Hey everyone!!! 👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻
Sunday is my favourite day of the week, and this Sunday is extra special – Super Bowl Sunday!! I love everything about it. The game, the half-time show, the amazing snacks, and the sheer scale of the entire production. I find it so enjoyable and let myself get swept up in the madness of the event.
I snack on foods I try to avoid, and inevitably end up binging on them and feeling awful afterwards. Me yelling excitedly at the television is a key part of the experience, although I’m sure I drive my wife a bit nuts with my enthusiasm.
I’m crossing my fingers that it’s a great game!
While I enjoy the experience, I wouldn’t want it to be more than once a year; it would be too much. The scarcity of it is what makes it fun, and it’s something I look forward to each winter. It is a ritual that is fairly stable in my life, in a world that is always changing.
I hope that you all had an amazing weekend and are feeling good about the progress you’re making with your career and life. If not, you might reflect on why you’re not making as much progress as you’d like.
Maybe this week’s article can help you fix that
Let’s go!
The 7 Key Systems You Need For 💥 Explosive Growth💥
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Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the idea that you need to build yourself a solid foundation before undertaking significant life or career changes. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for failure right out of the gate.
We dove into the details about what the elements of a solid foundation are, and how you might go about building them (or improving them). The foundational elements we explored were:
It’s time to explore the last building block of your foundation; systems. This is one of the most critical elements to have in place, and it is one that many struggle with. In today’s complex and rapidly shifting work landscape, mastering the art of system-building is not just beneficial—it’s indispensable.
Why Systems Matter
The modern workplace is a labyrinth of challenges and opportunities. With the sheer volume of tasks, meetings, information, and distractions we encounter daily, it’s all too easy to find yourself overwhelmed and unproductive. The result is that you’ll find yourself tired, burnt out, and unable to move forward on your goals and dreams. When that plays out for a long enough time, you are cementing your identity as someone that can’t achieve your biggest goals. Then you give up.
This is where systems come into play. James Clear really hammers on the necessity of systems in his best-selling book Atomic Habits.
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People radically underestimate the importance of effective systems. The better developed and more thought through your systems are, the more mental capacity and time you free up to focus on what matters most. When you don’t have solid systems in place, your time, attention, and energy are scattered all over. There is nothing left over to allow you to think strategically, to dream, to make progress on the things that will drive you forwards towards the life you long to live.
What systems do you need?
Not only do people underestimate the importance of systems, but they also underestimate the number of systems that thriving in modern work life requires. I’ll outline the major systems that I think any professional in today’s day and age should have.
- Time Management. The cornerstone of any effective system is time management. Important note: this is *not* about being able to squeeze more into your day. It is about allocating your scarce time to the things that are most important to you. If you try to just fit your priorities in with the time you have left over outside of work, you won’t make progress on what matters. Work will chew up almost all your time and energy. Time blocking is one of the most effective strategies I’ve found to help with this. There are other approaches that are useful as well, such as the Eisenhower Matrix and the Pomodoro Technique. Experiment and see what works for you. But you *must* have a system for managing your time. There’s a reason I listed this one first.
- Attention Management.We live in an era of distraction. There are endless notifications; emails coming in, instant messages, texts, and of course the ever-present siren song of social media. These are all constantly demanding your attention. What is worse is that many professionals today are engaging in these interactions while attending meetings or trying to produce work. But the human mind is incapable of multi-tasking. Instead of multi-tasking, we end up doing rapid task-switching. Our mind jumps back and forth between the tasks. This constant context-switching leads to increases in errors, lower quality work, and mental fatigue. While you probably can’t become a monk and suddenly live a distraction free life, learning to manage where you direct your attention is something that is attainable. Develop systems and approaches to protect your attention. You can try setting designated ‘focus hours’ free from digital interruptions, only checking emails during certain times, or use tools that limit your time on distracting websites.
- Task Management. We all live busy lives. If you’re like anyone I know, you’ve got a to-do list that is miles long. You can’t possibly do them all—nor should you. That’s why you need a well-structured task management system that helps you keep track of what you need to do and when it needs to be done, which will help you decide what to focus on. Many people try to keep this list in their head. That approach leads to you responding to fires because you’ll inevitably forget something. It will also occupy a significant portion of your brain for keeping track of things, rather than focusing on getting them done. Our brains are meant for thinking and strategizing, not keeping track of things. That is low-value work. Whether you prefer digital tools like Todoist, Things, or Trello, or analog methods like the bullet journal, the key is to build a system that resonates with you. The tools don’t matter; what matters is that you’ve got a system that works for you. I recommend using one system to track all aspects of your life: work, personal, family, and household obligations. The system itself can be spread across multiple tools, but you need to have an integrated view of everything that is on your plate.
