Why Are Systems So Important To Us?

Why are systems and pre-defined processes so important to us? How can they help us in our lives beyond the obvious answers?

Well, today I have a great example of why putting processes in place in your personal and professional life is hugely important and at least one way that it can save you time, help you through a hard few days (or longer) in your life, and keep the wheels moving when you don’t have the physical or mental capacity to make it happen on your own.

Over the weekend I came down with a head cold. Not strong enough to keep me in bed but just enough to really mess with my head, take away my motivation, and make me feel sore and tired – I’m sure you can identify, we’ve all been there (’tis the season…).

However, I was able to use the time where I felt good enough to get some work done. Note: I was not doing any highly creative work at this point!

And that is part of the point. By having my processes and tasks laid out in my apps I was able to plow through tasks without having to rely on my memory to guide me. This is critical and important when you are not only sick but feeling overwhelmed. By allowing your brain to “dump” all this info into your organization system you can continue to be productive even when you are mentally not at 100 percent.

For myself, it came down to cherry picking easy tasks from my Todoist list for the day, reassigning tasks that were not priority to later in the week, and looking through Evernote to find easy chores or tasks that I could do around the house. I also did a healthy amount of reading which is one upside of not being able to sit down and concentrate on more detailed work for very long!

This should serve as another reminder of just WHY processes are important. I mean, you can come up with all sorts of excuses in the heat of the moment as to why you AREN’T going to write out or detail a process – it’s usually bored, a bit tedious, and may have no immediate payoff. However, once you rely on your system just once you will see how effective it is and how much of an improvement this can make in your life.

Actions To Take Now

What can you do right now? Find one idea, set of tasks, or recurring chore that you have in your life (work or personal).

• Find one subset or individual task within that.
• Write out the steps to accomplish this task in detail.
• Add it to your personal productivity app (an application like Todoist, Evernote, or a notebook – some really cool ones here…I’m a Midori fan).
• Now, set a reminder to do this once a day for the next week.

Get the ball rolling on this now and you’ll reap some amazing benefits down the road – guaranteed.

Here’s some quick tips about dealing with a job and additional work when you’re actually sick – something that I needed to pay attention to over the past week…

I’m stubborn when it comes to being sick, but over the years I’ve learned my lessons the hard way. If you’re too sick: Don’t go to work. You’re not as productive and end up wasting a lot of time, you get others sick, and you take longer to recover.

If you’re too sick to go to work, then don’t. Going to work while you’re sick will only ensure that your productivity levels stay lower for longer.

To stay productive when sick, you need to figure out where your priorities lie. Not everything has to be done today, and deep down, you know and understand this.

Even if you have a desk to work at in your home, it’s best to stay in bed for the day. This will allow for you to relax and let your body do the healing. Too Busy To Be Sick? Heres How To Stay Productive When Sick!