“We really have to have habits—unconscious expert execution of tasks—otherwise we are just novices at everything, forever. It works very nicely most of the time, but there are some situations where we can get into trouble.”

Great article by Dr Key Dismukes, glider instructor and former chief scientist for human factors at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

“As far as we know there’s no skill for prospective remembering. Our brain’s not wired very well to remember things in the future. It has no alarm clock to remind us to do most things. We remember to eat because we have a kind of alarm clock—being hungry. We remember to go to sleep because there’s an alarm system—getting sleepy. But there is no alarm system that tells us now’s the time to make that telephone call, or set the flaps for take-off.”

Force of habit