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I’ve observed that the better some machines get, the more we tend to struggle when they fail — but not if we actively cultivate the habit of performing our daily activities with foresight and intention.
Photo of desert highway by Quintin Gellar; photo of dewy rose petals by Landiva Weber. Photos combined by the Author.
Unlike my previous car, the car I drive now beeps when I get too close to things and can brake automatically when the car in front of me slows down.
I’m a much more confident driver now that I don’t have to worry about close encounters of the scratch-y/dent-y kind. Lights left on? No worries! There’s a beep for that, too.
Image from Sketchplanations
It wasn’t until I found myself behind the wheel of a hire car recently that I saw those features as anything other than a boon. A budget vehicle, it was conspicuously beep-less! I was on my own.
Fortunately there were no major incidents with the hire car, but I surely missed those beeps and felt markedly less confident without them.
This experience got me thinking about what happens when we outsource skillsets in other areas of life.
As a teenager I could dial all my close friends’ phone numbers without looking in my cute little address book. Today I don’t know anyone’s number off by heart other than my husband’s, and I have questions!
I suspect that the answer to question 1 is possibly. Or even probably. The ability is still there, but the wheels turn a little slower these days.
That’s why I use a rhythm and association technique. Every group of two numbers is a year, and every year has an association with a person or event that builds up a picture, a story in my mind.
Question 2 is a No, now that I think on it. Back then we simply did what needed to be done, and our brains adapted just like loaded muscles do. Anything we couldn’t remember was written down.
Question 3 requires intentional habit building. And, of course, there’s an app for that (sorry)! Continuously learning new skills hopefully gives our brains the same kind of workout we couldn’t avoid in the pre-internet and device era. Eg. daily flashcard reviews, whether digital or analog.
As for driving skills, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe we can regularly expose ourselves to low-tech vehicles, or at the very least to consciously trust our instincts before we act on the pre-programmed information presented to us.
You may also like to keep the wheels of your brain turning by writing daily in a scrap paper notebook, or learning how / improving your ability to touch type.
I’m an Inktober participant this year for the first time ever. Wow, it’s good to feel a fresh wind blowing through some dusty corners of my cerebellum! The wheels are turning down a new path.
It’s not the drawing itself that feels different, more than I’m working with a prompt and sharing the result. There’s a sense of unity with others taking the challenge I don’t get to feel when just illustrating my own work. I’m posting daily on Mastodon, or you can all the drawings in one place here.
What’s happening here? What has Inktober got to do with modern car notifications, memorising phone numbers, touch typing, or notebooks?
The point is that I’m doing something differently to the way I usually do it. A fresh perspective. And that right there is the key! Use the helper-tools you have in front of you, but don’t rely on them every single time. Change it up, learn something new, do something—that’s usually automated—unassisted from time to time.
Maybe even set aside your fancy task manager for a moment and write next week’s to do list in a plain text editor, or on a piece of paper, just because you can.
See also I Was a Task Management App Addict
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