The Ideal Care Free Experience
Imagine walking into your favorite coffee shop—after an emotionally DRAINING day.
You desperately need a breath of emotional fresh air.
As you step in the door, you make eye contact with your favorite barista.
They’ve already started your favorite “go-to” drink order!
Just how you like it—without you saying a word!
They slide the cup across the counter.
You faintly smile.
Blankly staring, into slate grey laminate behind the counter, you gather your composure and feebly reach for your wallet.
As you hands grazes the opening of your bag, your head snaps up!
Your hand stops.
You let out a soft smile.
Instead of stabbing your hand against razor-sharp car keys as you absently root around your bag you realize—your card is on file!
Just for moments like these!
The barista just “swipes” it.
You smile, take your tea, and “keep moving.”
Gliding over to your “usual spot.”
(You’ve got a few of them. Depending on your mood.)
You slide out your favorite chair.
Sit down.
Let out a big sigh.
Bliss!
F-I-N-A-L-L-Y! The world has stopped!
Just you, your tea, and the moment in front of you.
That’s the power of defaults and automations.
Teardown: The Coffee Shop Example
Let’s breakdown what happened—through the lens of automation and defaults!
What did you do to create this seamless experience?
Simple Answer: By making a ton of small simple decisions made UPFRONT.
By asking yourself:
Where should I park?
How should I pay?
Where should I sit?
What should I order?
Where can I work?
Default parking spot. You don’t want to have to think about where I’m going to pull in. You just KNOW.
Default drink choice. You didn’t spend your precious time thinking about, “What am I going to order?” Because you’ve been to this coffee shop before, you’ve already made your choices for what’s good and what’s not good. You’ve already made a list of things you want to try when you get a chance.
Default payment method. The card on file. So you can just get to work and not. Even 30 seconds reaching for your wallet can be the difference between a great idea staying in your head and it fleeting away.
Default seat. You hated assigned seating in school BUT when doing the work you want to do, thinking about where to sit is the LAST thing you want to be thinking about. You picked a spot, right near an outlet. That way, even the distraction of a “low battery” can’t stop you from doing what you need to get done.
Basically:
You judiciously decided what is important and not important in this situation.
Why Defaults?
There are five key reasons to use defaults to automate things in your life.
- Speed.
- Simplicity
- Resilience.
- Conviction
- Productivity.
These five key reasons lead to five key benefits that are broken down here.
Highlighting 3 distinct powers associated with defaults.
POWER 1 : Simplicity
Defaults REMOVE decisions.
Defaults eliminates thought.
Defaults makes the decision FOR YOU.
Things are on “auto-pilot.”
For example, that is why personal finance wizards talk about setting up an AUTOMATED investing system.
It works while you sleep.
Fewer Parts = LESS chaos in the system
Less Parts = LESS things break
Less to think about, less that breaks.
Wasting time on decisions that don’t matter drain you from decisions that DO!
Because, you create systems to ensure the things that you don’t care about get taken care of SO you can focus on the things you care about!
POWER 2: Resilience
Defaults make you more resilient.
If something is automatic—a default— it’s harder to break under stress.
Even under duress, it’ll work. Because you trained and design the system to that level.
Just like the coffee shop example above. Even walking in exhausted their defaults did the heavy lifting FOR Them
No decisions just focus healing.
You leaned on the defaults to do the work FOR YOU.
[Note: Defaults have a stabilizing effect of on your life.]
POWER 3 : Conviction
Defaults allow you focus on the big things.
Instead of bombarded by distraction, you are FOCUSED with pinpoint accuracy.
Saving valuable cognitive processing power— for the things you need the most.
Allowing for conviction in the things you do decide to work on.
Because have a certitude of what you are working on and why you are there.
Learn more about defaults from by looking to computer science.
Defaults don’t have to be difficult to understand.
Defaults = Your go-to.
In code what it looks like is:
Objection: Won’t I be a one-trick pony?
Creating defaults make it MUCH EASIER for you to continue a behavior to build momentum.
Momentum built a la Tiny Habits style.
Momentum that allows you to then continue to turn your personal flywheel faster.
Now you maybe saying to yourself:
“Moose, I get why I need defaults. But won’t defaults make me more fragile and predictable—instead of anti-fragile?
Nope.
It’s okay to be worried about being predictable, a “one-trick pony” or even “downright boring”:
Remember:
A well-managed factory is boring. Nothing exciting happens in it because the crises have been anticipated and have been converted into routine.”
Peter Drucker
No! In fact, you’re freeing yourself up to learn MORE tricks!
The goal of the defaults is to allow you to do what you do best WITHOUT thinking about the rest.
NERD NOTE
The human body does this extremely well! The autonomic system in your brain and the amygdala take care you your heart beating every minute automatically and breathing. So you aren’t consciously thinking about it. Unless, you want to.
[Safety Warning: Think about your safety FIRST! Do not set up defaults your in a dangerous area. Please make sure you watch out for people watching your parking spot. ]
Default Example: Compounding Airline Miles
A great example of DEFAULTS is: racking up airline miles.
SINCE, You are earning points—by DEFAULT!
You put a majority of your purchases on a card that has rewards points.
You pay this card—automatically—once per month- out of your bank account.
Volia!
It all happens without you thinking about it!
Before you know it—YOUR EARNING POINTS for your trip to Tahiti!
[NOTE: If you are looking for a financial system, I highly recommend I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi]
Exercise: Creating Your Own Care-Free Experience: Applying Defaults to Your Life
Become a regular.
They should be able to guess.
Make sure to tip handsomely the first few times.
Get to know everyone’s name.
What I want you to do by the end of this post is:
Set up defaults and automation in your life so you can be more productive.
Decide your:
- pick your default parking spot.
- favorite dish on the menu
- put your card on file
- Sign up for the rewards program.
Now this exercise really isn’t about becoming a “regular”.
WHAT THIS EXERCISE IS REALLY ABOUT
It’s really about practicing your skill learn how to careful architect your own experiences to optimize for what you are REALLY trying to accomplish and automating the rest —Using defaults! So you can apply the same skill to all areas of your life
Create macros.
Macros are… short cuts that perform multiple instructions in one step.
Typically, physicians use them when creating notes or treating patients.
You can set up an Alexa to turn your studio on.
You can use templates for emails.
Think of your own macros and create them.
Optional: Get a Stream Deck.
Why?
Great place to put your macros.
Single button automation is amazing!
ALL YOUR KEY FILES in one place!
SUMMARY
The principle of creating defaults is one you can apply anywhere!
So You can architect A care-free experience that’ll allows you to free up your time and focus on what you REALLY want to focus on—without major distractions!
Creating a pocket of stillness.
That unfocused time is PRICELESS!
In this post you learned:
- Ideal Care-free experience. You saw how defaults can create a carefree experience.
- Defaults connection from computer science. Understand the power of automations and defaults.
- Exercises to create your own Defaults.
- Create Macros
- Get a stream deck
- Build Keyboard Shortcuts
- Take action an action to automate something cumbersome in your life.