3 Tiny Practical Habits To Clear Your Mind And Get More Done

Mindfulness, made simple

Here’s a secret — I hate labels.

Even positive labels like mindfulness, meditation, and stillness create barriers to entry. It suggests there’s a particular way to practice them.

The truth is, they’re simply behaviours:

1. Meditation is being aware

2. Mindfulness is being present

3. Stillness is embracing the first two

Different paths to the same destination: a clear, happy, and focused mind.

Here are 3 small and practical actions you can take today to clear your mind, let inspiration in, and get more done.

In other words, to be more mindful.

#1. Be a forceful forgetter

Lisa Genova is a neuroscientist who specializes in the art of forgetting:

“We tend to vinilize forgetting. But it’s a normal part of how our brain functions… we need to forget in order to remember.”

When trying to meditate, how many times have you heard this instruction: “Start by clearing your mind.”

As if that’s the easy part.

90% of people who don’t meditate, don’t, because thoughts don’t merely clear away with the snap of your fingers.

Clearing your mind is a skill. And like anything, it can be developed.

Forceful forgetting involves moving thoughts from your short-term memory centre to long-term. When you feel overwhelmed, it’s because you’re resisting letting go of thoughts that could be absorbed into your subconscious.

It starts with trusting your brain.

By understanding that your important thoughts won’t be lost when you forget them — they’re simply being moved into storage.

Here are a few ways to practice it:

• Go for a walk
• Write everything down
• Imagine all of your important thoughts being locked in a vault

Then, most importantly, forget everything. Force yourself to. Know that you need to forget in order to remember.

In an interview with CBC radio, Lisa Genova shares that intentionally pushing thoughts from your short-term memory centre to long-term, improves memory, decreases stress, and improves creativity.

Your brain has a backpack — use it.

#2. Cleanse your mental palate

We do so much every day that our actions start to blend together.

Responding to a client turns into checking your email which turns into 15 minutes of social media scrolling. Before you know it, you’ve wasted an hour of your day.

Mindless action feeds bad habits.

Intentional action builds good ones.

So, after each activity you do:

1. Cleanse your mental palate
2. Set intentions for the next activity

Here’s how:

If you’ve ever been to a wine or coffee tasting (yes, coffee tastings are a thing), you’ll see people eating little slices of bread or drinking tiny cups of seltzer water.

These are called palate cleansers.

They allow you to fully detach from one taste before moving on to the next. Moments of stillness act as palate cleansers — for your mind. After completing each task, sit in stillness for a few moments.

• Breathe in: envision everything you’ve just done. Bask in it.
• Breathe out: let the past go. Fully detach.

Repeat this until you can fully exist in the present. Then, set intentions for the next activity.

Short mantras like, “I’m checking emails now” helps prime your brain to produce the right type of output.

#3. Embrace your acronyms

In the past, scientists believed that humans could remember a maximum of 7 things at a time. Now, research shows that 3–5 is a more accurate number.

It’s called working memory — the number of thoughts you can work with at any given time.

To keep things simple, I keep everything to a handful. I structure my life around The Rule of 5's:

• Big goals
• Small goals
• Daily tasks
• My core values
• Everything and anything

If I can’t hold it in one hand, it won’t fit in my brain. To embrace this, I use acronyms.

Try this:

Take everything you’re currently working on and condense it into a 5-letter (maximum) acronym. Anything can be condensed into 5 letters.

For example, my entire writing business spells L.T.M.O:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Medium
• Other

These words may not mean anything to you, but they’re powerful to me. I have L.T.M.O written on my whiteboard and saved in my Notion app to-do list, along with dropdown menus.

The Roman Room is a memory trick often used by card-counters to remember what cards have been played. Instead of trying to remember each card, they construct a room and associate items in it with different cards.

1 room is easier to remember than hundreds of different numbers and patterns.

Acronyms can also be used to free mental space when your to-do list gets overwhelming. For example, your acronym for today might be “REWIS”.

• Read
• Emails
• Workout
• Interviews
• Schedule meetings

When you travel, you don’t take all of your belongings with you — you carry a keychain.

Create mental keychains.

Remember these 5 things

And only these 5 things.

5 is my favourite number. To me, it represents:

• Balance (halfway between 1 and 10)
• Presence (only focusing on what you can hold with 5 fingers)
• Focus (not reaching past what you can grasp with your hands)

So, instead of remembering this entire article, remember this. When it comes to clearing your mind:

1. Forget

2. Palate cleanse

3. Stick to your acronyms

4. Stay balanced (the rule of 5s)

5. In other words, remember F.P.S.S.

Hi, I’m Hudson. I write about living healthier, happier, and more mindfully. To have stories sent directly to you, subscribe to my newsletter. 👇

💸 Here’s a free copy of The 30-Day Flexible Journaling Guide. 🧘