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CHAPTER 7

SIMPLIFY SYSTEMS

What I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.

GRETCHEN RUBIN

I’m a terrible runner. Sometimes I see people running along the road, blissfully moving like graceful antelopes, and I so desperately want that. I imagine myself running Chariots of Fire–style with the slow piano playing in the background. I go and lace up my shoes, I spend fifteen minutes stretching and I run like an antelope. Until ten minutes later—when I remember how much I truly don’t like running. I’m red-faced, out of breath, and officially out. Spent. No gas left in the tank and no real desire to keep running.

You see, I’m in love with the idea of running—not the running itself.

And I believe that’s how people feel when they see these highly disciplined ways of living. We see an image on Pinterest of a pantry where the food is divided into twenty-five thousand labeled containers (which are, of course, color coordinated!), or we read a book telling us that we need to fold our clothes in a very strict, very precise way, and we think, Yes! This—this is what I need!

We gather all the supplies, and we fold our clothes military style for fifteen minutes—until reality sets in. And then we are spent. No gas left in the tank and no real desire to use a ten-step process to fold a shirt.

Yes, the images are Pinterest-worthy, but is that really the life you want to live? I’ll be honest, being a highly disciplined person sounds terrible—all that time not doing what you really want to do? You are setting yourself up for a future with some serious marble jar moments.

That’s for the birds, my friend. Because here’s the truth: it’s not discipline you need—it’s simple systems. Good, healthy systems aligned with the priorities we discovered in section 1 of this book. And the best news? Good systems run on autopilot once we establish them.

Systems are a key part of living the life we want, because while it’s important to spend time focused on priorities, we still have all the other tasks to do. There are the not-so-glamorous activities like home maintenance, managing finances, getting dinner on the table, and then there’s laundry.

What is it about laundry? It seems to be the bane of everyone’s existence. How is it possible that we need a mountain’s worth of clothes cleaned every single week? But we do. All these things must be done.

How do we keep everything running and still make time for what’s important? I hear women asking, begging to know if there’s a magic solution—and there is. Systems. Strong systems harness the patterns of habits and make tasks happen automatically. Like I said—magic.

When I typed that paragraph, I literally felt myself exhale, because that’s how I feel when I have systems in place. Systems make our lives easier. Doesn’t that sound like something we all want? But we have a tendency to overcomplicate tasks when really we just need to break them down into bite-size pieces that feel manageable and achievable.

EAT THAT ELEPHANT

Have you heard the phrase “eat the elephant”? It comes from the African proverb, “The best way to eat an elephant standing in your path is to cut it up into little pieces.” Now I’m not serving elephant for dinner at my house, but I do have a mountain of laundry in my path (which could be mistaken for an elephant) and about a thousand other things that must be done.

This concept of taking a big item and breaking it down into pieces applies to our tasks, projects, goals—basically anything we want to tackle. Bite-size wins build momentum and bring us a little satisfaction bit by bit. Happiness increases if we view our tasks1 as a series of many small milestones instead of one huge, looming chore. While laundry isn’t scary, it is overwhelming to think we will never get it accomplished, which is why we put it off or why we feel so irritated by it. Small bites, though, give us something achievable to focus on.

Let’s go back to my ten minutes of antelope-like glory. (It’s a short-lived phenomenon, so I need to stretch it out where I can.) I don’t ever think about running a mile because if I did I would never even lace up my shoes. Running, for me, is an elephant.

I think about what’s doable for me. All right, I think to myself, I can make it to the stop sign (which, mind you, is about 150 yards away). When I make it to the sign, I get a little sense of accomplishment and I’m encouraged to keep moving. Next up, the blue car. Then the brick house . . . and then the fire hydrant. My feet move one in front of the other until that entire elephant is stuffed down my throat, bite by bite.

MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU

Here’s the catch, though: systems need to work for you. They should be tightly bound to the life we really want to live; they should play to our strengths and our weaknesses to make life feel easier.

We flip through magazines, we scroll through social media, and we see these beautiful images of meticulously organized kitchens, exquisitely decorated office spaces, and elaborate homemade meals. We think that’s the life we are supposed to have, and we feel inadequate because our lives are not magazine-worthy.

we lose time DREAMING OF A LIFE WE COULD HAVE WHEN THE ONE RIGHT IN FRONT OF US COULD BE even more beautiful

You need to ask yourself:

Are you looking for a Pinterest-worthy life, or are you craving the life that feels happy to you?

Do you want a Facebook-worthy life where you worry whether the napkins are pressed and if you should make homemade chocolate chips?

Are you searching for an Instagram-worthy life where you stress about if the pillows on the couch are at the right angle or if your abs look good in a bikini top you would never wear in public anyway?

