What percentage of your life is on autopilot?
Did you know that we live 50 – 90 % of our lives on autopilot? That’s crazy, right? Especially when we’re hit with the realization of how quickly time passes.
Not all automation is bad.
In fact I write about the power of habit in a previous post. Many of these automatic behaviours are routines that enhance our lives and enable us to complete the necessary without expending too much mental energy. But how do we stay in the present?
How do we achieve balance so we are not living the two extremes: passively drifting through life or frantically grabbing the frayed edges of each day?
Do you know your triggers? Good and bad?
My husband is more productively automated than I am. Once the last bite goes into his mouth, he’s up and clearing the table. The laundry basket is full, he starts the washing machine. The dishwasher cycle is complete, he empties it. These are triggers in his environment that switch on a response.
On the other hand, I’m resistant to automation. None of those signals are triggers for me and it has taken most of my adult life to realize the benefit that healthy automation brings.
Upon reflection, most of my automation is driven by emotion rather than tasks and that’s why mindfulness has proven so powerful for me.
Have you ever experienced this?
It’s Saturday morning and you’re making a quick trip to the grocery store for coffee cream. You’re still trying to untangle the web of thoughts about work. Mentally ticking off what you’ve completed and making note of what you’ll work on first next week.
Then your mind shifts to the weekend.
Tapping your fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as you wait for the light to turn green, thoughts of dirty laundry, unpaid bills, and yard work cause you to sigh. Ugh, do them or let them slide and go kayaking instead you muse.
Suddenly, you pull yourself back to the present and realize that instead of the grocery store, you’re now outside your workplace.
That’s the scary type of autopilot
When you first sat behind the steering wheel as a teenager, this would never have happened. Intently trying to remember all the rules of the road, plus acquiring the skills of operating the vehicle consumed your brain. Gradually all that becomes habitual, as does the route to work.
Why is automation important?
Did you know that the average adult makes approximately 35000 decisions in a day? That is not a typo! The average child makes 3500 decisions in a day. No wonder children have so much more energy than us. Energy and willpower are expendable. The more decisions we have to make the more fatigued we become.
By afternoon, especially if our day is filled with decision making, we experience brain drain.
If we start our day with chaos and we haven’t automatized repeatable actions, by the end of the day we can expect that we will be subject to whim. In overload, your brain seeks to alleviate stress and chances are you’ll cave to cravings. To complete those evening tasks or to fix that healthy meal that you planned in the morning are no longer important.
In the Willpower Instinct, Duhigg says willpower is an expendable resource. If we leave too much to chance, our willpower is used up before we leave the house in the morning. It’s one of the reasons people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have wardrobe ‘uniforms’. They don’t deplete their decision making bank on simple actions because they have a routine for it.
When are automatic habits negative?
There is, however, a wrong type of automation. The kind that robs us of the present. The driving example above is autopilot at its worst. Grabbing for the cookies or chips when we’re stressed is another example.
The brain seeks ways to alleviate stress.
Procrastination is another strategy the brain uses to alleviate stress. And often this is from the stress of decision making. Research shows that the act of procrastination elevates dopamine, the feel good chemical.
Automation is negative if it robs us of the present or causes us to fall into habits that affect our quality of life.
What can we do about emotions that trigger negative automation?
1. Inventory your habits
Take an inventory of which habits are operating in your life. It’s so easy to go through life on auto-pilot without even realizing it.
2. Be Mindful
Mindfulness shines the light on which habits are helpful and which are causing you to miss out. Mindfulness practice which I will write about in future posts helps keep us fully in the moment.
This doesn’t mean that you don’t create habits and routines. Mindfulness asks that you be present within those habits and routines.
For example, most of us who are parents have a nighttime routine with our children. Reading to them, singing a song, and tucking them in. Have you ever read a book to them while your mind is elsewhere? This is especially likely to happen if you’ve had to read the same book for the past fourteen nights. You have it memorized.
Mindfulness however, requires you to be fully present with your little one. Sharing their joy. Noticing their wriggling as they anticipate what’s coming next because they now know the story too. Watching the emotions flit across their faces.
3. Let your mind wander and dream
This is both healthy and necessary. Just be deliberate about when you plan it and don’t miss out on life’s most meaningful and precious moments in the process.
4. Embrace silence
All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence. ~Herman Melville
Recent research found that silence grows the brain, specifically in the hippocampus, the region associated with memory, emotion, and learning.
In “Science Says Silence Is Much More Important To Our Brains Than We Think”, Rebecca Beris writes “[w]hile noise may cause stress and tension silence releases tension in the brain and body. A study published in the journal Heart discovered that two minutes of silence can prove to be even more relaxing than listening to “relaxing” music”.
Non productive habits are best extinguished with positive actions
Once you’ve determined what’s triggering the undesirable behavior, you can alter the ensuing action. Most of my undesirable behaviours are emotionally charged avoidance behaviours. Slowly, I’m learning some life-hacks that help me change the action. Here’s a few.
1. Practice purposeful procrastination
Adam Grant asserts that purposeful procrastination allows your brain to work at the subconscious level leading to divergent and creative outcomes.
Now when I’m struggling with putting my thoughts into words and the impulse to pick up my phone, or make a trip to the kitchen is overwhelming, I power through the time allotment I’ve determined for myself.
Once that time is up, I go for a walk or complete a chore in order to give my brain time to grapple with the concepts and ideas.
2. Morning routine
A morning routine that incorporates reading, mindfulness, exercise, and journaling ensures that I am making time for what’s important to my wellbeing. It’s so easy for the urgent to supplant the important.
3. Brain dumping
I journal my thoughts, annotate books I’m reading, list books I want to read. I also use Trello for brain dumping. If I’m struggling to organize my thoughts on a subject, I list them all, then reorder them. If it’s tasks I need to complete, I can chunk them for maximum efficiency.
4. Ananda, an app with binaural beats
I set it for a specific length of time when I’m writing and don’t let myself quit or be distracted until the time has passed. This has been hugely positive. In a short time, I’ve gone from struggling with staying focused on writing for a half hour to being able to go for 2.5 hours.
Sometimes, when I’m struggling with an idea, I reach for my phone, but I stop myself. I’ve taken to heart, Newport’s admonishment to not cave into impulses. If it’s something I need to look up, I jot a note to myself and research it after the time has elapsed.
5. Listening to Podcasts during mundane tasks
One of my daughters talked me into this. I prefer reading to listening, but housework is distasteful to me. It’s one of those things that I’ll put off for as long as possible.
Now I have a schedule that gets the house cleaned over the course of the week and I’ve found that listening to podcasts helps me stay consistent.
A certain amount of automation in our lives is healthy.
Just make sure that these automations are enhancing your life rather than robbing you of life.
What practices help you make the most of this wonderful, messy, beautiful thing called life?
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