Tag Archives: systems

If it’s important

I love this quote, “If it’s important, you’ll find  a way.  If not,  you’ll find an excuse.”

It’s similar to this Derek Sivers quote I recently shared,

“I have a concept that says that your actions reveal your values better than your words. So no matter what you say you want to do, your actions show what your values really are.”

Eight years ago I created an image for a presentation I was doing:

Here is the blog post on my Pair-a-Dimes blog about the slide and the presentation. The concept is simple: If something is important to you, you will find your way and if it’s not important enough, you’ll find reasons not to change. The greater the challenge to change, the more important it needs to be to find your way rather than finding an excuse.

A couple days later, I added two more images and shared them in a post: Leading Change – 3 Images

I think I used these three images in every presentation I did for the next few years. I wasn’t thinking about forced changes like the pandemic created, I was thinking about changes we want to create. I was thinking about the potential we envision, and how we fight the systems and habits that make excuses easier than change.

It’s easy to be a cheerleader for change. It’s much harder to spend the time removing barriers and working with the resistors of change to make it as important to them as it is to the rest of your team.

It can’t just be important to you.

“The purpose of a system is what it does.”

I just went back to my very first blog post, originally written on March 29th, 2006, and added with a reflection to DavidTruss.com 2 years later. “The purpose of a system is what it does.”

First of all, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been blogging for 16 years! At the time of my reposting this first post onto my own website, I wrote about my 2 year journey to that point, “As I approach the two year mark since first blogging this, I can honestly say that becoming a blogger has been absolutely transformative! I feel like I’ve learned more in the past 2 years than I have in 22 years of one kind of institutional learning or another.“

Now going back to the point of that post, I wonder what the purpose of our current systems are?

Social media seems to be about gaining and keeping attention at any cost.

Governments seem to be about managing risk in wasteful ways.

Law seems to be about expensive litigation with justice sometimes prevailing.

Education seems to be about ranking students for university.

Higher education seems to be about putting students into debt to pay for credentials.

Of course there are exceptions, shining examples of how things could be. But how many of our systems do things that, if you look at them you think, that’s not the purpose of that system? And if the results aren’t what we want, if our systems keep giving us unintended results, at what point do we recognize that these results are the purpose of our systems? And then, what do we do about getting to the real, intended purposes?

The 65 percent that makes it happen

I’ve been up for almost an hour and a half. On a regular work day, I would have written this post, meditated, and would be at least half-finished my workout. I’m still lying down with my phone in my hand. I barely have time to write this before heading out to archery (which is good because this is another healthy living goal that I have), But dang, this messes my day up. I’ll need to set a timer for tonight or I’ll forget to meditate. And I don’t know if I’ll have time to work out.

Before imbedding these habits into my work days, I used to only work out regularly during the holidays and would always stop my good routines during my ‘busy times’… and I seemed to get busy a lot! Now I know that my morning routine prepares me for a good day, and sets me up for success during my busiest of times. Then a get on holidays and my routines all fall apart.

This no longer works for me. I need to update my thinking and my habits and routines on my breaks. Saying this ‘out loud’ is a first step, but follow through is important. If I’m occasionally going to skip a workout, that’s ok. If I’m going to miss a morning workout and think about trying to make it up all day, that’s annoying and not very restful. I’m not on holidays from my healthy living goals, and I don’t want to be.

Knowing this isn’t half the battle, it’s the first 10% of the battle. Committing to a routine is the next 65% of the battle… that’s the real work. And the last 25%? That’s the effort put into the routine, and that’s allowed to fluctuate. Committing the time and getting there, that’s the work that brings the rewards… and lets me start my day in a positive way, whether I’m working or on holidays.

The Learning Cliff

Everyone has heard of the Learning Curve. When you try something new and challenging, it is said that this has a ‘steep learning curve’. When new staff, teachers and secretaries, join my online school, I always tell them that they are going to experience a learning cliff. That is to say, there is so much to learn that you literally won’t remember how to do something shortly after you’ve tried to internalize it. You will hit a cliff or a barrier where you feel frustrated and think, “I already asked about this, I should know this.”

