The personal daily life system

Do you have a system ? I know it sounds pretty weird, but the thing with the system seems to get the little things done...

Amplify’d from www.dumblittleman.com

You always lose your keys. You rarely get any exercise. There never seem to be any clean mugs. You keep forgetting to put that letter in the mailbox. You have great intentions about putting some money into your savings account each month – but you never actually do. A bunch of very different problems, but with one root cause: your system is letting you down.

Or, worse, you don't have a system at all...

Why You Need Systems I know this is going to sound a bit obsessive-compulsive, but having the right system in place – even for the smallest of tasks – is really important.

But do you have strong, reliable systems set up in your personal life? A "system" could look like any of these: You always put your keys on the hook in the kitchen You go out for a walk every evening before dinner, buying fresh vegetables on the way You always put the dishwasher on in the evening You keep your outgoing mail near the front door so that you remember to put it up You set up an automated transfer between your checking account and your savings, so that you never need to summon up the willpower to make that transfer manually

Finding the Point of Failure Very often, you do have a system in place – but it's not working. (You might not realize that it even is a system.) For instance: You leave your keys in the pocket of whatever jacket or coat you're wearing You slump on the sofa every evening and end up ordering take-out because the fridge is empty You only put the dishwasher on when you realise you've run out of clean plates ...and so on.

You probably haven't set these systems up consciously, but they're running, all the same. To fix them, you need to look for the point of failure – the moment when it all goes wrong. There's often one very specific point where you can take action to turn things around: You lock the car (fine), unlock the front door (fine), put the keys straight into your coat pocket (fail!) You write a letter (fine), put on a stamp (fine), and leave it on the kitchen table amongst a pile of papers (fail!)

Very simple actions can absolutely make the difference between success and failure. Taking just a few minutes to think up a better system – and to get into the habit of using it – can save you a lot of mistakes and wasted time. What simple systems could you put into practice today? Read more at www.dumblittleman.com

 

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