Automaticity Quotes

The 'OK Plateau' is that place we all get to where we just stop getting better at something. Take typing, for example. You might type and type and type all day long, but once you reach a certain level, you just don't get appreciably faster. That's because it's become automatic. You've moved it to the back of your mind's filing cabinet.

When I play guitar, it's automatic. I don't try to do something; I just do it. And it's already so ingrained in what I do, I don't think about it. I don't try to do something - I just do it. And the more I do it that way, the more I surprise myself. And if I surprise myself, that's the best thing.

In any sport, you're at your best when you're playing without thinking too much.

I'm so comfortable on my snowboard that I don't have to think about it very much; it's somewhat second nature.

When I'm in my groove there is no thinking. Everything just happens.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success. What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the longest practice, and at length it falls from us without our notice, as a leaf from a tree.

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.

Positive defaults align our short-term decisions with our long-term interests. And we don't always do that.

You do your best work when you're not conscious of yourself.

... keep practicing. After a great deal of practice, we no longer think about all the necessary movements we must make; they become part of our existence. Before reaching that stage, however, you must practice and repeat. And if that's not enough, you must practice and repeat some more.

I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list.

To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive.

You have to remember everything you've created. But then comes a moment when it's all automatic pilot, where it all comes together and you don't have to think about it any more.

Once you learn to do something consciously, you can move it into the subconscious and do it well. Everything you do well will be done subconsciously.

The importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated. Repetition is the key to learning.

You'll begin to act when you can forget your technique - when it is so securely inside you that you need not call upon it consciously.

When you're throwing the football the way you want to, you're not thinking about it. You're not thinking about your drop or your release point or the trajectory or where your feet are. It's just coming off your hand exactly the way you want it to, fluid and confident.

Minimize your therbligs until it becomes automatic; this doubles your effective lifetime - and thereby gives time to enjoy butterflies and kittens and rainbows.

If you type adeptly with 10 fingers, you're typing faster than your mind is working.

Ideally, writing ought to be like riding a bicycle: something you know how to do without having to think consciously about exactly what it is that you are doing.

I think the thing that I think about the most when I consider my father's philosophies is attaining that third stage of performance where you no longer have to think about what you're doing; you've worked long and hard enough to be able to have your body respond when you want it without your mind getting in the way.

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.

Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.

It's what you do every time. You isolate what you know, and you create a mental image of what you're doing. Every time you speak you don't have to think about it. Words come out of your mouth based on what you know. That's the same job every time.

If you measure someone's brain and see very little activity during a task, it does not necessarily indicate that they're not trying - it more likely signifies that they have worked hard in the past to burn the programs into the circuitry. Consciousness is called in during the first phase of learning and is excluded from the game playing after it is deep in the system.