Our life is full of setting goals and planning projects.
Along the way to achieving these, we fumble.
Adjust course.
Start over.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about supporting systems and infrastructure.
The processes that provide the engine behind goals, projects, and life in general.
Less focused on what and why.
More focused on the how.
The solid processes in place to flow through the day.
The ones that don’t let priorities fall through the cracks.
Yesterday, a quote crossed my desk that has had me thinking ever since.
“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”
-W. Edwards Demmings
The idea that our performance is driven by the systems we create.
Those systems have the potential to propel us forward.
Or pull us back. This caused me to think about the results I want.
Typically, when I think about results, the focus is on the strategies to get there – what to do.
Instead, I think more focus needs to be placed on the processes – how to get it done.
In most cases, I know the what, but the how is complex.
Or scary.
Or currently inefficient.
Doing things how they’ve always been done.
Below are a few links posts I’ve written on systems and processes.
I hope they might spark some new ideas for your infrastructure.
Start at home and expand systems from there.
Habits as an integral part of our life infrastructure and systems.
One from just a couple weeks ago, how to use systems in goal setting.
Another more applicable to work, ironically also with a quote from Edward Deming.
Your Turn
Have you done an audit of your systems lately?
Do you have a big goal in your mind? If so, what systems are in place to support that goal?
Are there inefficient systems in your life that could be streamlined to discover more time in your day?