I'm 70 and the sharpest I've ever been — not because I started doing more but because I finally quit these 4 habits I'd convinced myself were keeping me disciplined

For decades, I believed that discipline meant pushing harder, doing more, and never letting up. Yet here I am at 70, feeling more mentally agile than I did at 40, and it happened when I started doing less.

Last month, my daughter watched me solve a complex problem with our family's estate planning that had stumped both her and her husband. "Mom, how are you getting sharper with age?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. The answer surprised even me: I'd finally stopped doing the very things I once thought were keeping my mind in shape.

We live in a culture that worships productivity and constant mental stimulation. Every magazine article, every wellness guru, every self-help book seems to scream the same message: do more, optimize everything, squeeze every drop of potential from every waking moment. I bought into this completely, especially during my 32 years teaching high school English. But what if some of our most disciplined habits are actually dulling our edge?

The myth of morning news as mental exercise

For forty years, I started each day the same way: coffee in hand, news on every screen, consuming information like it was my job to stay informed about every crisis, every political development, every opinion piece. I told myself this was keeping my mind sharp, that being well-informed was a form of mental discipline.

What actually happened? I'd spend my mornings in a state of low-grade anxiety, my thoughts scattered across a dozen different problems I couldn't solve. My brain felt full but not focused, like I'd eaten junk food for breakfast instead of something nourishing.

The shift came gradually. One morning, my tablet died, and instead of immediately charging it, I sat with my tea in silence. Just me, the steam rising from my cup, and the birds outside my window. That hour of quiet felt like coming up for air after being underwater. My thoughts, usually racing to keep up with the news cycle, settled into something resembling clarity.

Now my mornings begin with journal and pen, no screens until after breakfast. The world's problems will still be there at 9 AM, but my mind meets them fresh rather than frazzled. I tackle complex tasks with ease that used to require three cups of coffee and a lot of frustration.

Multitasking: the productivity trap I fell into

Virginia Woolf once wrote about the importance of having "a room of one's own." What she didn't mention was how many of us would voluntarily fill that room with seventeen different tasks, all demanding attention simultaneously.

During my teaching years, I prided myself on grading papers while answering emails, planning lessons while on conference calls, cooking dinner while helping with homework. I wore my ability to juggle multiple tasks like a badge of honor. "I'm excellent at multitasking," I'd tell anyone who'd listen, as if this were the ultimate life skill.

The research is clear now: multitasking is largely a myth. Our brains switch between tasks rather than truly doing them simultaneously, and each switch carries a cognitive cost. But beyond the science, I noticed something more personal. When I tried to do everything at once, I was present for nothing. Conversations with loved ones became background noise. Books were read but not absorbed. Meals were consumed but not tasted.

These days, I do one thing at a time. When I write, I write. When I'm with my grandchildren, my phone stays in another room. When I read, I read. The paradox? I accomplish more by focusing on less. My mind feels cleaner, like a desk with only the essentials instead of towers of paper threatening to topple.

The information hoarding habit

Remember when we used to memorize phone numbers? I knew dozens by heart. Now, I barely remember my own. We've outsourced our memory to devices, which isn't necessarily bad, but I took it to an extreme. I saved every article, bookmarked every interesting website, subscribed to every newsletter that promised to make me smarter.

"I'll read that later," became my mantra, accumulating digital clutter like some people accumulate physical possessions. My computer had thousands of bookmarks, my inbox thousands of unread newsletters. Each saved item carried a tiny weight of obligation, a small voice saying, "You should read this to stay sharp."

But here's what I discovered: information without integration is just noise. Reading fifty articles superficially taught me less than deeply engaging with one good book. My mind was so busy trying to remember where I'd filed things that I had no space left for actual thinking.

I recently deleted 90% of my digital saves without reading them. The sky didn't fall. Instead, I felt a mental lightness I hadn't experienced in years. Now I keep a simple notebook where I write down truly important insights by hand. The act of writing helps me remember, and if something's not worth writing down, it's probably not worth keeping.

Saying yes to everything "good for the brain"

Crossword puzzles, sudoku, brain training apps, language learning software, online courses in everything from astronomy to zoology. If someone claimed it would keep my mind sharp, I signed up. My calendar looked like a college course catalog, every hour blocked with some form of mental exercise.

Have you ever exercised so hard that you were too exhausted to enjoy the fitness you'd gained? That was my brain. I was so busy doing activities meant to maintain cognitive function that I had no mental energy left for actual thinking, creating, or problem-solving in my real life.

The irony wasn't lost on me when I realized I was too mentally tired from my "brain exercises" to help my granddaughter with her creative writing homework, something that should have been pure joy for a retired English teacher. As I wrote in a previous post about finding purpose after retirement, sometimes our greatest contributions come from simply being available, not from optimizing every moment.

What works now? I choose depth over breadth. Yoga three times a week instead of seven different exercise classes. One challenging book instead of five easy ones. Deep conversations with friends instead of surface-level interactions with dozens of acquaintances. My mind has space to wander, to make unexpected connections, to surprise me with insights that would never have emerged from a brain training app.

Final thoughts

Yesterday, I spent an entire afternoon reading poetry, something I hadn't done in years. Not because it was prescribed for cognitive health, not because I was preparing a lesson, but simply because I wanted to. My mind felt like it was dancing, making connections between words and memories, past and present.

This is what true mental sharpness feels like at 70: not a mind crammed full of information and activities, but one with room to breathe, to wonder, to create. The discipline I needed wasn't about doing more but about having the courage to do less, to trust that a rested, focused mind is infinitely more powerful than an overwhelmed one.

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is step off the treadmill and discover that we can walk just fine on solid ground.