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Can I use a past tense clause after a present perfect one , for example, like this :

It has just crossed my mind so I added it.

In this sentence, I only want to emphasize the first action to be recent and important for the present so I used the present perfect however I feel that it'd be so weird writing it like that with an action which actually happened before another action in the p.perfect meanwhile that another action is in the past, It sounds unlogical. However, I don't want to make the first verb in the past tense too since I want the reader to feel how recent that action is.

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  • The question talks about two sentences, but the listed example has only 1. Can you please give an example with two sentences so we can see better what you have in mind?
    – David Siegel
    Jun 8, 2019 at 18:53
  • Oh sorry I totally forgot that with a conjunction like so two sentences become one. I'll edit my question and use the word clause instead.
    – Manar
    Jun 8, 2019 at 19:00
  • Not posting as an answer as I'm not 100% sure. However, I would say that in the case above, you would use present perfect in the second clause. I.e. "It has just crossed my mind so I have added it."
    – Gamora
    Jun 11, 2019 at 16:00
  • I would definitely say I've added it in that sentence.
    – user96060
    Jun 13, 2019 at 5:15

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The only way that saying "It has just crossed my mind" does not sound weird to me is in a situation where someone is speaking aloud about to other people and about to offer a new (or unexpected) idea:

a group of people are working on problem together

"It has just crossed my mind ... What if we made it out of aluminum?"

Another option would be to not use has/had at all and rephrase it as:

"It just crossed my mind, so I added it"

"It crossed my mind just then, so I added it"

Not sure if either of these would fit with the rest of the paragraph though

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