Our brains can turn into mashed potatoes as time gets away from us and if we don’t keep it active.

You might have seen the recent trend of brainstacking or habit stacking, where people combine a handful of little habits into one dedicated sitting. Instead of trying to find separate pockets of time for journaling, reading, doing a crossword puzzle, writing, or practicing a skill, you stack them all together into one little routine. Maybe you spend five minutes journaling, ten minutes working on a Sudoku puzzle, and another five minutes reading or writing. Before you know it, you’ve spent half an hour doing things that keep your mind active without having to schedule half a dozen separate activities throughout your day.

I love this idea if I haven’t made it clear yet. I think it’s brilliant. But I also think there’s a way to make this practice even more fun.

Fantasy-Inspired Brainstacking

I like the idea of giving yur brainstack a theme depending on what you want to focus on. Then I started thikning about how to make a fantasy-inspired or whimsical brainstack of activities. Where you can spend twenty minutes a day becoming the sort of person who knows how to identify mushrooms, decipher riddles, analyze Renaissance paintings, and speak a little Latin.

You don’t necessarily need to become an expert in any of these things. The point is to learn something new, practice a skill, engage your imagination, or follow a thread of curiosity you might not otherwise have explored.

I think there’s something lovely about being a person who knows a little bit about a lot of things. You never know when a random fact, an old superstition, a line of poetry, or a strange little piece of history might come in handy. And even when it doesn’t, you’ve still made your world a little bigger and that’s definitely worth something!!

Here are some ideas to get you started!

Whimsical Brainstacking Activities

Become a Keeper of Knowledge

These activities are for collecting little pieces of knowledge about the world, especially the sorts of things that make you feel like you belong in a fantasy library.

• Read a Fairytale: Read one short fairytale every day. Explore traditional folklore, lesser known fairy stories, or a collection of fairytales from around the world.
• Solve a Riddle: Give your brain a little puzzle to untangle. Keep a book of riddles nearby or find a new one each day.
• Learn a Latin Phrase: Learn a new Latin phrase, what it means, and how it was used. Bonus points if it sounds like something a wizard might mutter before casting a spell.
• Discover a Fantasy Beast: Learn about a new mythical creature, monster, or fantastical beast. Where does it come from? What does it look like? What does the folklore say about it?
• Study a Superstition: Pick an interesting superstition and learn where it originated. Why do people consider black cats unlucky in some traditions but lucky in others? Why do we knock on wood? There’s often a fascinating story behind these little beliefs.
• Learn a Naturalist’s Skill: Learn to identify a new mushroom, plant, or tree. Start building your own little field guide of the natural world around you.
• Explore a Constellation: Learn to recognize a new constellation and discover the mythology associated with it.
• Learn One Tiny Historical Fact: Pick a historical figure, ancient civilization, strange medieval custom, or obscure historical event and learn one new thing about it.

Practice Your Wizardly Arts

Not every activity needs to involve memorizing facts. Some can be little practices that help you develop a skill over time.

• Practice Calligraphy: Spend a few minutes practicing a letter, a word, or a beautiful phrase. Over time, you’ll build a collection of handwriting that looks fit for a royal decree.
• Memorize a Line of Poetry: Choose a line from a poem and commit it to memory. Eventually, you might build a whole collection of verses you can recall without needing a book.
• Learn Chess: Practice a new chess move, solve a chess puzzle, or learn one small strategy. You don’t need to become a grandmaster overnight.
• Analyze a Painting: Choose a different painting each day. Who created it? What is happening in the scene? Where does your eye go first? What mood does it create? What details might you have missed at first glance?
• Listen to a New Piece of Music: Find a new soundtrack piece, orchestral composition, or instrumental work. Listen closely and notice how the music creates a sense of place, emotion, or movement.
• Learn a New Word: Collect an unusual word, learn its meaning, and practice using it in a sentence. Your vocabulary can become its own little treasure chest.
• Practice a Drawing Skill: Spend five minutes learning to draw a leaf, a mushroom, a bird, a castle tower, or something else that catches your attention.

Follow the Rabbit

Sometimes the best kind of learning happens when you don’t know exactly where you’re going.

These activities are for the curious people who click one link, discover something interesting, and suddenly realize they’ve spent forty minutes learning about an obscure historical mystery.

