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💡 The Big Idea: Using Systems to Improve Your Productivity & Creativity

Systems are everywhere.

Your life, like everything in the world around you, is, in fact, a system. And by learning how the systems of your life work, you can tweak these systems to produce desirable results.

This process is known as systems thinking. And in this newsletter, we’re going to look at how to use systems thinking to be more productive and creative.

What is a System?

A system is:

1. A set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole, or
2. A set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method

Both of these are useful when thinking about Personal Knowledge Management (or PKM). A good PKM system will help you 1) see what’s important and 2) take action on it.

A good way to think about a system is like a factory: you put something in, do a couple of things, and you get something out of it with the same consistency. We can break this down and identify three key components that every system has:

• Input – what goes in
• Process – the actual steps and function the system will perform
• Output – what comes out

No matter how simple or complex a system may be, a system will always have these three components.

Let’s take a car, for example. The purpose of the car is to get you from one place to another. You put gas in the tank, turn on the car, and put your foot on the accelerator (input). The motor runs, the pistons fire, and the gears turn (process). As you sit in the driver’s seat, the car begins to move and takes you to your desired destination (output).

The other important thing to know about systems is that they work correctly 99% of the time. Systems generally know what to do and want to function correctly. You don’t need to give a system instructions. You don’t have to tell a seed that’s planted in the ground to grow up and produce a fruit. It’s “pre-programmed” — the seed already knows what to do.

Now that we understand how systems work let’s take a look at applying systems thinking to PKM.

How Systems Apply to PKM

PKM is all about managing the flow of information into and out of your personal systems. The output is visible in the form of both productivity and creativity.

Information comes in, you make sense of it, and then you create an output.

For productivity systems, this is pretty easy to see. There are lots of them to pick from, including:

• GTD (Getting Things Done)
• Scrum (or Kanban)
• The Ivy Lee Method
• The Pomodoro Method
• Many, many more

With all of these productivity systems, the component pieces are there:

• Input: Something we need to do
• Process: The system we use for doing the work
• Output: The thing is finished, and the item checked off on the list

All of these systems pertain to the Actions level of The PKM Stack:

But what about the Ideas level? That's a little trickier.

An idea is “a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action.” In other words, it’s not quite real yet. So until you do something with it, an idea is an imaginary representation of a tangible thing.

Which raises the question: What does a system for creativity look like?

The component pieces are actually the same:

• Input: the things we consume (read, watch, and listen to)
• Process: the development of the idea and the connection with other tangential ideas, much like syntopical reading, where you look at books in the context of the other things you’ve read
• Output: the creation of something new out of the component pieces

I actually have a framework for my creative system, which I call The Creativity Flywheel. Here’s what it looks like:

Here’s how it works:

1. Capture - collect the things that resonate
2. Curate - keep only the really good stuff
3. Cultivate - develop your ideas and give them time to grow
4. Connect - see how things fit together
5. Create - make something new of the component pieces

(Side note: Last week, I was back in Boise at the Kit Studios recording 18 new videos for a new Creativity Flywheel course I’m going to release soon. If you’re interested in finding out more, click here, and I’ll let you know when it’s ready. And if you already have LifeHQ, you’ll get it for free 😉)

One of the biggest mistakes people make with PKM is that they collect a bunch of things but don’t ever make anything new out of them.

In other words, they don’t work the system.

I believe your mind is like a water wheel — information must flow in (the Capture phase), and information must flow out (the Create phase). If there’s no outflow, the (fly)wheel stops turning. But the output doesn’t need to be a blog post, YouTube video, or podcast episode.

Sometimes, the output is something that no one else will ever see. It could also just be an opinion note in Obsidian where you attempt to wrap your head around a topic by writing about it.

The important thing is that there is an output. That’s the release valve. Without it, you’ll quickly start to feel overwhelmed about everything you’ve collected.

Improving Your Productivity & Creativity Systems

The goal of your productivity and creativity systems is to help you do more of what matters.

When it comes to improving those systems, you actually only have two options: change the inputs or change the process.

(The output is the natural result of the system. There’s really nothing you can do about that.)

Here’s what it looks like to change your inputs:

• Productivity - be more selective about the tasks and projects you engage with
• Creativity - be more intentional about the type of information you consume

Focusing just on this first step is enough to make significant improvements!

For example, when I started reading more, I found it much easier to create consistently. I didn’t have to change anything else — the higher-quality dots I was collecting meant it was easier to remix those mental Lego blocks into something new and original.

The other thing you can change is the process. But a word of caution here: get clear about what your current system is doing before you try to blow it up.

Most of the time, you don’t need to make big, sweeping changes. It’s the 1% improvements, made consistently, that will provide compound returns over time.

That’s why every time I do a personal retreat, I ask myself three questions:

• What should I START doing?
• What should I STOP doing?
• What should I KEEP doing?

These are all prompts to help me identify small changes to my systems that I can implement over the next 90 days.

And it’s those small changes that produce the big results.

😎 Something Cool: Obsidian Tasks Adds a Date Picker

Another week, another big update for the Obsidian Tasks plugin. (I actually don't like featuring the same plugin so often, but honestly, they're on a roll!)

This time around, they’ve added a date picker to the Tasks modal window that you can use to select the day you want for Due, Scheduled, or Start dates.

In terms of functionality, this doesn’t really add a whole lot. But it does make it that much easier for the average person to embrace task management in Obsidian. And while plain-text task management isn’t for everyone (i.e., if you rely on mobile reminders), using Obsidian with the Obsidian Tasks plugin gives you one of the best canvases I know of for building your own productivity system.

For example:

• I have my Task Dashboard that I use to surface tasks before making my lists
• I use Morgen (which has an Obsidian Tasks integration) to create my initial time-blocked plan
• I transfer those tasks to the note card at the beginning of my day

If you’ve looked at task management in Obsidian before, I highly recommend you do so. And if you’re curious about how I set up my Obsidian Tasks-based system, here’s a YouTube video I made about it.

📚 Book Notes: Work the System by Sam Carpenter

If you want to understand systems without diving into an academic textbook, I can’t think of a better resource than Work the System by Sam Carpenter. I typically don’t re-read books, but I must have read this one about five times. Sam does a great job of not only explaining the simple mechanics of systems but also sharing a lot of personal stories of how his business was transformed through the application of the concepts he teaches.

If you want to download my mind map book notes for Work the System, click here.

— Mike