Wasting Time on Autopilot

How often have you found yourself wasting time on routines you can’t even explain?

Good morning!

Have you ever noticed how many things you do automatically?

I’ve been listening to an audiobook all about the power of habits, and it is insane (and amazing) how our brains work.

Long story short, our brains love efficiency and conserving energy, almost as if they were designed to always with the least amount of wasted energy. So, to keep everything running smoothly, our brains are always observing what we do, and, whenever they find repeated actions that could be automated, they create habits, mental shortcuts that trigger certain routines.

For example, we don’t typically spend any energy thinking about putting toothpaste on our toothbrushes, starting our cars, or tying our shoelaces. We just sort of do them, almost on auto-pilot.

Since starting my new job, I’ve been very intentional in doing my best to create new and better habits. One of the habits I’ve created is that I pre-heat my car before making my bed every weekday morning.

The only problem is that our brains don’t care whether our habits are good or bad; they recognize consistent, repeated actions that lead to the same result, and automate them for us. For example, one bad habit I had for most of last year was that every time I would take out my phone, I would open up Reddit and scroll on there for some time (I have recently switched to my phone on grayscale mode and interrupted that habit).

Anyways, the point I want to make today is that if we’re not intentional with how we live our lives, our brains can fill our time with meaningless routines and bad habits, and this morning I would like to merely suggest that you take a look at your habits.

What are some of the things you do totally automatically — even without thinking? What actions or routines can you notice in your life that you do but can’t explain? What habits can/should you interrupt in order to get more of your time back?

God bless you, have a great rest of your week! (P.S. Please let me know how I could best partner with you in prayer, I would love to pray for you.)

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