Systems of Chaos

Do something enough times and you naturally start to see what can be improved. Create systems around it, and you get predictable results that can adapt and scale. This is true in work, and it is also true for individuals. The key is having the strength to pull things apart and rebuild them while still executing.

Once mastered, you begin to see life as it truly is: a series of repeating loops and patterns that can be optimized.

Why you would want to do this comes down to a simple idea: reducing cognitive load lets you live longer in your genius. That is the skill set you excel at, not the drudgery that blocks you from using it.

Now, I want to be clear: not everything has to be or should be optimized, but a lot can. Once you pull off the plastic, life never looks the same.

There is only so much the mind can take at once, and if you have ever noticed how tired you get after a long day of challenging work, you have felt the exhaustion of high cognitive loads. Surprisingly, those days are generally the most exhausting when the majority of your time is filled with tasks of general administration, reporting, or meetings.

You can see this for yourself by logging a week of work, noting the various tasks you perform, and making sure to list how you feel at the end of each day and how you wake up feeling the next. The reflection can be surprising.

Once you have recognized the pattern, you can start optimizing. You do this by first understanding the motivating factors behind your circumstances: knowing what you are trying to achieve and noting how your actions connect to your personal goals, actions, and decisions. If at any point reading this you are realizing that you have never thought about this, do not worry; most people do not, which is why chaos engulfs them.

A simple exercise is to work backwards from a quarter: list what needs to be done, then map your weekly actions against it to see how they contribute to the desired results. If you find most of your days go to actions unrelated to those quarterly outcomes, then we have a problem, and a logical place to begin optimizing.

Ask yourself:

• Of all the repeated tasks you noted in your week, which takes the most effort and time?

• Why?

• Who does it benefit?

• Who relies on it?

Here you can rely on the 5 Whys to boil down the activity until you get to the essence of the problem being solved by the task. You may discover that it is actually nonsensical or based on circumstances that no longer apply. In your exploration, you may find the assumptions no longer make sense and the task has become a habit born from status quo, not efficiency.

This happens to a lot of teams and departments that use routine as management instead of introspection and reflection at set times. It is just as true for an individual.

Having found the biggest item, reviewed it, and reflected on it, we turn our attention to how we can automate it, build a workflow around it, or remove it with AI. Most repetitive tasks are enshrined in pattern recognition and steps, perfect places for AI and computer automation to step in. If you are screaming you are not technical at this point, I am going to help you with something: time to learn. We have come to a point where no one can reasonably expect or excuse themselves from learning technology at their job or in their life.

If that upsets you, good. Use that anger to learn something empowering that will change your life and make you competitive in the world that has arrived. We will save that discussion for another day, but no, my dear anon, the world is racing toward an augmented human existence. Self-driving cars, AI, and smart contacts are just a hint of what is to come.

Once you have optimized your first item and experienced an increase in time and thought, you will immediately want to start optimizing everything. This is good, but do not do that just yet. It is time to focus on the order of operations.

Remember that simple math concept we learned in grade school? Yes, that one.

Life has an order of operations that extends into every aspect of it. It is systemic, and once seen, you can begin to understand the order of operations behind just about everything. It is architecture. It flows. It is results.

Take this thinking and boil your other tasks down into their order of operations, noting what comes first:

• Why?

• When?

• How?

• What?

• Where?

Afterward, you will have a blueprint of what matters most, and you will now see the system inhabiting your life. Depending on what you find, that can be awe-inspiring or debilitating. Stay positive here, everything can be adjusted.

Once implemented, you will start finding more time. More joy. More opportunity. It is amazing, because you have actually created time.

This is where living in your genius creates alpha. Remember, knowledge compounds. So does time and experience, which is why you will want to establish a routine of review on a monthly or quarterly basis, where you rerun this process to find new and better ways to do things. I run mine every six weeks and adjust quarterly.

For teams, I have found this to be best done quarterly and tied to goals and measures that consider results. If you implement this process at the individual level, then at the group level, you will see an amazing gain. Now, this assumes three character traits that some may not find easy to maintain:

1. Discipline – repeating the routine

2. Grit – facing reality head-on (good/bad)

3. Accountability – taking ownership (good/bad)

If you struggle with these three, this process will be challenging, but it is still worth doing as it will force you to develop, even if it hurts.

I have seen firsthand how much this approach changes lives. It becomes a bellwether of performance and leadership development. With a systemic approach, chaos is reduced significantly, allowing individuals to blossom and teams to over index.

The only thing required is the maturity to face yourself, which, ironically, is always the main challenge in life.

Photos by the author. Shot in Portugal 2019.