Habit: Positive and Negative Side Effects

Schmetterling recently posted about habits, and I've been thinking.

You see, my father and I have always proclaimed ourselves to be creatures of habit. When he used to drive me to my early morning band rehearsals, I always had to remind him not to turn onto the freeway that took him to his job in Salt Lake City. His habit of driving himself to work had so deeply embedded itself that he did it without thinking.

In this instance, I don't think his habit was a bad thing: his familiarity with his drive later benefited me when we rode to work together. It gave him opportunities to think issues through, a few precious minutes to notice details I certainly never would have--and then to share them with me, and it allowed him to pay closer attention to whatever I told him about on the way home from work. (I say home from work, because I don't recall being terribly talkative on the way into work. So not a morning person.)

On the flip side, I have a habit of checking my e-mail every time I open my laptop. It doesn't matter if I opened my laptop intending to research, meaning to start working or continue working on a paper, or if I opened it to turn on some music while I clean. I inevitably check my e-mail. Even, ridiculously, when it has been less than an hour since the last time I checked my e-mail. (Now you know the truth about me: I'm totally an e-mail fiend. Except I have dreadful reply time, because normally I read it and remember the productive things I should be doing.)

This always detracts from what I should be doing. And I know it! In this instance, there seems to be some sort of fundamental disconnect between my fingers and my brain.

And ultimately, I think that's the difference between negative and positive side effects of habits: how involved my brain is. If a habit either frees my brain to pursue interesting avenues or if my habit is conscious, I consider it positive. To wit: I don't ever have to remind myself to check my e-mail. I do have to remind myself to undertake my daily reading tasks, to commit myself to my research, to exercise in the morning.

Interestingly enough, the tasks I have to remind myself to do all have very evident side effects: each, in its own way, helps me to feel better. But they are not always fun tasks to undertake. Thus the need to remind myself to carry on a habit.

If my brain becomes completely uninvolved, that's when I start to worry that I've fallen into a trap; thinking allows us to be free.