I listened to a podcast this week that talked about the concept of ‘drift’. It was an interview with Dominick Quartuccio, author of Design Your Future.
I don’t often listen to podcasts more than once, but I’ve listened to this one numerous times and I still feel there’s so much more I can learn from it.
What is drift?
Drift is the state we go into when we’re not consciously creating our lives. About 95% of what we do falls below our level of conscious awareness. Necessarily so, because being aware of every single thing we do would be exhausting.
As a result, we can go into autopilot in almost all areas of our life and this is what Dominick refers to as drift. It’s might show up as constantly checking your phone, watching Netflix every night or allowing your work life to take over your life to such an extent that you’re no longer in control.
We drift into these states and accept them instead of choosing to be more proactive and design our future…
I must confess that as I wrote that very sentence, I picked up my phone to check my email – it was a purely unconscious action. How scary!
Interestingly, in the podcast Dominick suggests that most of us can reclaim over 2 hours a day by being more mindful of our mobile phone use. He pointed out that when he did this over a 90 day period, he used the time to write Design Your Future.
It just goes to show what we can achieve when we choose to live more consciously.
Design your future
A few of the key points that I took away from the podcast and want to implement are:
- Reduce my mobile phone use. I’ve installed the Moment app (which is free) to analyse my use. Once I’ve monitored it for a week, I’ll work on reducing the time I spend staring into the screen.
- Reclaim my evenings. I’d got into the habit of getting to about 6pm and thinking that I’d reached the end of the day. Instead, I’m going to build in an hour self-development time where I focus on my goals. That’s an extra 7 hours a week!
- There’s a difference between being busy and being productive. I get so caught up in being busy that I have a limited amount of time to design my future.
Now I’m more aware of how I go into autopilot and allow drift to take over, I keep spotting it.
I’ve noticed that I pick up my phone to check social media first thing in the morning, that I prioritise housework over my own personal development (especially of I’m feeling a bit tired) and that I let myself be drawn into social media before bed.
These are not healthy habits for me. Most of the time they don’t even make me feel good. So it’s about taking back control as I become more aware of the drift within my own life.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still room for mundane activities. They can be incredibly powerful – I even dedicated an entire post to them which can be found here.
But if your life is drifting and you’re not living a life you love then it’s time to design your future.
What next?
If you’d like to listen to the podcast then it’s Episode 96 of the Choose Fi podcast. You could also buy the book if you’d like to learn more about the subject.
I’m still on my book buying ban and Design Your Future isn’t available from my library, so I’m happy to work through the podcast for now. But if you do read it then let me know what you think.
What about Simple Sundays?
Don’t worry, I’m still committed to keeping my Sunday’s simple and stress free. I had my long walk along the seafront this morning and plan to do some yoga and meditation later. I’m also going to relax and read some blog posts and I might even curl up on the sofa and watch a film.
What are you up to today? Do you keep Sunday’s simple? Whatever you’re doing, I hope you have a brilliant day.
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Image by Drew Beamer on Unsplash