Systematic Thinking: The Secret to Achieving Any Goal

Your life, like everything in the world around you, is a system. By learning how your life systems work, you can manipulate the systems to achieve your desired results. This process is called systems thinking, i.e. systematic.

Note: This article is based on Thanh Pham, founder of the blog "Asian Efficiency," in which he tells us about his experience with systems thinking and its role in achieving the goal.

It is a way of picking out the things around us and turning them into blueprints, ideas, and concepts that can be broken down, analyzed, and refined like time. It is a process of understanding how things affect each other within the overall system.

This is a basic introduction to systemic thinking and the theory behind it. So, we will do our best to facilitate this concept and make it easy to understand and apply. We'll look at the different types of systems, explain how systemic thinking works, and give you examples of how it works.

This is a rather complicated article, but if you can grasp these concepts, they will have a positive impact on every area of your life. It might be a little difficult, but it's worth it.

What is the system?

Before we can explain systemic thinking, we first need to know what a system is. The system is defined as:

1. A group of things or parts linked together to form a complex whole.
2. A set of principles or procedures by which something is carried out, e.g scheme, or method of organization.

A good way to think of a system is to think of a factory. For example, you put raw materials in, you do a few steps and then you get something out of it with the same consistency. We can facilitate this action and identify three main components of each system:

• Input: Anything you do to activate the system or give it to the system for it to use.
• Process: The actual function and steps that the system will perform.
• Output: The result that appears after doing all the steps.

Suppose you want to build a house. The materials are the inputs, the actual work of building according to the blueprint is the process, and the finished house is the output.

The beauty of systemic thinking is that the process gives you the same consistent results you're looking for every time. It is a repeatable process that allows you to scale the system and its outputs to achieve the results you want.

We'll give you some examples and we'll talk more about the different types of systems in a bit, but there are some basic principles you need to understand about systems before we delve deeper into this topic:

1. Systems of life exist whether you realize it or not

These systems are everywhere. Your entire life is made up of independent, interdependent systems. This means that ignorance is not bliss. You may get bad results from a system you didn't even realize was broken. So, the first step in adopting systemic thinking is realizing that everything in life can be seen as a system.

2. Systems effectiveness

Most systems know what needs to be done and want it to do right. You don't really have to tell the system what to do. For example, you don't have to tell a seed planted in the ground to grow and produce fruit, as it's pre-programmed, and the seed knows what to do.

This is a good thing because it means that maintaining working systems is fairly easy. However, there are cases when systems do not work the way they are supposed to - this usually happens when we notice them - it is your job to fix the broken systems in your life, and in this article, we will show you how to do that.

3. Systems we don't manage lead to bad random outcomes

Bad results from systems we don't manage can suddenly appear, but that's not the point. Many times, we make mistakes or don't realize that our input wasn't good, so bad results are just natural outputs.

For example, if you only got three hours of sleep last night, the quality of your morning ritual doesn't matter, or maybe your process needs to be modified. Maybe, you're getting enough sleep, but you just roll out of bed and start your day. In this case, modifying the process and adding a powerful morning ritual can make a huge difference in the outcome.

4. Improve results by managing and optimizing your system

This is where things get exciting. By applying systemic thinking, you can change the way you operate machinery to achieve good, predictable results. Systematic thinking is itself a process; any system for understanding how things influence each other to produce positive outcomes. This is a less common way of thinking adopted by highly successful people, and it allows them to focus on the things that matter most.

Now that you're ready to start thinking about systems, let's look at some examples

Types of systems

There are several different types of systems, but they can be divided into two categories:

1. Closed systems.
2. Open systems.

Let's look at an example of a closed system first:

A printed book is a closed system. It was printed at some point in time and distributed before it came into your possession. In its completed form, lying on your library shelf, it has no real inputs and no outputs. Over time, a closed system like this deteriorates on its own. Well, you could argue that time and physical degradation from the environment are inputs, but they are unintended - but suppose you take a highlighter and start reading, now it's an open system.

Open systems are everywhere. Almost everything is an open system, like your car, a power plant, or a forest. Open systems are defined by defining their boundaries, but they have a number of variable inputs and outputs.

Let's take the car as an example:

You put gas in the car and hit the pedal, which is called entry. The car's mechanical system produces the motion, which is called the process. It takes you to your destination, which is called output.

But you can also think of more abstract systems, like your life as a whole, or a subsystem of it, like your finances, your health, or your relationships.

By following the example of your life, your life is an open system. You receive inputs such as conversation, money, or food, and they are collected by your mind and body as they are practical. And you provide outputs such as conversation, money, and physical action. Understanding this is important if you want to achieve the results you are looking for.

Your life as a system

Your life is made up of many parts. First, material parts including your physical body, clothes, home, and other possessions, to name a few. There are also the abstract parts, like your beliefs, your values, your sense of identity, and so on. There are also those parts that go beyond your direct influence, such as your health, your relationships, and your finances.

