The Brain Dump Method: How to Document Everything in Your Head in One Session

Your team asks you the same questions every week.

“How do we handle this?” “What should I do about that?” “Can you approve this before I send it?”

And every time, you answer. Because the answer lives in your head.

Not in a document. Not in a system. Not anywhere your team can find it.

Just in your brain, which means your business only works when you’re available to answer questions.

Here’s what most founders do: they tell themselves they’ll “document everything eventually.” Maybe next quarter. Maybe when things slow down. Maybe never.

But things don’t slow down. And in the meantime, you’re stuck answering the same questions, making the same decisions, and doing the same work over and over.

The Brain Dump Method fixes this in one 90-minute session.

Why Most Documentation Fails

You’ve probably tried to document things before.

You opened a Google Doc. You started writing. You got 20% of the way through and thought, “This is taking forever. I’ll finish it later.”

You never did.

Because most people approach documentation the wrong way. They try to write perfect SOPs from scratch, step-by-step, formatted beautifully, ready to publish.

That’s not documentation. That’s procrastination dressed up as productivity.

The Brain Dump Method works differently. It’s not about perfection. It’s about extraction.

Get it out first. Clean it up later.

What the Brain Dump Actually Is

The Brain Dump is a structured 90-minute session where you capture everything running through your head that your team needs to know.

Not everything you do. Just the things people ask you about repeatedly.

You’re not writing manuals. You’re naming systems.

Here’s what you’re pulling out:

• Decisions you make every week
• Processes you run on repeat
• Judgment calls people come to you for
• “Tribal knowledge” that only you know
• Edge cases and exceptions
• The stuff you do on autopilot that no one else knows how to do

Once it’s out of your head and visible, you can refine it, assign it, and scale it.

But first, it has to get out.

How to Run a Brain Dump Session

Step 1: Set the Timer (90 Minutes)

This is not an all-day project. It’s 90 minutes.

Block your calendar. Close Slack. Turn off your phone.

You’re not aiming for perfection. You’re aiming for momentum.

Step 2: Pick a Category

Don’t try to dump everything at once. Pick one area of your business:

• Client delivery
• Sales process
• Marketing workflow
• Team management
• Finance and admin

Start with the one that creates the most bottlenecks. The thing people ask you about most.

Step 3: Answer These Questions

Open a blank doc and just start typing. Don’t edit. Don’t organize. Just get it out.

Answer these prompts:

What do I do every week in this area? List everything. Even the small stuff. Especially the small stuff.

What decisions do people ask me about? Write down every “Can I…?” or “Should we…?” question you’ve answered in the last month.

What would break if I disappeared for two weeks? This reveals the stuff living entirely in your head.

What are the edge cases or exceptions? The “usually we do X, but if Y happens, then we do Z” scenarios.

What does good look like? Define success. What’s the outcome? How do you know it’s done right?

Step 4: Organize Into Buckets

After 90 minutes, you’ll have a messy doc full of information.

Now spend 15 minutes sorting it into buckets:

• Processes: Step-by-step workflows (e.g., client onboarding)
• Decisions: Rules for judgment calls (e.g., when to offer a refund)
• Standards: Quality benchmarks (e.g., what makes a good deliverable)
• Systems: How things connect (e.g., how a lead becomes a client)

You’re not cleaning it up yet. You’re just grouping it.

Step 5: Prioritize What to Extract First

Look at your buckets and ask:

• What creates the biggest bottleneck?
• What do people ask me about most?
• What would save the most time if it was documented?

Circle the top 3. Those are your priority extractions.

What Happens Next

You now have a rough map of what’s in your head.

It’s messy. It’s incomplete. It’s not ready to hand off yet.

And that’s fine.

Because now you can see it. And once you can see it, you can do something with it.

Here’s what to do with your Brain Dump:

For each priority item:

1. Turn it into a simple, usable format (bullet points, checklist, decision tree)
2. Test it with your team (“Here’s how this works—run it and tell me what’s missing”)
3. Refine based on feedback
4. Hand off ownership

You don’t need a 10-page SOP. You need something clear enough that your team can execute it without asking you.

Start with the minimum viable version. You can always add detail later.

What This Feels Like in Real Life

I ran my first Brain Dump on client delivery.

I sat down with a timer and just started typing everything I did from the moment someone signed a contract to the moment they got their final deliverable.

It was chaos. Sentence fragments. Random notes. Half-thoughts.

But when I looked at it, I realized I was doing 14 different tasks that I’d never written down. Tasks my team didn’t even know existed because I just handled them automatically.

No wonder they kept asking me questions. They literally didn’t know what I was doing.

I spent another 30 minutes turning those 14 tasks into a simple checklist. Then I handed it to my project manager and said, “You own this now.”

She ran it. Found three gaps. We fixed them. Now she owns the whole process.

That Brain Dump saved me 4 hours a week. And it took 90 minutes.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Trying to make it perfect. It won’t be. That’s fine. Get it out first, clean it up later.

Dumping everything at once. Pick one category. Nail it. Then move to the next.

Writing for an audience. This isn’t a published manual. It’s a working document. Write fast, write messy, write real.

Skipping the prioritization step. You can’t extract everything at once. Focus on what creates the biggest bottleneck.

Documenting and then not using it. The Brain Dump is worthless if you don’t hand it off. Extract, refine, assign.

The Bigger Picture

The Brain Dump Method is part of the Extract phase of the Operations Reset Framework.

Once you’ve pulled the system out of your head, you can assign ownership to your team (phase two) and scale the operating rhythm so your business runs predictably (phase three).

When all three phases work together, you get The Reset: a business that doesn’t need you to hold it together.

But it starts with extraction. And extraction starts with the Brain Dump.

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Quick Win: Your First 90-Minute Brain Dump

This week, block 90 minutes and run your first Brain Dump:

1. Pick one category (client delivery, sales, marketing, team management)
2. Set a timer for 90 minutes
3. Answer the five prompts (what I do, what people ask, what would break, edge cases, what good looks like)
4. Organize into buckets (processes, decisions, standards, systems)
5. Circle your top 3 priority extractions

That’s it. You don’t need to build the whole system this week. Just get it visible.