Stop haunting the past.

You read that right. It is not the past memories that haunt you, it is you who haunts those memories. Memories are stored in different areas of your brain. These memories are recalled when there is a trigger, and you actively associated it with a memory. By actively associating things with past memories, you make it almost impossible for your brain not to recall those memories. You are the one who made the decision to remember the past by connecting it to the present. It is time for you to stop that habit.

Pull yourself back to the present moment and look at the things in front of you. See those things for what they are. Do not make any associations with the past.

Stop making assumptions.

The moment you make assumptions about something or someone, you are already creating false memories in your mind. Assumptions are baseless inferences, drawn from your own perspective (which is heavily influenced by your past experiences). Learn to see things as they are, without guessing how they will behave. Every time your mind wanders and tries to make an assumption about a person or thing, notice the thought of assumption, and bring yourself back to the present moment.

Clear your mind by focusing on your body.

The only way that you can go back to the present moment is to direct your mind towards your body. When you find it hard to concentrate, stop whatever you are doing and close your eyes. Slowly, take a deep breath. As you slowly inhale, feel the air passing through your nose and filling your lungs. Pay attention to how your chest moves as you inhale. Then, slowly exhale and notice how your chest moved along with the air. Do this several times before you open your eyes. You will find that as you open your eyes, your attention is back to the present. 

Organize your thoughts by thinking of one thing at a time.

Aside from the mental clutter described above, there will be times when your mind will just be full of thoughts about things other than what is in front of you. This can get you flustered and can make you digress from what you have to do. 

To prevent this, organize your thoughts by writing them down. 

List down all the things that you are thinking about and figure out whether or not they are relevant to what you have to do at the present moment. 

Mark the irrelevant thoughts and say to yourself “I will think about that at X time” then dedicate a specific time to that thought. relevant to what you have to do at the present moment. 

Encircle thoughts that are relevant to your task and start focusing on them in an organized manner.

Act on your thoughts.

If you feel that a particular thought just persistently pops up even after doing the steps above, then you may want to consider actually taking actions. For example, if your mind keeps wandering and thinking about doing something you haven’t done before, do it. If you are thinking about a person from the past, reach out to that person. One of the ways to free yourself from physical clutter is to throw things away or give these to someone, which means the need to actually get up on your feet and do it. It’s pretty much the same for mental clutter. Act on whatever you are thinking so that it doesn’t bother you anymore.