I’m guessing, though, that you are more like me. I’ve got enough on my plate worrying about whether I’m raising responsible kids, whether I’m accomplishing my goals, and whether my work feels strong.

We lose time dreaming of a life we could have, when the one right in front of us could be even more beautiful and livable. We need to create systems that feel attainable and fit the lifestyle we really want—not the one we think we are supposed to want.

When I was growing up, we always had a set of color-coordinated towels in every size imaginable perfectly placed on the towel bar in each bathroom. I remember asking my mother why. Why did we have such fancy, fluffy towels in our bathrooms that no one was allowed to use? I found it baffling; it made no sense.

I recall her shrugging her shoulders as she meticulously refolded and straightened the towels on the bar and explained, “We have these towels because that’s just what you are supposed to do.” That’s what we are supposed to do.

Our job isn’t to question why; it’s to live up to the expectations.

It wasn’t her fault. She was following the rules—the story she told herself: ladies with nice houses have beautifully useless linens for no one to use. Ever.

I think that’s the moment I decided I would never have a towel bar in my bathroom. And I don’t. Every time I move into a house, I take down the towel bars and put in a set of hooks. In my heart of hearts, I’m honest with myself. I know I won’t trifold a towel and position it beautifully on the bar. Quite frankly, no one else in my house will either. But we will place it on a hook.

Keeping the bathroom clean can be an elephant, but there are no dirty towels on my floor because I didn’t fight against my weaknesses. Instead, I acknowledged them and built a system to work for me. It’s the same with clothes. I am not good at folding clothes and I don’t enjoy it. There are about ten thousand things I’d rather do than fold clothes, including hanging by my fingernails.

Recognizing my weakness, I set up closets so more clothes can be hung. Very few items go into drawers, and those that do have bins to create sections that allow me to toss in items like socks and underwear while keeping everything organized. I don’t want to spend my life folding. I want to spend it living.

Systems should bring harmony to your life, but when they aren’t in tune they can feel disruptive. Rigid systems with no flexibility are primed to fail because they are made of glass—marble jar glass.

Systems need to work for you. Play to your strengths and your weaknesses. Let’s embrace our imperfectly beautiful selves and then make our systems work to our advantage. This might be why we’ve all started and quit a thousand different ways to keep ourselves organized, resulting in us feeling like failures. But it was the system that failed—not us. The system simply didn’t work for the way we work.

Designing our systems to work with our strengths and weaknesses sets us up for success. This is true because when we fight against our natural tendencies and inclinations, we wear ourselves out.

TAKE THE THINKING OUT OF IT

Your brain takes up a mere 2 percent2 of your body mass but consumes an astonishing 20 percent of your calories each day. Your brain is a calorie-burning machine, so it loves to conserve energy when it can. Then it can apply big effort to the important items you want to tackle, like your goals.

Your brain, just like your body, has a limited amount of calories, and when your brain is working hard making decisions, it wears itself out. Decision fatigue sets in.

That moment at the end of the day when you feel brain-dead? That feeling is real—your brain is literally running out of calories and just can’t function. It’s not about willpower or discipline. Your brain simply has no gas left in the tank and no real desire to keep making good choices.

Most times we aren’t even aware we are low on mental energy, and our brain continues working but starts to look for shortcuts. It does this in two different ways: ACTS IMPULSIVELY: In other words, it stops spending the energy needed to think through your actions.

I’m hungry and the donut that’s been sitting out in the break room since yesterday looks good. I should eat it.

DOES NOTHING: We simply choose not to choose.

I know my budget is tight, but I can’t decide which of these pairs of shoes looks better. I’ll get both.

Our perfectly rational brain loses3 its ability to make good decisions when we overload it with work. In a Stanford University study, researchers divided students into two groups. Group A had to memorize a two-digit number while Group B memorized a seven-digit number. After memorizing the number, they were asked to walk down a hall where they were offered two snack choices: a piece of cake or fruit salad. Students who memorized the seven digits were twice as likely to choose the unhealthy snack as Group A.

When we give the brain extra work—in this case, simply five extra numbers to memorize—it gets overloaded and loses its ability to make good decisions. Knowing the right choice takes brainpower4, and when we overtax our brains with extra thinking, we use up this valuable resource.

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Understanding decision fatigue felt like a lightbulb moment for Holly. As a former army officer, she was used to making fast-paced, often life-altering, decisions in her job. Being retired means that many of her decisions may seem less significant, but in her own words, “Since they involve my family5, they are at the top of my ‘Get it right the first time’ list. . . . I don’t want to keep space in my mind for ‘What do I have to do next?’ Let’s just write it down and make it a scheduled item. Less stress, less worry—I know I’ve got it handled.” There’s a lot of empowerment in that last statement of Holly’s—it feels good, doesn’t it? When we feel like we have it handled—like we can count our marbles instead of smashing those jars? Confidence looks good on Holly. It looks good on you too.

