[Music] hi everyone when this series started on this channel we opened with an exploration of the discipline of systems thinking and then we went very detailed in micro into the system build now systems thinking was deeply intertwined and connected in a foundation of every aspect of that system that we built out and that we now use to guide our life and help us shape ourselves and our actions into the life that we want to live now let's step back and revisit systems thinking in life and daily execution and an ongoing reflection as we plan and implement with our systems one quick note before we dive in my new course notion life design with pillars pipelines and vaults will be launching on august 25th and in many cases you'll be seeing this video after that point so after that date the course will already be live information on that is available at notionlifedesign.com that's got the full details in the full scoop on what's going on there i am insanely excited and proud of this course this is the full culmination of not only everything we've been doing on this youtube channel but the entire first cohort iteration of the course this is actually a new course redesign taking the immense learnings from the first cohort and this channel and endless coaching and one-on-one training i've done with individuals and very small businesses on how to implement systems in the pillar pipelines in vaults process to define target and achieve the things that we most want to achieve in life to bring focus and alignment to everything we do and have knowledge resurface in context in the right place and right time it is the most effective approach i have ever seen and this is the ultimate culmination of all that work all that research all that feedback all that learning it all comes together with the notion life design course at notionlifedesign.com so with that let's dive further into systems thinking and life design now pillars pipelines and vaults ppv the system we've been designing is all about life design shaping the life you want to live and guiding you to do the things that will deliver your long-term aspirations as opposed to living reactively and bouncing around and not moving steadily towards the longer term aspirational goals you've set for yourself fundamental to that is aligning that direction to your daily and hourly activities and focusing ruthlessly eliminating all distractions now that doesn't mean we can't have fun we will plan for time to have fun time to spend quality time with the people we care about if our goals are to spend those kinds of relaxing moments create a more peaceful existence form closer relationships then those are actually the goals we're building towards if the goals are professional then we're building in that direction or we define a mix a balance and we pursue progress across all those different dimensions but we really determine what matters most and prioritize those things and minimize the number of things we're pursuing typically it'll have some balance of professional and personal and health so it all comes together in the way that we each choose for ourselves and then finally we've built the tools to capture the information and knowledge as it comes in controlling this fire hose of information and curating what matters for what we want to achieve organizing it and setting it up such that it will resurface in context in the right time and right place so that we can use it when we're implementing on those goals and aspirations so everything in our process is about alignment and focus on what matters most to us of course part of this process is finding and discovering what matters most to us so we put that all together and that's our ppv system and this is all built around systems thinking principles factoring in the entire ecosystem you live in aligning wide ranging forces for success and removing or minimizing negative forces essentially it's the study and harnessing of cause and effect over a greater range of space and time factoring in more elements and actors than you would have in the past but before implementing first we need to understand we need to examine three areas self-reflection first of all awareness of how our own minds are helping or hurting our progress our inner voices is there self-sabotage is there strength applied through our inner frameworks in the way we see ourselves and see the world then environmental reflections is my environment conducive to my progress in life and what can i do to change my environment to help and then finally we need to reflect on other actors in the ecosystems that we operate in that could be other people it could be organizations it could be communities who around us is helping us helping us grow helping us progress who around us is hurting us who's an impediment to progress who's putting counter forces against our forward momentum and who is missing which people organizations or communities would be helpful for us to progress for us to grow for us to build and create who's missing from our lives that would be really valuable if we had that in our lives it helps to think about all these things who's helping who's hurting and who's missing this is all part of systems thinking looking at the broader ecosystem and all the elements interacting within it and looking for the cause and effect and trying to identify what's a hindrance and what's an obstacle to overcome and what's helping me and how we can put more forces at work to propel us in the direction that we've chosen and then on a regular basis we need to examine the patterns in our lives what systemic feedback loops are we seeing over and over again what do you see happening repeatedly in patterns in your life our lives are filled with patterns positive patterns negative patterns loops repetition we see the same things repeating themselves regularly we need to pay really close attention to these patterns because these patterns from their sheer consistency have a massive impact on who we are who we become and what we're able to do in life first look for which patterns you need to stop or minimize look for the negative patterns that are dragging you down that are holding you back identify them make lists and then think very deliberately on how to stop or minimize these negative pattern loops that are perpetual in all of our lies it could be eating habits it could be sleep habits it could be habits of avoidance you know what are the things that are really getting in your way of going where you want to go stop and really analyze this then what patterns do we need to enhance where do we have good starts where we have some good patterns and some good habits and some good tendencies but it'd be better if we magnified them if we built them up if we strengthened them look at the ones where you're off to a reasonable start or you're doing reasonably well how can we build on that and make them even stronger and then finally what patterns do we need to add patterns that don't exist in our lives but we can identify would be really helpful if they did how can we introduce these new patterns