The right tools are better than any ‘system’
Having an external individual exert their ‘system’ on you or your team is a recipe for disaster. You can’t change someone’s way of working just because your ‘system’ works for YOU.
Transcript
Summary
Systems like GTD are great for understanding how things work, but I find using them every day just wastes my time. It’s like learning martial arts systems. It don’t work in a real street fight. Stop using too much tech, find the right tools that work for you, and don’t inject other people’s ideas onto how you work.
Raw
Earlier this morning, I was in a Clubhouse room where they were talking about focusing, how you focus in your business and what it takes to actually get your work done. That’s what I got from it.
As the room went on, I came in, I think halfway or towards the end. Obviously, I’m a Tech Minimalist, so I was talking about using the right technology and how Tech Minimalism can help, and a few people are intrigued.
And what I found over the past two or three years doing Tech Minimalism is that you can’t change people’s minds if they have their own way of working, their own systems. I don’t like systems. There are different reasons why I don’t like systems like GTD and this one called Focus and Triple D and the four S’s or whatever it is. Systems are great to get the understanding of how one should work. But using that system every day over and over again and getting your team to use that system day over day, I think waste time to actually get the work done. You’re working on the system through the system rather than getting the work done.
One analogy I used in the room is when Wing Chun comes to martial arts, you learn systems. You learn different ways of working. I’ve done Wing Chun. I’ve done Judo in the past. and they have their systems. But there’s no way on earth you’re going to be able to use those systems in a real fight on the street. It just doesn’t work. It just simply doesn’t work. It will help, but it doesn’t work. You’re wasting time to make sure that you’re in the right posture. It doesn’t work. You’re being punched in the head. So weird.
So having systems is great, I would call it an SOP, rather than a system, 3S is 3. three P’s the two dots or whatever it’s called. I think it’s stupid. I don’t have a system. I just say stop using too much tech. That’s not a system. That’s just logical. It’s just you don’t need a lot of tech to do your work. So having systems is a great idea, but it doesn’t always work. And having someone else inject their ideas onto you and how you work, it just doesn’t work. So the way to do it is finding the right tools, finding the right system, if you want to call it that, that works for you. Getting someone else to tell you who’s the three P’s and whatever. It just doesn’t work. I know this from failing, failing miserably by trying to inject my ideas onto someone else. I can tell you the right tools and the way to do it and maybe this will be easier. And if you like it, then you adopt it and then you use it. use it.
If you’re wearing bad shoes because they look great, you’re a moron. You just are. Get the right shoes. Get the right tools for you. Don’t get the tools that you think might help. Think might help is different because you could try it and it doesn’t wait and move on. But to me, that’s wasting time, just to employ someone to get you the right things that you need.
Anyway, it was a great room. I really learned a lot from it, actually. I’m on Clubhouse quite a lot because I find that a lot of people there talk in my level, on my level as to the things that they teach, but also the things that they learn from everyone within that room. So it’s good. I used to hate it, but it depends on who you follow. So follow the right people and use the right tools.
As always, keep it simple, and I’ll see you in the next one. Ciao. Bye.