There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

— Benjamin Disraeli —

I think of Systems as grown-up Routines. Routines concentrate on the micro — Systems look to the macro.

Let's turn to my trusty Oxford Dictionary for a definition of System:

a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole

When you can chart the flow of a particular system in your life, you will be able to make it work for you. For example: let's say that you have developed a routine of picking up your mail, sorting it, filing it, and tossing the junk mail into the garbage can. That's great! But it's only part of a system. If you never took your trash out, or never culled your files, your system would not be working. Soon you would be overrun with paper clutter.

Throughout the Organize Your Great Life section, you will be examining systems in more detail, but this will get you started.

Systems in Your Life

As noted in the definition above, Systems involve complexity. But here you are going to look to the various Systems in your life, so you can determine what is or is not working.

First, let's look at various systems in your life. What you will find is that they correspond to the various life areas you worked on in the Design Your Great Life section. This list is not all inclusive — it's here to just get you started thinking.

1. Financial System.
   This starts with the time you get money or a check in your hand to how you disburse and save it. It includes where you put your bills so you don't lose them and pay them on time, to how you use online banking.
2. Cleaning System.
   This would cover what you do in the morning, the evening, and weekly, to how you delegate work, to how you replace your used up products.
3. Food System.
   Do you have a weekly food shopping routine? How do you store food, prepare food, keep recipes, and clean up after a meal?
4. Health System.
   The ground covered here would be how often you get checkups, to your exercise routines, and what you use to fuel your body.
5. Clothing System.
   This would cover buying, cleaning, and storing your clothes.
6. Home Repair System.
   Do you have the tools to repair broken items in your home or do you have a list of responsible workers you can call when you need help?

Analyzing Your Systems

Now let's have a plan for Analyzing Your Systems — a System for your Systems.

1. Choose a system and make a list of all of the elements that make up your system.
2. Make a flowchart of those elements as a timeline which branches to different elements. For example, if you were making a flowchart of your Finance System, you might start with receiving your check, then branching it off to savings, checking, your carry around cash, and money to the kids. From the checking account branch, you would branch off to various bills and other expenses.
3. Now ask yourself what part of your system is working and what is not working. Make a note of it.
4. Repeat this for your other systems.
5. Now compare your notes to see how your various systems overlap. Can driving for your food shopping be put in after your gym workout so you don't have to waste gas on two trips? Do you have a system of adding used cleaning products that need to be replaced to your food shopping list so you don't have to make separate trips for that?
6. Now Design your individual systems so they can work together and more efficiently.

By understanding how the various systems in your life intermingle, you will be able to achiever Your Great Life more efficiently.

— Shelly —