• Press Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” Button: Let the internet choose your next rabbit hole. Follow whatever comes up and spend a few minutes learning about something completely unexpected.
• Research One Strange Question: Write down a question you’ve always wondered about and investigate it. Why do certain animals glow? How did people tell time before clocks? Who decided which mushrooms were edible?
• Follow a Wikipedia Rabbit Hole: Start with a topic that interests you and follow the links wherever they lead. See how far you can travel from your original question.
• Learn About an Unusual Tradition: Find a holiday, ceremony, or cultural tradition you’ve never heard of before and learn about its history and meaning.
• Investigate an Old Mystery: Explore an unsolved historical question, a strange archaeological discovery, or a puzzling event from the past.
• Study Something Beautiful: Pick a building, garden, piece of jewelry, antique object, or architectural detail and learn about its design and history.

The goal isn’t to spend hours scrolling through the internet. Set a little time limit if you need one, and write down the most interesting thing you learned before moving on.

Build a World of Your Own

This might be my favorite category because it involves not just learning about the world, but actively creating one.

Instead of consuming someone else’s fictional universe, you can build your own a little bit at a time.

• Create a Fictional World: Invent a kingdom, magical forest, island, or entire fantasy world. Each day, add one new detail. It could be a custom, a creature, a landmark, a historical event, or a strange local superstition.
• Design a Fantasy Creature: Invent a new beast and decide where it lives, what it eats, how it behaves, and what makes it magical.
• Create a Kingdom’s History: Add one event to your fictional world’s history every day. Maybe a queen disappeared, a war changed the borders, or a mysterious plague caused an entire village to be abandoned.
• Invent a Magical Plant: Decide what it looks like, where it grows, and whether it has any unusual properties. Is it used in medicine, potions, cooking, or something more sinister?
• Develop a Fictional Culture: Create a tradition, holiday, greeting, superstition, or coming of age ceremony for the people in your imaginary world.
• Write a Page From a Wizard’s Grimoire: Collect imaginary spells, potion recipes, magical observations, and notes about strange creatures. You can even make it look like an old field notebook.
• Create a Map: Add a new location to your fictional world. Give it a name, a history, and a reason someone might want to visit it.

The beauty of this practice is that you don’t have to write a novel or finish a grand creative project. You’re simply adding a little something to your world every day. One day, you might look back and discover that you’ve built something surprisingly detailed.

How to Build Your Own Brainstack

You certainly don’t need to do every activity on this list. In fact, I think the best approach is to choose a few that appeal to you and build a routine around them.

For example, your daily brainstack might look something like this:

The Little Wizard’s Morning Routine

• Five minutes of journaling
• Five minutes practicing calligraphy
• One riddle to solve
• One line of poetry to memorize
• Five minutes adding a detail to your fictional kingdom

Or perhaps you’re more of a wandering scholar.

The Curious Naturalist’s Brainstack

• Read a short fairytale
• Learn to identify a plant, mushroom, or tree
• Study one constellation or mythical creature
• Research one random question
• Record your favorite discovery in a notebook

Or maybe you want something that feels like a cozy evening in a wizard’s tower.

The Wizard’s Evening Study

• Listen to a new piece of orchestral music
• Analyze a painting
• Learn a Latin phrase
• Solve a riddle or chess puzzle
• Write down one interesting thing you learned that day

You can even keep a dedicated notebook for your brainstacking adventures. Make a list of the activities you want to try, record the things you learn, and track the little skills you’re developing.

And remember, the activities are meant to make your life more interesting, not turn your evenings into another productivity competition. If you only have ten minutes, that’s fine. If you skip a day, the wizard council is not going to revoke your license. Most likely anyways, don’t quote me on that.

Learning is Magic (as corny as that sounds)

I think one of the easiest things to lose in adulthood is the habit of learning things simply because they’re interesting.

When we’re children, we’re encouraged to explore. We collect facts about dinosaurs, invent imaginary friends, learn the names of flowers, and ask a truly unreasonable number of questions. As adults, learning can start to feel like something we only do for work, school, or some larger practical purpose (usually making money).

But we can learn things just because we want to.

So consider this your invitation to become a little more curious. Stack a few habits together, find a notebook you love, and spend a little time each day collecting knowledge like a magpie collecting shiny things. I mean, at the very least, you’ll have some excellent material for your next tavern conversation with your fellow adventurers. 🙂

Take care, everyone and keep learning!!