Last week, a client asked me for an example of a working system, and on autopilot, I said what it wasn’t and then moved to an incomplete definition: it’s how you decide what matters, where things live, and what brings you back to them.
A productivity expert plugging his book this month sells a full year of helpful systems, and when I looked at them, so many seemed too obvious to name. For example, a “birthday reminder system” that is essentially putting birthdays of people you love on your calendar as annual recurring dates. I’ve had that in place since whenever I set up my first Google Calendar, and never thought to give it a label. We’ve made the word bigger than the purpose.
Even in last week’s newsletter, when discussing the difference between tools and systems on LinkedIn, a commenter said “sometimes a spreadsheet and a consistent conversation really are enough.” And they are, but sometimes simple seems unimpressive.
A system is what you promise everything that comes in so that it gets the attention it needs. “Everything that comes in” could be absolutely anything: a book recommendation or an email you have to reply to or a new project you have to lead or a trip you need to plan.
Every single time my husband goes to the barber, he comes home with at least two new restaurant recommendations, and I don’t know what this barber knows about hair, but he knows a lot about food.
That restaurant recommendation needs:
A way in → in this case, it’s the conversation from the barber to my occasionally forgetful husband. While many of the things I say are forgotten because I “say so many things,” the barber has an edge in that he presumably says less. However, my husband, Jeff, has to make sure that recommendation gets out of the barbershop and to me so that it’s not lost forever.
A decision on what to do with it → in this example, we need to look up the restaurant, decide if we want to go and, if yes, when.
A home → if we’re going soon, we can make a reservation and now its home is the calendar. If we’re not going soon, we need to not forget about it, so it goes on our shared Apple Note “J&K Restaurant Recs.”
A way back → when we’re planning an evening out, we check the list and see if we want to try a new, barber-endorsed place. So far, the method has brought us to The Stockton Inn and we’ve found our way back there many, many times since.
We don’t call this our “Restaurant Recommendation Tracking System,” but we could. So many examples at work could be managed the same way, with the spreadsheet and conversation the commenter suggested. There, an item comes up in the conversation (a way in), people decide whether it matters (a decision), and if it does, it goes right on that spreadsheet (a home), and the consistency of the conversation ensures it’s not forgotten about (a way back).
Those four take care of each thing that comes in, but there are two more things only you can supply: where it’s all headed, and what’s realistic for the season you’re in.
Our restaurant list has a goal beyond just capturing restaurants, even if we’ve never said it out loud. We love to cook, so we go out one night a week at most, and there just aren’t as many slots in the rotation as places we want to go. That list has to be for the places worth one of those precious nights: the ones a bit of a drive away, the ones we’d travel for, or the ones where reservations are hard to get.
And our use of the list has some seasonality too. Most of the year, it’s just me and Jeff at home, but when we have kids home for the loooooooong breaks that come with college schedules, date nights went from “nice-to-have” to “mission critical.” We didn’t need new places to go to get out of the house, but “we’re going to try a new restaurant” always sounded like a nicer reason to leave than “we need a break from you.”
I’m not sure that when my client asked for an example of a working system she wanted to hear about a bon vivant barber, a shared Apple Note, and the occasional need for escape from a college kid. But that’s the whole thing: a way in, a decision, a home, and a way back for everything that comes in, plus somewhere it’s headed and an honest read on the season. Everything else is just what you call it.
