The Dangers Of Auto-Pilot

How Comfortable Routines Can Seriously Limit Us

Erik Brown
Publishous

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xPhoto by Jp Valery on Unsplash

Routine: a usual set of activities or way of doing things — dictionary.cambridge.org

Society tends to push us into routines. From the time you’re a child, the world around you is pushing you into a framework of some type of regular scheduling. As soon as you’re of age, you’re woken up every morning at a regular hour. Once awake, you’re fed breakfast and shipped off to school at a usual time.

Once you’re in school, you’re watered like a plant with other regular routines. These new routines are reinforced into you during the school year. One of the early things you will learn in class is how to read a clock and calendar. The teachers will teach you this so you can adapt to even more complicated schedules and routines.

What I’ve written makes it sound like routines are this shadowy and evil thing pushed on the individual by the world around us. However, that’s the furthest thing from the truth. Having these regular schedules gives us a degree of stability in our lives. Imagine trying to get something complicated in real life finished without some type of schedule or routine — it would be next to impossible.

“brown bear plush toy on white surface” by Barrett Ward on Unsplash

I’m the type of personality that gravitates toward a schedule. I hold on to a routine like a child that holds on to their favorite teddy bear with a missing ear. I have a specific time for work, exercise, martial arts, and writing. I find this tight schedule setting helps me get a number of things done on the limited amount of time I have.

A routine can also be freeing for the mind — take Steve Jobs for example. The former CEO of Apple would wear the same clothes everyday. He developed a uniform of sorts so he didn’t have to think about what he needed to wear. He figured the mental thought power could be dedicated to something else.

I have a uniform of sorts too, but it’s not clothing I wear. As I’ve started to think about it more, I’ve noticed something — it seems like I function on auto-pilot for long spans of the day. I’m so focused on my schedules and routines that I really don’t think about what I’m doing and why. My auto-pilot is turned on and I’m on this lather-rinse-repeat cycle. I’ve even noticed this auto-pilot in my exercise routines as well. I’ve set these schedules and routines for a reason, but I’m not sure if they’re achieving their original purpose.

Is my workout routine making me stronger?

Is my writing schedule improving me lately?

Is my training schedule helping me become a better martial artist?

As sad as it sounds, I couldn’t tell you, I’m on auto-pilot. At some point these routines were working and I was able to fit everything into my day and week. I was even improving at some point, that’s why I set my auto-pilot on. At some period though, I seemed to have lost my focus. I always seem to lose focus and concentrate more on that lather-rinse-repeat cycle then what I’m actually trying to achieve.

In an earlier article I wrote on luck, professor Richard Wiseman stated that randomness could improve the luck of an individual. Spending all your time repeating the same patterns makes you less likely to find new sources of fortune or opportunities. Had my love of patterns and auto-pilot taken away fortune and opportunities from me?

I had an odd idea to try and fix this little problem I was having. I’d borrow something from the accounting world — an audit. Every so often I’d study the routines I was using and see if they were achieving their original purpose. I’m still not sure of a frequency just yet, but I figure if I was to do this audit regularly, it should put things into better focus.

Leave it to me to fix a problem with mindless routines with another routine.

I may be a proponent and victim of routine at the same time, but hopefully this audit idea will fix the mindlessness of my auto-pilot feature.

Thank you for reading my ramblings. If this story makes you happy and you know it, clap your hands.

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Erik Brown
Publishous

Work out fanatic, martial artist, student, MBA, and connoisseur of useless information. CantWriteToSaveMyLife@yahoo.com, historyphilosophyaction.substack.com