The reality is, ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ it’s totally understandable that you didn’t take in the answer to this question you have, when you tried to learn 15 other things at the same time. So, it’s perfectly ok to ask a second, third, even fourth time. We all worked through the learning cliff by asking the same questions more than once. We all know what it’s like to have so many new systems added to what we do. We all know it feels dumb asking again. We all appreciated others answering our same questions more than once. We are all happy to do the same for you.

I try to have this conversation in front of my long-time secretaries, because they agree and acknowledge that they heard me say this. And that they both appreciated the freedom to ask, and the welcoming responses to the same questions.

You don’t know that you didn’t learn everything you needed to until you hit the cliff with this feeling of, ‘I’ve been told how to do this already,’ or ‘I know that I did this before, why can’t I figure out how to do it again?’

When the culture is ‘ just ask again’, it turns the cliff back into a curve… there’s still a lot to learn, but the path to greater learning is more gradual and attainable.

Fix the inputs

“We think we need to change the results, but the results are not the problem.When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.

You do not rise to the level of your goals, your fall to the levels of your systems.”

~ James Clear, Atomic Habits

I’m re-listening to Atomic Habits, and this time I’m bookmarking sections and taking notes.

Relating this idea of, “Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves,” to students and schools, I think we often focus on the outputs. A simple example is homework incompletion: A student doesn’t do the homework, what do you do? Make them do the homework they missed.

On the surface this is a good idea. The best consequence for not doing the work is doing the work. But when this issue is chronic, and the teacher is constantly making the same student do the work after the fact, then that teacher is dealing with the output constantly, when the issue is the input. Why isn’t the homework getting done in the first place?

Maybe the student is overloaded with activities or a work schedule that doesn’t allow much time for homework.

Maybe the homework isn’t seen as helpful to the student.

Maybe the student doesn’t see the value in the homework, and thinks it’s not helpful.

Maybe the student prefers to do the homework after it’s due because they know they can sit with the teacher and get help, which they don’t get at home.

Maybe the student lacks the habits that makes homework achievable. Especially when they get unlimited time to play video games at home. Maybe the structure of being forced to do it later is the only structure they have in place to get the work done.

Maybe the teacher is giving that student too much homework and it takes too long to do.

Maybe there is a totally different reason. But here is the thing, if the homework is chronically late, chasing the student to do the work later isn’t solving the problem, it’s just trying to fix a problem with the results that you are getting.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals, your fall to the levels of your systems.”

On a personal note, I’m working on systems at work to stay focused on a single task rather than being distracted by trying to do too many things at once. This is challenging in an environment with constant distractions and a multitude of priorities – both my own and from others. I’ll share more on this later, but for now, the thing that I’m realizing is that it’s the inputs I need to work on. The systems I put in place set me up for good results or leave me chasing results when I don’t have those systems working for me.

Adapt, Adjust, and Amplify

“Lose 25 pounds in a month.”

“Earn $1,000 a day.”

“Look 10 years younger.”

“Discover your potential.”

“Live the life of your dreams.”

“Anything is possible…”

…But none of it is attainable for the vast majority of people. The plans are made to look simple, but the goals are lofty, and the path to success is anything but easy. How many of us are excessively rich, looking and feeling healthier and younger than we are, and living our ideal dream life? We aren’t going to get all these things from some motivational speaker or some club membership or program. As Derek Sivers says,

“If [more] information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

It’s amazing how easy it can sound, but real, incremental, and meaningful change often takes two things:

  • Consistent effort.
  • More time than you think.

I’ve written about my healthy living goals, and the shoulder injury that I’m recovering from. In the past, an ice-pick-like stabbing pain in my shoulder would have been enough to derail my entire workout schedule. I would have stopped everything and gone into lazy mode.

Instead, my treadmill run, which bounced my shoulder too much, became a stationary bike ride; my weights set became a core strength set. My other routines remained as well. I think this happened because I am not on some crazy, unrealistic path to health goals I’ll never achieve. I’m on a slow, attainable path, that I want to maintain.

Here is the path that worked for me:

Adapt, Adjust, and Amplify.

It wasn’t easy at first, and it was not going to happen overnight. There wasn’t a romantic appeal, it wasn’t sexy or overly inspiring. It took patience. And unlike the fads and crazes, it lead to significant change over time.

