The first kitchen tool to try is a potato masher. Overmixing your potatoes as you mash them or after you've added your liquid ingredients is the quickest way to make gluey, gummy mashed potatoes.
That's why you need a super-common but quite unexpected kitchen tool to make mince-meat of that ground beef. By taking a potato masher to the beef in your skillet, you can ground up so much more ...