In 20 years of driving, I’ve had a near-perfect record, but just 2 months after getting the car, I cracked my side mirror on a concrete pillar in my garage.
My driving abilities have actually DECREASED since buying this car, and I blame one thing:
Autopilot.
First and foremost, Autopilot and even “Full Self Driving” is NOT real self driving. You can trust the car to drive about as well as an average 16 year old Instagram influencer doing a live story about her Starbucks latte. It’ll hit the brakes and overreact to sudden changes, then freak out for a moment and overcompensate.
But still, it’s a glimpse into the future of proper self-driving, and it’s about 80% there, which is incredible. You walk up to the car, it opens from sensing your phone, you hit the “autopilot” function when you hit the road, and it navigates the road using the camera sensors.
The test drive alone sold me on the car. I initially just wanted to satisfy my curiosity, but 30 seconds into the test drive I knew I wanted it. When I returned to the dealer, the salesperson saw my face and immediately smiled. He didn’t even need to ask.
A couple weeks after, Amy and I went on a road trip to Harrison Hot Springs, and for a good forty minutes on the highway, my only interaction with the car was turning on the seat warmers. As the mountains and trees cruised by our window, it felt like we were passengers in a silent, gliding glass box.
I’ve conceded the fact that the car will always be better at keeping lane guidance than I will, and even though I’m not 100% convinced Elon Musk won’t turn evil and try to kill us all, the feature is enough that I’d be willing to take that chance.
A few years ago, I made it my goal to automate as much of my life as possible, to the point that my friends make fun of me for all the toys I have for it. Totally deserved, given the ridiculous lengths I’ve gone to create a Jetsons-like home:
- My entrance door opens when I come home and locks automatically when I leave
- All of my lights dim according to the time of day and my mood
- My thermostat warms up the house before I awake and cools when I go to bed
- My refrigerator texts me when it needs something (he’s a bit clingy)
- A security camera system lets me know when and whom is coming by my door
- My air fryer offers a 1-button operation to prepare steaks that’s perfected as well as any I’ve tasted at Gotham or Hy’s
- When I leave the house, everything turns off, and a little robot vacuum darts out from the bottom of a cabinet to clean the room
- My workout app turns on at 6:30 every morning with that day’s routine suggestion as my workout playlist starts, my watch logs it for me
- Siri reads me messages from my virtual assistant, detailing a work report from my note-takers who transcribed a lecture I gave into a curriculum set for use in the future.
- For everything else, I had a housekeeper. She also cooked and cleaned for me several days a week (pre-pandemic).
I’m not the only one obsessed with automation. A friend of mine completely outsourced his online dating and entire social calendar into a funnel operated by Virtual Assistants following a flow chart. Another rigged it so his phone sends out a text telling his wife he’s heading home and time of arrival every time he logs off of his computer at work. A third kept a life coach on weekly retainer to text him daily accountability tasks.
Okay, that third one is also me, but only for like… 2 months. (By the way, if that sounds interesting to you, check out my buddy Peter Shallard‘s biz CommitAction.com, which does exactly that and for entrepreneurs in mind. It’s amazing.)
All of these were intentionally created so I can be as lazy as I want, or in my own mental gymnastics, “eliminate needless friction to optimize my energy so I can focus on creating a positive impact in the world”.
Sometimes, however, I see through my own bullshit.
I’ve automated so much of my life that I’m not sure if it’s actually improving it. Last time I was at a hotel room, I was flabbergasted at how many lights I had to turn off when I left the room (there was 9). But really, that’s really not a situation I need use the word “flabbergasted” to describe — they’re just lights, for God’s sakes, get over yourself.
I once read in an interview that Bill Gates and his wife Melinda wash their own dishes after dinner, every night. It was part of their after-dinner routine, where they’d talk about their day and reflect on their life. This was backed by a Florida State study that found students who did dishes had an increase in creativity and decrease in stress levels.
And if Bill Gates — who can literally fly those dishes on a private jet to the Arctic to have them polished in crystalline-pure glacial water by an army of interns dressed like oompa-loompas — still does his own dishes, what am I missing out on?
And if I’m buying back time with these products and services, what else am I paying with?
I realized that I actually liked cleaning up my kitchen when I wake up in the morning. I sometimes grind coffee beans using Raj’s coffee grinder, and I find that when I’m wiping down counters and the dining table is when I get the best ideas.
So I made a list (always make a list).
I started with everything that I do on autopilot. From my morning routine, my lunch routine, pre-work routine, post work routine, evening routine, and pre-sleep routine. I wrote out what I was doing and started assigning it a 1–10 score of how much I enjoyed each task, how it served my life, and then I added what I felt when I did that task.
That third category blew my mind.
I realized there were a lot of things that I enjoyed that I was cutting out, and a lot of things I didn’t enjoy that I was spending an unreasonable time on. I found joy in getting groceries and cleaning up my kitchen in the mornings. I also found other tasks that I just hated no matter how much I tried, like doing the dishes, so I still strive to avoid that if I can.
This year, I’m on an experiment that goes against most of my past conditioning: I live according to how I feel and what emotions it brings me. Instead of “will it save me time so I can be more productive?”, my new question set becomes “How will this make me feel?”
And if it’s something I want — be it joy, peace, connection, or even positive struggle, I’ll do more of it. If it isn’t, then I can either look to changing how I feel about it or change how it’s done so I don’t have to do much of it.
Instead of making more time, I focused on making better feelings.
The more I’ve started this practice, the more I’m reclaiming activities in my life I used to avoid. Of course, I recognize that this is an incredibly privileged practice, and there’s a part of me that can’t help but laugh at how ridiculously first-world this whole concept is — to let go of the luxuries we worked so hard to earn to find emotional calm, but maybe someday that’ll look like me living in the woods, chopping firewood and carrying water, grinding out ink to write my letters.
Until then, I’ll settle for the fact that I’m a worse driver than my robot car.