Holly is taking charge and taking the thinking out of it. That’s what we need to do too. When we spend our days uncertain where to focus, burning through the calories in our brains, our brainpower depletes and we can no longer use it on important tasks. We want to get our brains working at full capacity by allowing them to focus on what’s most important—not on trivial decisions that need to be made.

Using habits to our advantage does that. Tying habits into our systems allows us to streamline our thinking and helps eliminate decision fatigue so we can spend our energy in the most impactful way.

GOOD HABITS GET A BAD RAP

Habit can feel like a bad word. We hear about habits and we think about biting our nails or snacking too much or smoking. We think all habits are bad6, but researchers at Duke University actually found that about 40 to 45 percent of the actions we make each day are actually habits, not really decisions.

Think about it. How taxing would it be if we had to think about every little action we make throughout our day? What would it be like if we had to concentrate every morning on getting dressed? When we first learned to put on our pants as toddlers, it took immense effort. We had to sit down on the floor, legs splayed out in front of us, as we put in one leg, then the other. With tongues poking out between our lips (somehow helping us focus our attention), we wrestled with getting the pants hiked up and untwisted.

And don’t get me started on that button at the top! I vividly remember my mom buying me my first pair of button fly jeans and thinking that woman was crazy to think I would ever get it figured out and buttoned in less than ten minutes!

The good news is that I did eventually master my button fly, and I’m guessing you did too. We now get dressed without giving it a second thought—we can have a conversation or watch TV while doing it. Here’s what’s really interesting: you probably don’t realize this, but each time you put on your pants, you put the same leg in first. Yes, every time. You see, putting on pants is a habit.

Using habits allows your brain to focus its energy on what really matters in your day. Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, shared that when you start implementing habits, “the brain starts working less and less7. The brain can almost completely shut down. . . . And this is a real advantage, because it means you have all of this mental activity you can devote to something else.” Something else, you know, like your priorities and goals. Habits free up our mental space so we can focus.

People who appear to be disciplined are really people who have harnessed the power of habits. This is what makes them seem disciplined when in reality a never-ending supply of willpower doesn’t exist.

We need to leverage our habits to free up our brain space, to take the thinking out of it and allow ourselves the ability to make the choices that really matter. Building strong habits isn’t hard; it just takes some extra energy at the beginning. Once they are established, habits require less effort, less energy, and less thinking to maintain. They take the thinking out of tasks. Your brain stops wasting calories and channels all its energy to move you forward.

THE FOUR STEPS TO CREATING HABITS

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ARTICULATE THE HABIT

The first step is to articulate the habit. Ask yourself, Why do I want to build a new habit? Anytime we want to start something new, we should begin with a foundation of why. We want to allow our North Star to be our constant guide, making the choice clear. This, of course, speaks directly to our internal locus of control we talked about in chapter 2 and helps increase our motivation to cultivate this habit.

IDENTIFY THE CUES

Next, we need to identify the cues. Duhigg defines these as the trigger to tell our brain to instigate the habit. He believes there are five cues8: location, time, emotional state, other people, and preceding action. Cues can be as simple as leaving our gym shoes by the door to help trigger us to run after work or leaving our planners on our desks to remind us to start each day by creating a priority list. Cues are the biggest key to unlocking our habits because once we know what triggers an action, we can begin to define our behavior.

DEFINE THE BEHAVIOR

What actions do we want to make into a healthy habit? An important part of defining the behavior is understanding what habits expert Gretchen Rubin calls “loopholes.” She wrote, “When we try to form and keep habits9, we often search . . . for justifications that will excuse us from keeping this particular habit.” We need to identify our potential stumbling blocks—ahem, excuses we’ll use—so we can set ourselves up for success.

Setting and establishing habits takes effort at the beginning. It might be tempting to think of this as one more thing on your plate, but this is an investment.

In my liveWELL Method course, Brenda shared she was bristling against this idea at first. She said, “I have felt for a while that life was controlling me10, instead of the other way around, so I’ve been trying to reclaim it.” You may have felt this way yourself. Trust me, you are not alone in feeling like your plate is already too full.

This idea of adding structure might feel unappealing because in our hearts we want to “run and be free,” like Brenda said. I hear you. At the beginning, it does take effort because it requires conscious work to create these habits. But give it some time. Most people have a sweet spot11 of about sixty-six days for a habit to set.

Once a habit sticks, it should feel less constraining because you effectively take the thinking out of the action long term. Forming a habit does take intention, so it’s important to make sure not to skip the final step—make a plan.

