How to Be Mindful and How to Think

Be curious. You never know what you might find.

I found a concise guide on how to be mindful and think critically in a book about nature journaling—The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws.

This information shines in front of me like pure gold. Unlike gold, though, information can be duplicated, so I am going to share a summary of this guide—on noticing mindfully and thinking deeply—with you. May you benefit from it as I have.

Achieving Mindfulness

To get into a state of mindfulness, use these three prompts.

I notice…

• Notice what you feel, see, smell, taste, and hear.

I wonder…

• Think about questions you have about what you notice.

It reminds me of…

• Think about what the things you notice remind you of.

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Thinking Deeply

1. Observe and then ask questions about your observations.
2. Look for patterns. These are clues to the mechanisms or processes or designs behind whatever you’re studying.
3. Use the six interrogatives:
   1. Who (identity and identification of the subject(s) and object(s))
   2. What (description of actions—events, trends, phenomena, and behaviors)
   3. Where (location)
   4. When (timing)
   5. How (mechanism or process behind the what/actions)
   6. Why (reason or meaning behind the whole thing)
4. Seek answers while also accepting and embracing mystery.
   1. Science is a tool for studying observable experiences and phenomena.
   2. Arts (poetry, theology, philosophy, etc) can be used for considering things that cannot be observed, measured, or tested.
5. Explain and question explanations (basically, the scientific method):
   1. Come up with as many explanations for a phenomenon as you can.
   2. Then, for each explanation, figure out which ones are more likely true.
   3. Based on the most-likely explanations, form a prediction (a hypothesis) about what will happen.
   4. Test your prediction/hypothesis to see if it is true.
   5. Continue eliminating explanations and hypotheses until you find that none can be confirmed or that one can be confirmed.
6. Question everything.
7. Notice when something surprises you.