Key Take-Aways

• Understand the problem before building the solution.
• Build around your current capacity, not your ideal self.
• Find the highest-leverage changes.
• Review, adjust, and let the system evolve.

Why creating systems is such a challenge

Creating a system means changing something that already exists. To get something new, you have to give something else up.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, either. You have to give the system time to settle into your life before deciding whether it’s working.

Like compound interest, systems don’t scratch the immediate-gratification itch. Your reward sensors have to adjust.

A well-designed system should eventually run so effectively that it’s boring.

For a novelty addict like me, that sounds like hell.

Your mind craves the familiar, and my familiar is chaos.

So I need to be patient and let the system do its job.

Let’s start by understanding what parts make a system.
Then you can start building your own.

The anatomy of a system

A system is an interconnected set of processes and habits to achieve desired outcomes, it’s a recipe and your desired outcome is the final result.

Like any other recipe, you need to understand the ingredients, the process and the final product so you can making your own killer dish.

I can go more in depth into the anatomy of systems more in another post if you’d like, but this list is for you to familiarize yourself with, so you understand where to start, or what you may be missing.

• Define your goals (however you want to categorize them) – A clear and defined goal gives you a direction
• Create a simple daily journal (for reflection and planning) – Record your thoughts and actions for data
• Build a habit tracker (for consistency in key behaviors) – Track highest leverage habits
• Capture notes and ideas (in a searchable, organized way) – Make it concise and searchable
• Develop review processes (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly) – Regular reviews let you course correct as needed
• Design planning workflows (that connect daily actions to bigger goals) – Start small and build on existing habits

Now that you know the basic ingredients, it’s time to start cooking.
Before you do, how about some tips and tricks on how to tailor it to your needs.

tips and tricks

The short-term pain is often better than the long-term agony, and the correct decision is usually the more annoying one.
Those are two lessons I’ve been relearning daily.
Here are a few short-term pains you can learn from now, so you can save yourself some pain down the road.

Don’t Chase the Quick Fix

A quick fix rarely solves the underlying problem.

It might make today’s problem disappear, but if you don’t understand why the problem happened in the first place, you’ll probably find yourself dealing with it again.
That’s why reviewing your problems and solutions regularly is so important.

Let historical proof tell you the truth.

“In our search for the quick fix, we often rush into “solutions” without taking the time to understand the full impact of our actions. One of the tricky things about systems is that they usually point our attention toward short-term fixes and away from fundamental solutions.”
— Daniel Kim, The Systems Thinker

Get Comfortable With Boredom

Systems are supposed to eliminate problems.
That sounds great until you realize how strange it can feel when the problems you’ve been used to solving every day suddenly aren’t there anymore.

It’s important to settle into your new normal instead of immediately looking for something new to change.
You’ll have new problems soon enough.

“My hot take is that most people system-hop because they’re seeking to avoid the discomfort that inevitably comes from actually engaging with a productivity system. Implementing any system requires confronting chaos and resistance—and switching systems offers temporary relief from that reality.”
— Marie Poulin, 2025

Find Your Leverage Points

A leverage point is a place where a small change can have a large impact.
Instead of trying to improve everything at once, review your process and look for the changes that give you the most benefit for the least amount of effort.

You don’t always need to work harder.
Sometimes you just need to push the right place.

“These are places within a complex system […] where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.”
— Donella Meadows, Leverage Points

Build Around Your Capacity

Your capacity grows with time, but your system needs to match where you are right now.
A system that only works when you’re motivated, well-rested, and having a perfect day isn’t a sustainable system.
Build something you can maintain when your energy dips and life gets messy.

“A system that can’t bend will eventually break. Life changes. Your energy shifts. Your priorities evolve.”
— April Smith, 2026

Track What Happens

What gets tracked gets improved.
When it comes to your own habits and patterns, the past is data.

Record your actions and reactions so you can look back, identify patterns, and course-correct without judging yourself for what already happened.

You aren’t keeping score.
You’re collecting evidence.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Before you start building, ask yourself:

• What are you trying to achieve overall?
• How do different areas of your work and life need to connect?
• What information needs to flow between different components?
• How will you maintain and evolve this over time?

Your daily problems aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

But the sooner you start designing your days and your systems around them, the sooner your day starts becoming yours.

So what does that actually look like?

The system is waiting for you

You don’t need the perfect system.

You don’t need to copy someone else’s workflow, download another productivity app, or completely redesign your life overnight.

You need to understand yourself well enough to see what’s working, what’s not, and where a small change could make the biggest difference.

Then you build.
You test.
You review.
You adjust.

That’s systems thinking.

It’s not about creating a life that never has problems. It’s about creating a life where you have better ways of dealing with them.

Your system doesn’t have to look like mine.
It doesn’t have to look like PARA, GTD, or BASB.
It just has to help you become the person you’re trying to become.

Your life is already running on systems.
The question is whether you’re going to keep living inside systems you inherited by default, or start designing them yourself.

The system is waiting for you.

citations

Smith, April “One Day at a Time: How to Build Systems You Can Actually Maintain” The One Day https://theoneday.co/blogs/news/one-day-at-a-time-build-sustainable-systems

Kim, Daniel “Fixes That Fail: Oiling the Squeaky Wheel—Again and Again . . .” TheSystemsThinker https://thesystemsthinker.com/fixes-that-fail-oiling-the-squeaky-wheel-again-and-again/

Poulin, Marie “The universal principles behind every productivity system” NotionMastery https://notionmastery.com/the-universal-principles-behind-every-productivity-system/

Meadows, Donella “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System” The Donella Meadows Project https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/