing. Getting crystal clear on what needs to happen next.
The difference between feeling overwhelmed and seeing your overwhelm on those sticky notes is profound.
None of this requires artistic ability. It's about giving your hard-working brain the external supports it desperately needs.
Pointer #2:
Design systems that work with your brain, not against it.
You've heard it all before:
"Just hunker down and focus."
"Break it into smaller steps—how do you eat an elephant?"
"Stop procrastinating."
Traditional productivity advice treats executive function challenges like character flaws. But every single one of us faces executive dysfunction, whether it's part of our wiring (like my late-40s diagnosis) or just the reality of lousy sleep and skipped meals.
When standard systems don't work for you, that's not a character flaw. That's important information about what your brain needs to thrive.
My husband and I both struggle with "out of sight, out of mind." So I drew a diagram of our freezer contents. I created a visual tracker for completing a 20-hour course. I made a kitchen cleaning checklist so I never have to think about the steps or worry about starting.
These aren't fancy solutions. They're custom tools built for how our specific brains work.
Stop forcing yourself into someone else's system. Create tangible tools that work with your brain instead.
Pointer #3:
Executive Function ❤️'s Visual Thinking.
This tool allows you to add a variety of blocks
Here's the beautiful truth: executive function and visual thinking are a match made in heaven.
Every brilliant idea starts as invisible electrical impulses in your neural network. To take action, you need something concrete to work with. When you get ideas out of your head and into your hands—whether on sticky notes, envelope backs, or messy diagrams—you create the perfect marriage between thinking and doing.
First, you feel relief from no longer carrying all those ideas. Then you gain perspective, even if it's just arm's length away. With this distance comes new connections, patterns, and insights you couldn't see when everything was trapped inside your head.
Drawing is writing with more choices. You can place ideas anywhere on the page, use color and scale, connect thoughts with lines, experiment with different shapes to see how pieces fit together.
This creates a beautiful loop between intangible and tangible, where your executive functions finally have something concrete to work with:
- Planning becomes easier when you can see individual steps
- Focus sharpens when you can point to what matters most
- Memory strengthens through clear visual cues
Pointer #4:
Embrace the friction of analog tools.
Your mind is fast. You process information quickly, make connections others miss, envision possibilities in an instant. With deadlines coming at you from all directions, you might think your fast brain needs equally fast tools.
But when everything moves at the pace of your thoughts, you miss crucial details, skip important steps, and burn through mental energy too quickly.
This is why I need you to embrace the friction of analog tools.
When I developed my Befriend Your Brain workshop, I went through stacks of research. I cleared a dedicated space in my studio and returned to Mrs. Andrews' sixth-grade lesson: capturing research on index cards.
Those classic index cards kept me focused without digital distraction. After creating stacks, I grouped and sorted topics until I understood exactly what each executive function was, its corresponding dysfunction, and which visual tools supported it.
I tried using presentation software's slide view—it should work like index cards, right? Wrong. I kept hitting digital walls. Finally, I printed my slides, cut them apart, and used them alongside my index cards and sticky notes until the workshop took shape. Each paper-clipped bundle represented one executive function.
Only then could I return to my computer and create clear, effective slides.
The analog friction wasn't inefficiency—it was essential clarity.
Rule of Thumb:
Messy drawings create clarity.
This is where people get stuck: "I'm not an artist." "I can't draw." "My handwriting is terrible." "It won't look professional."
Here's the secret —
Messy drawings create more clarity than perfect presentations.
Your goal isn't museum-worthy art. It's getting ideas out of your head and onto paper so you can work with them. A wobbly circle labeled "the big idea" is infinitely more useful than that perfect idea trapped in your head.
Your first drawing doesn't need to be your final answer. It just needs to be the first step in getting ideas from head to hands.
Some of my biggest breakthroughs came from what I call "spaghetti and meatballs"—circles, lines, words, arrows, big scribbles, practically illegible but making perfect sense in the moment. They led to the clarity I needed. And if necessary, messy drawings can always be refined later.
That messy index card from my research? It became the refined model I teach today.
Look at your hand and remember these four pointers and rule of thumb.
This is the power of putting your thinking into your own hands to:
- Support your executive function
- Truly organize your thoughts
- Get your ideas out into the world and fully realized.
Your ideas deserve to be more than just thoughts.
They deserve to be real, tangible contributions to the world.
Get your ideas out of your head and into your hands and watch what happens when your brilliant brain has the tools it needs to make great things happen.
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