Merry-Go-Round Brain

Posted on by Jane Carlile Baker, Author, Editor, Teaching Consultant

There are times when I can’t get my brain to stop flitting from one subject to another. It doesn’t come to any conclusions or grand realizations when it’s freewheeling like that. Ever happen to you? I suspect much of the subject matter of this flitting is simply remembering things. Only, there’s little progress in that, so it bothers me.football game nuttinessI feel kind of goofy, like in this pic, when I let this merry-go-round go on too long. So I have developed methods to stop the calliope. Here they are:

  • Make a list of things I need to do. I put this first, because those things ride the fastest horse on the merry-go-round. When I worked full time, I prioritized the list with numbers. Number one would be the one that if I don’t get it done today there will be consequences. Now that I have no alarm clock, I  divide the list into things I have to do inside, outside, and business. There are no numbers in regard to priority, I just do what I want to do. Most weeks my list turns out to have between 20 and 30 items on it, and I get most of them done. If I don’t, they just go on next week’s list. No stress, and no brain flitting.
  • When I find myself reliving the past ad nauseum, I pray. I give all those conversations I have with people who aren’t there and don’t care to God and say something astute like, “These are Yours. I have taken them back to mull again, and I know that’s useless. So here You go, and thank you that You keep taking them back”
  • Another thing I do about rehashing the past is to remember a phrase good old Jim Talley gave me way back when. I will now expand his reach by giving it to you. “All you can do is all you can do, but all you can do is enough.” Thank you, Jim Talley, and you are welcome to all of you.
  • When my brain is flitting about the future, I usually phone a friend. My longsuffering husband is first on the list. With him, I don’t need a phone, but I do give him fifteen minutes after he arrives home before I probe his genius. With other friends, I don’t pick just anybody, because I think I’m pretty dang smart. So I need someone who loves God, is wise and spends their own life purposefully.

I guess that about covers it. If you’ve got great ideas about dealing with Merry-Go-Round Brain, please comment and share, or if you wanted more than I gave, ask me a question. I’m gettin’ old and my brain flits so I may not have said the best thing I know. Ha!

Published by Jane Carlile Baker, Author, Editor, Teaching Consultant

Jane has loved writing from the time she learned to hold a pencil. Her writing journey moved from that pencil to personal computers through the seventies, she edited for a hospital public relations department. The eighties found her owning a public relations business, publishing newspaper and magazine articles, and directing communications for a large church. In the nineties she published her first book and led critique groups and writers' workshops. In the twenty-first century she became a teaching consultant for the National Writing Project, published several more books, and began an editing business. Jane also loves raising chickens, dogs and alpacas, gardening, oil painting, swimming and hanging out with her family.

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