Research tracking 105 people for one week shows 88% of daily behaviors happen automatically without conscious thought.

Scientists from universities in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom used real-time tracking to study how much everyday life operates on autopilot.

“People rarely stop to deliberate over which behavior to enact or how to do a behavior at any given time,” researchers write.

Lead researcher Amanda Rebar from the University of South Carolina found 65% of behaviors were triggered automatically by environmental cues (such as reaching for a phone after a notification) rather than deliberate decisions.

“People like to think of themselves as rational decision makers, who think carefully about what to do before they do it,” Rebar explains. “However, much of our repetitive behavior is undertaken with minimal forethought and is instead generated automatically, by habit.”