I have all my auto updates off, because that constant running in the back ground drives me nuts. It slows my system down. But, I have a little app that I can add reminders to and it’ll pop up a window to remind me to update. I do updates on my virus scanner ever few days and my other patches I check about once a month unless I get some kind of notice. Maybe I should do it more often, but, I don’t.
Yes you should check more often or at least subscribe to security alerts from the software vendors whose software you run.
An out-of-band security patch is typically something you would want to get patched immediately. Microsoft has something called patch tuesdays where they issue their hotfixes once per month. But when they release a hotfix that doesn’t come out on the scheduled patch Tuesday it means it’s a real threat and it needs to get patched ASAP.