This morning Catherine blogged about habits, in particular about the kind of habits we do automatically. Her post was called Can we really make changes in exercise/eating habitual “just like brushing your teeth”?
I’ve been thinking about this too. For me, it’s eat, sleep, and brush your teeth. Maybe even ‘make your bed’ falls into his autopilot category. It does for me. And yet I know that not everybody has stuff like bed making on autopilot.
For me though this stuff is all both obligatory but also automatic. I just do it. That’s Category 1 stuff.
Then there’s the stuff I don’t need to do daily, but I do anyway. Wordle anyone? Duolingo? I suspect the gamification and the streaks here help create the automation. Call this Category 2 stuff.
But the category I’m interested in is the stuff I want to do every day but that requires some additional thought and planning in order for it to happen.
You might think exercise falls into this category, but primarily for me, right now, it doesn’t. I just do it. There’s thought and planning involved in the what and the when, the how much, and which training plan. And I do track it. But getting some exercise in part is just part of my life, like brushing my teeth and making my bed. I don’t debate it. It’s not remarkable. I just do it.
So what does fall into the aspirationally habitual category, call it Category 3, for me?
Writing for one thing.
I’ve been going all in on the Gretchen Rubin 2024 plan which includes picking 24 things to do in 2024, choosing a word of the year, and committing to writing everyday, either 2 or 4 or 24 minutes.
Writing is a challenge. In my monthly check-in post I said, “I’ve committed to daily writing, and I am writing every day, but I feel like I just need to be more organized about it. January feels like it ought to be a good writing month. But for some reason, that never works.” So maybe it’s like exercise in that I do do it everyday but I need more thought and planning about what I am writing.
But the other thing that falls into this category for me is household organization. Many of the productivity apps call it decluttering, but that’s not quite it for me. I do need to own less stuff but I also need to organize the stuff that I have. The big picture is so daunting I don’t start small things, like unpacking bags from travel rather than leaving them half unpacked on my floor.
Finally, meditation. It feels good when I do it, especially relaxing at night, but without an app to remind me and track my streaks I don’t get around to it. Maybe I should go back to using the app and add meditation to my Wordle, and Duolingo streaks.
Anyway, I’m sharing this post now in conversation with Catherine and with you. What things are you happy to have on autopilot? What would you like to add to that list?
