Staying Afloat
Systems to Lean On When Times Get Tough
Yesterday I spoke about my need for systems that I can fall back on when I don’t have the brain power to make the best choices. As soon as I wrote it I thought: oh yeah, like Atomic Habits…duh! If you’ve not read James Clear’s fantastic work, one of my favourite ideas from the book is encapsulated in this brilliant quote:
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve thought long and hard about making my life easier with systems. In fact I’ve already got quite a few that are working well for me.
Fighting the laundry monsters
When I moved into my house 5 years ago, the washing machine was in the basement and we kept forgetting laundry because we couldn’t see it because it was so out of the way. So I did the entirely reasonable thing and got a builder in to build a laundry cupboard on our upstairs landing. And having the washer and dryer within view, on the same floor as the clothes that need washing has made a massive difference.
The only thing I need now is a laundry folding robot ;-)
Work systems
I use Notion to manage all of my work. All of my tasks in one place stops me from getting overwhelmed when things get busy. I use templates for things that I do on repeat so I can save time. And I keep reviewing it. Anytime something slips through the cracks, I can tweak the design to fill the crack. It really does the heavy lifting so that my poor tired brain can focus on the heavy lifting.
Morning routine
I’m absolutely not nailing my morning routine just yet, but one thing that we’ve implemented for the kids is using Amazon Alexa devices around the house. Alexa keeps reminding us of the time and what we need to do: “It’s 8am, time to go downstairs for breakfast.”
It’s so simple, and it means that the kids’ routine rolls on day in day out and doesn’t need me to keep track of the time.
Systems don’t have to be complex, in fact the most effective are laughably simple.
I’ve been looking around my house at the pinch points, the areas that are clutter magnets, the things that are constantly going missing and thinking of systems that can prevent the problems occurring.
What do you think?
What systems could help you out?