- Idea Management. Ideas are the new oil. But they are everywhere, making it easy to lose track of them. In the churn of your daily tasks and obligations, you often lose sight of your most innovative ideas. Establishing a system to capture, organize, and revisit your ideas ensures that your creativity doesn’t get sidelined. This practice not only fosters innovation but also serves as a reservoir of inspiration for future projects. If you are ready to explore this domain farther, I encourage you to consume content from Tiago Forte, author of Building a Second Brain.
- Email management. Every professional I know gets too many emails, and most people spend way too much time dealing with them. What about you? How many hours a day do you spend reading and writing email? I bet it is a lot more than it should be. In his book A World Without Email, Cal Newport argues that email has made us much less productive, as well as making us miserable. Sounds like a losing proposition, yet it is the world we live in. The less time you can spend in your inbox, dealing with other people’s problems and priorities, the better off you’ll be. Modern email clients have many tools and options for helping you categorize, prioritize, and handle email. It is worth putting some time and effort into building and constantly improving your email management system to allow you to minimize the time you spend in your inbox while ensuring that you still appear professional and responsive.
- Financial system. Finances play a huge role in our lives, and many for many people, dealing with finances is a source of stress. Having a solid financial system helps to lessen that stress, acting as a navigational tool to guide you towards your financial goals. Rather than being in a reactive state when you get paid, having a system allows you to pre-determine where you want to direct your money. This provides you with stability, which is what you really want from money. A well-structured financial system provides the clarity and confidence needed to make informed decisions and mitigate financial stress, positioning you to move forward professionally.
- Goal setting and tracking system. While I put this at the end, it is arguably one of the most important systems to have. Knowing what you are working towards should shape everything you do and each decision you make. That means that being clear about what you want and why you want it is so important. Too many people rely on one-off approaches like setting New Year’s resolutions, only to discover a few months into the year that they’ve not made any progress. You can’t do that and be successful. You absolutely need to know where you’re headed, and at various time scales; in 10 years, in 5 years, in the next year, in the next quarter, in the next month, the next week, and today. You need to have a multi-time scale system and plan that helps you figure out what you should work on, so that you know that your actions today will lead you towards your grand vision. Otherwise, you might put a lot of time and energy heading the wrong way.
The Path Forward
I won’t lie; developing all these systems is a lot of work and takes time. Think of it as an investment though; by putting time and effort into building systems, you’ll free yourself up in the long run.
The good news is that you don’t need to do it all at once. In fact, you shouldn’t try to do that. You’ll need to experiment and refine each of your systems with time, making constant adjustments and improvements as you discover what works, what doesn’t, and where gaps remain. Remember that the goal is not to create the perfect systems, but to build ones that grow with you.
Start small, experiment with different techniques, and refine your approach based on what works best for you. The beauty of systems lies in their flexibility and adaptability; they are living frameworks that grow as you do.
Don’t continue to flail around blindly; start crafting systems today to help you navigate the complexities of modern life. These systems are the bedrock upon which you can build an incredible career and life that is both fulfilling and sustainable.
Systems are not about restricting freedom—they’re about creating it.
Quotation that I have been pondering
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Journal Prompt
It will take a lot of time and energy to develop and mature all the systems mentioned above, but the results of implementing them will be drastic. Don’t underestimate the impact of having these in place. But don’t be so discouraged and overwhelmed that you don’t start building them. Focus in on the system you think will have the biggest impact in your life, and start building that one system.
Journal your thoughts on the above questions. Then design one system to make that area of life better, keeping it very simple. Over the next few weeks, keep expanding, refining, and adjusting the system.
Pay attention to the results you get. I’m sure you’ll be hooked on the idea of building systems, and you’ll get busy building the next.
Your Call To Adventure
Feeling stuck in your current role and ready to transform the role work plays in your life?
This is the adventure of a lifetime, and you are the hero of your own epic career tale. On every great journey, the hero has a trusted sidekick to keep them on track.
Think of me as your sherpa, experienced in navigating the daunting path of career transformation. I’ve guided many others, helping them attain heights they hadn’t imagined possible for them.
Are you ready for your heroic journey? I’m here, ready to help you ascend to new peaks. Let’s start this adventure together.
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