MAKE A PLAN

A good plan includes the three Rs—record, reward, and redirect. We want to track our progress. When we are working on cultivating daily habits, it’s difficult for us to see our progress unless we find a way to track growth. What gets written gets measured; what gets measured gets achieved. Progress is a bit like watching our children grow: we simply cannot see it until one day they are suddenly towering over us. We want to be mindful with establishing these habits, so it’s important to stop and take note. A simple habit tracker is ideal in helping you track and measure your progress.

Another important part of creating a plan is to make sure you reward yourself. Small rewards work as celebrations and springboards to keep you moving. The reward can be as small as giving yourself a kind word or listening to a favorite song.

Brain research shows that rewards are a key part of setting the patterns of habits in place. Once the habit becomes set12, the reward is no longer needed, but we require positive reinforcement at the beginning to act as a message to the brain, telling it this is an activity worth remembering in the future. Remember, the reward is not the end goal. It’s just a way to push you forward and encourage your brain to accept the habit.

Let me share some unfiltered honesty with you—we will stumble. We will stray off track—it happens to all of us. We need to remind ourselves that habits take time and there may be days when we forget our cues or feel frustrated. We can’t get caught up when we fail; we need to be prepared to pick ourselves back up, recover, and redirect.

Take time and allow the process to unfold, because it is worth it. Over time, this loop becomes one solidifying action—a habit that essentially takes the thinking out of a task. Your brain stops wasting calories and instead channels all its energy to move you forward. Habits are only difficult at the beginning; then they become easy because they require less effort, less energy, and less thinking to maintain once they are established.

The trick is just understanding and unlocking our habits so we can cultivate the healthy ones and curb the ones we don’t really like.

BREAKING BAD HABITS

I’ve walked with you through the process of establishing a habit—but what about habits we don’t really love? What about the ones we want to break? Let me share how I used this same process to my own advantage to break a bad habit and then establish a new, healthier one.

I am terrible about checking email. Terrible in the sense that I’m like Pavlov’s dog. Every time I hear the little ping of a new email, I must immediately stop what I’m doing and go check it. I don’t have this issue with texts or phone calls—just email. The need for the little hit of dopamine mixed with my perfectionism addiction drives me to constantly strive to zero out my inbox count.

If I am in the middle of deep work, if I’m in the midst of reading a book with my kids, or even if I am having a conversation, when I hear that ping I begin to feel the itch. It’s like a scratchy tag on the back of my shirt, irritating me, calling to me to stop whatever I’m doing to go check it. It doesn’t seem to matter that at least 25 percent of the time it’s spam. In my mind, it must be checked immediately.

My first step was acknowledging this weakness. I had to admit I somehow accidentally built up a habit of checking email incessantly and I needed to stop. I knew I wanted to limit my email time so I could reclaim my time for my important work—that was my why.

I channeled my inner Nancy Drew and discovered I had a few cues that caused me to be in my inbox far too much: the ping of the computer when a new email arrived (preceding action) and the inbox email count at the bottom of my screen clearly mocking me (emotional state). These two cues were like a siren song calling me into the depth of my inbox and out of the space where I truly wanted to be. I needed to kill the cues and redefine my behavior. I set a goal to establish a new habit of checking email four times a day: in the morning, before lunch, midafternoon, and early evening. I set a reminder on my phone to notify me when it was time to dive into my inbox.

I’ll be honest: thinking of checking only four times a day almost gave me the shakes because I have a couple of excuses I tell myself. Gretchen Rubin would define13 these loopholes as “concern for others” (Other people rely on me to reply quickly!) and “lack of control” (I can’t help myself!). I acknowledged that these were excuses and set myself up for success.

Then I made my plan. Other than my four check-in times, my email program would have to be closed out to eliminate the temptation, and any noisy notifications were turned off on my phone. No blips, no pips, no beeps from email. I even turned off the vibrate option. I was serious.

I figured I was spending at least an extra thirty minutes of my day mindlessly checking email, so to reward myself, I gifted those thirty minutes back. I set myself up with a habit tracker to keep up with my progress, and on the days I did well, I used my thirty bonus minutes to do whatever I wanted. I read chapters in fiction books, I took baths, I painted my nails—all things I told myself I didn’t have time to do before. It took time, but I now feel more in control of my email—it no longer controls me. And that’s a good feeling.

That’s the feeling I want to permeate our days. With systems in place we have less stress, we are more effective, and nothing falls through the cracks. We have to let go, however, of the unattainable and the unrealistic. When we create systems playing to our strengths and weaknesses, we have gas in our tanks and real desire for the life we are living.

Let’s stop worrying about running like an antelope—trying to be what we are not. Turn off the Chariots of Fire music and put on your own soundtrack, the one that fits you and your life. Let’s work together to build simple systems for you to make life feel easier, run more smoothly, and maybe bring you a glass of wine at the end of the day.*