1. Adapt – The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If at first you don’t succeed, try something different. I made changes that were realistic and sustainable. Twenty minutes of cardio – totally doable to fit into my schedule. Before, I’d incrementally move that up to close to an hour. Now, I can put in over an hour on the basketball court, running hard, even though I haven’t done more than a 25 min. hard cardio workout in over a year. I won’t win any marathons, but I’m not dumb enough to ask my body to try. I adapted a workout schedule that optimizes my fitness in a minimal amount of time.

2. Adjust – My schedule had to adjust when I started writing this daily blog before my morning workouts. I kept running out of time. Now I’m writing this at 10pm, in bed on Sunday, rather than early tomorrow morning. I write longer posts on weekends, when inspired, and keep them short, with limited writing time on weekdays. I’ve adjusted a few things along the way, each time I do so, it’s to reduce friction and to make maintaining my wellness regimen easier. A great example of an adaptation is that when I felt I was stagnating a bit on my runs, I started doing some interval training. I increased my speed for minute or minute-and-a-half intervals, and I watched my top speed increase. When I got to a good speed, one that I used to run when I was in my 30’s, I made that my new maximum for my hard days… I adjusted again, rather than pushing myself to some unreasonable goals.

3. Amplify – When things are working, I highlight them. I’m public with them on my blog, and with family and friends. This isn’t bragging, it’s holding myself accountable. When I see results from interval training, I push myself to do this more often. When I got injured, I focussed on my daily calendar, and the things I could do, rather than the things I couldn’t. By amplifying the small successes, and the commitment I made to myself, I’ve created a positive feedback loop that inspires me to keep going.

As catchy as Adapt, Adjust, and Amplify may sound, it’s the other two tips that really make this work:

  • Consistent effort.
  • More time than you think.

Keep going, knowing that long term goals are more sustainable than flashy weight loss or instant muscles. Low motivation or injuries will happen, they don’t need to break the pattern of consistency, they will just slow down the intensity, and the timelines to the goals that were created.

There are times to aspire to be great, and to put everything you have into success and achievement. And, there are times to focus on self care… Times to realize that mentally and physically, we need to be consistent, show up, and maintain as well as tweak, the patterns and behaviours that make us incrementally better over time. It’s not fast, it’s not glamorous, it is achievable and rewarding, as long as you are dedicated and show patience.

Daily blogging made easy

On July 6th I decided ‘It’s time…‘, and I (re)started this daily blog. Although I might have missed a day or two early on, it has become a daily routine for me. But that was during my summer holidays and I had time!

Like my healthy living goals, I knew that to make this stick, I need to make it work when I am busy. It’s never busier than September startup in schools. So, how am I adding this to my daily routine? I thought I’d share:

1. I have the WordPress App on the front page of my phone.

(I love the colour option:)

2. I use the app to add draft ideas any time of the day. It can be as simple as a title and a single sentence. I do this very quickly, unless I plan to write the whole post.

3. Set aside a bit of time to write. I usually write after dinner, before bed, or I wake up early if I don’t have a post scheduled the next day. I might write longer posts on weekends but I try to keep writing to 30-45 minutes mid week. I don’t watch TV, so I think of it as a writing ‘episode’, (without commercials😜). If I wake up early, I limit myself to 30 minutes. This isn’t a chore, it’s not work, it is a hobby I want to do. If I am tired, I rely on my drafts.

4. Find an image. I usually start with a search for a meme related to my post, and no matter what, I commit to finding something in less than 5 minutes.

5. Go to the app’s Post Settings and: Add 2-3 related blog tags, add the image, and change the message that gets auto-posted on Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Facebook page. (I usually make this message the post title, my #dailyink hashtag and one sentence about the post).

6. Schedule posts for the next morning. I’m playing with times between 6:45am and 8am. I have no idea what works best? I have a morning routine of meditation, exercise, and listening to an audio book, but sometimes I have time and I re-read and edit my post, or I dream up new draft ideas.

That’s it. Some days I’m spending 30 minutes ‘all-in’, this post has been a bit longer. If I needed more time this would have been popped into my drafts and I’d probably post something else tomorrow.

I’m writing, I’m putting it ‘out there’, and I’m enjoying the mental break from the day. I tried watching TV with my wife a couple days ago…

…I prefer to be creative and add some #dailyink on my blog.