The Systems
An ongoing exploration of the systems that guide my life
Systems have changed my life. They’re the friends that keep me on track, the consistent guardrails that keep me in line while also allowing me to move beyond the lines, knowing that they’re always there for me, when I’m ready to make my way back.
I didn’t grow up in a home with systems in place, and it took me longer than I care to admit to put them into practice. As a kid I desperately wanted them, going so far as to ask for chore charts, or permission to alphabetize the cereals (!), but these asks were often met with laughter or even ridicule. I knew that if I was able to make sense of the outer world through routine and systems, I’d also find a way to make sense of my inner world. But even with this deep longing and understanding that these very systems provided the keys to where I wanted to go, I didn’t know how to implement them. And that took me a very long time to figure out. Just because I wanted them, didn’t mean I knew how to create them. So at a certain point in my life, about four years ago, I made the decision to really, truly and finally get organized and to put the systems in place that would allow me to actualize the kind of life that I wanted. I wasn’t sure how to do it, but I did know that starting with David Allen’s book that I had been carrying around with me for decades might be the best place to start. His approach to systems and productivity looks pretty textbook, even staid and corporate; I think he might even be wearing a pocket protector on the cover of one of his older books. But I believe that he’s a spiritual teacher dressed up in a suit, carrying a briefcase; that he’s actually sharing a path towards enlightenment. That sounds drastic, but the learnings I’ve received from him are profound, and not just on a to-do list level. They’ve allowed me to completely trust my mind and my thoughts, and that has created a freedom I have never known before.
“Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.”
David Allen