and a really effective approach is you find the patterns you want to remove or minimize and you replace them with another one that's strong and positive it's much easier to replace a pattern than to go cold turkey and just completely eliminate one so whenever you're trying to eliminate a negative pattern in your life think about what you can fill that void with because it creates a void and you have a longing you have a an impulse toward that pattern that you've historically defaulted to and if you've identified it as a negative one you want to cut it out but it's easier to remove one when you replace it with something else so it doesn't have this empty space it has a new behavior that you think okay i have this impulse for this traditional behavior but i'm trying to stop that now i've got this new pattern this new behavior i'm now doing this instead so when i have the impulse of the old one then the trigger is the thought okay now i go to the new one and it fills that void it helps us progress without just trying to resist through just pure willpower because willpower doesn't work if we can redirect or reflect that previous impulse in the new direction that helps us both eliminate the old pattern and introduce the new one that we're trying to jump start in our lives and we want to focus on root cause actions rather than reactive symptom-focused actions every action and habit we have in our lives has huge ripple effects across our lives we want to look at the center of those ripples and address that and not the outer rings that are reactive to that initial cause it can take just as much time to deal with a symptom as it can to deal with the root cause dealing with the center ring rather than the concentric circles that form around it will let you solve multiple problems by solving one problem if you just solve an individual reactive ring later down the chain then you fix that one thing of course it'll be repeating itself when the next series of rings from that initial root cause happen again you haven't really solved anything and plus you have to work on each outer ring separately if you address the center cause of the ripple effect then you don't have to deal with solving any of the outer effects you're just working on the one thing that's the trigger so we want to focus on the original source issues now it's easier to say that than to do that but what that means is you have to sit down and really study a situation this is systems thinking what is the original source what is the original cause that's creating all these multiple effects don't run around playing whack-a-mole trying to solve all the effects focus on identifying what the cause is and then spend your energy solving the cause similarly implement source causes that create ripple effects that are positive in your life introduce these new causes to create the effects you want down the chain this is something you can do in your weekly and monthly review it's a perfect exercise for your quarterly review that's a great time to really reflect on where are the ripple effects happening in your life and really think about what the source root cause of those is and then focus your energy on fixing the bad ones and introducing positive new ones on the negative side this could be junk food or really bad eating patterns that's constantly a root cause of problems in people's lives again sleep is always resurfacing if we don't get to bed at a reasonable hour we have a lot of negative ripple effects through our life perpetually on the positive side working out and exercising for many people is a center trigger a cause that creates many ripple effects across their life often it's called a keystone habit it builds healthier patterns beyond the one practice of working out it starts your day in a way that gives you energy and focus and a sense of having accomplished something now you're ready to do that again and again throughout the day so it's one trigger that causes many positive ripples throughout the day reading could be a habit that you do that triggers many positive reactions throughout the day week or month the new things you discover the ideas that it sparks and triggers as you're reflecting on other people's thinking in your reading those habits and practices can cause a whole chain reaction of growth and discovery and progress meditation is another one for many people can be a central cause or initial trigger that creates a whole series of ripples of positive effects and benefits throughout one's days weeks and months so look for these positive ones plant the seeds throw the stone to create the positive ripples and look for ways to remove the negative one so that takes reflection that takes time to stop and study your life and this is what you can discover when you look very thoughtfully and critically at the patterns in your life we'll explore all these elements in more detail and more in future videos but this is the practice of applying systems thinking to your life thinking holistically looking for cause and effect but i just wanted to plant the seeds and lay a little bit of a foundation for how we can take the system that we're operating with and bring a new perspective through the systems thinking process and discipline and constantly perpetually look for ways to understand what's working what's not working why certain things are working why certain things are not working and build this regular practice of examining reflecting identifying root causes and then modifying our behaviors and activities so that we can grow and progress in the directions of our choosing so that's all for today we'll continue to explore these topics and themes we'll definitely dig a lot more into systems thinking now that we have our core systems in place we'll of course continue to build our systems and bring in more specialty elements and refinements to make the systems even better even stronger but we have the core system built now we're bringing in specific enhancements we do want to spend some time addressing the human behavior our behaviors our activities around the notion system and the ppv system so that it's not just a matter of a piece of software running on its own it's our behaviors and reactions and what we feed into the system and what we take out of the system that makes it work or not work it's not like the software is going to do it we have to do it this is the process of making sure the machine the software the system is pointed in the right direction and that we're executing fully at its maximum potential and achieving the things that we've set out to achieve that's what it's all about so i hope this is helpful we'll explore more of this in the future i think systems thinking is a word that's getting tossed around more in part because we've introduced it with a series but i don't think it's really well understood i think it's given a lot of lip service so i want to make it more tangible and actionable in daily life and that's what i wanted to start to do here and we'll do a lot more of in future videos so we'll have lots more to come [Music]