You can view these components in isolation, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. As important as the parts themselves are how they interact with each other. For example, your finances affect how you are able to manage your health.

The sum of these components and the relationships between them is a system, and systemic thinking allows us to manipulate the different components to achieve the results we want. I used systems thinking to write and publish my book in just 8 months. Let me give you an example:

Let's say you want to lose 10 pounds; that is equivalent to 5 kilograms, and obtaining a graceful body. The problem is that you don't have extra time to squeeze yourself in and make time for the gym with family responsibilities at home and at your job. Since we know that the outputs we receive are the result of current inputs and processes, let's see if we can tweak things to meet our fitness goals.

Let's start with small goals, like making food at home instead of going out to eat three times a week. This will reduce the amount of fatty and greasy junk food we eat each week, and by replacing them with healthy meals from home, we are already making great progress.

But if we can find a gym near the office and have lunch in our office, we can work out too. In addition to getting healthier, we also save money by not going out to eat.

Are you beginning to see the power of systemic thinking in creating the life you want? Systems like the ones we just explained are key to making your life easier. But before the results appear, you should be fond of this way of thinking.

Thinking like a maniac

I saw a while ago an image comparing a "Geek" approach to problem-solving versus a "Non-Geek". It got me thinking about the systemic mindset and how being called a "nerd" might not be such a bad thing.

When I did some research, I found that the term "freak" actually came from the circus. It was originally used to describe performers who performed amazing feats - which doesn't sound so bad - and this provides an interesting context for the definition of a geek: someone with a lot of experience and a passion for a particular subject.

The subject matter can be about anything: from computers to history to astronomy to cooking utensils. But the bottom line is that nerds understand a lot about the systems they participate in, and are constantly looking for ways to improve them.

This image shows the gains that can be made from thinking like a maniac:

The maniac looks at the world differently. They adopt a systemic mindset and use their  knowledge of a specific topic to solve the problems they face. They are not just useless facts, but they are the parts and inputs they need to get where they want to go. In other words, the maniac can take their input and combine it - as a model - to create the output he desires.

Prepare systematic thinking for action

Now is the time to make systemic thinking work for us. Remember that every system wants to work and do the right thing 99.9% of the time. With many evolutionary systems like yours, they also want to grow. So, you can think of this as the goal of the system.

If you want to grow as an individual - a product - you can apply a model - a process - to help you get where you want to go. In other words, if you have a purpose in your life, you can find a system to help you achieve that goal.

The first step is to take the order. It is a set of steps, procedures, ideas, and concepts, and adding inputs, which are you. After you have finished placing all the parts the way you want, you will get the desired result or goal. You may have to optimize the inputs yourself to get maximum results, but the process will work.

This is a great idea. This means that you can take anyone else's system and immediately apply it to your own life to achieve similar results. Here at the Asian Efficiency blog, we have many productivity experts with very different positions and perspectives, but we've all seen that systemic thinking works in our favor.

In my opinion, this is one of the things that makes Asian Efficiency so unique and successful. We've built a culture of systemic thinking that works just as well with a single CEO Thanh as it does with an ex-worker with the Brooks family.

In fact, one of the things we talk about when we get together with the team is what the systems teach us, so we can learn from each other. You don't have to come up with the system yourself. If you think about how we learn skills like driving, touch typing, or reading, it all starts with mimicking someone else's system in order to achieve similar results.

Within our reading system, we already understand the alphabet. We also understand printed words, meanings, and grammatical structure. We certainly didn't invent it, but we learned it from others, perhaps from teachers. When we have these preconditions, we then add the input words, usually written in book form, and output the ideas as concepts and pictures in our minds.

Also, because everything is a system,  you can also apply what you were able to do by reading to anything else, whether it is playing a sport, learning a profession, or being a highly productive person. In fact, most of our programs are structured gradually. That is, they are mini systems to help us achieve results in a specific area, and all you have to do is run the system.

I really like the way author Austin Kleon describes it in Steal Like an Artist. Reading this book was a turning point in my life and really helped me understand the concept of systemic thinking.

You see, I thought I wasn't being creative. I couldn't draw, I didn't like to write, and although I enjoyed playing the guitar and writing songs, he would go crazy when he realized I had inadvertently copied a melody or chord introduction from another song. I was thinking to myself, "What is happening to me? Why can't I create anything original?"

But when I read Steal Like an Artist, I realized that everyone is really creative. Nothing is completely original because creation is just the rearrangement of the inputs in our lives to produce the logical outputs. In other words, even creativity is a system, and our job is to collect good ideas.

Suddenly, I was free. I should not degrade myself, for it was merely the result of my input. And when I started changing my input, like listening to podcasts and reading books, I found that I could influence the quality of what I made. Going back to our example reading above: Is it really as easy as changing your entries? Am I really saying that if you read the right books and get the right ideas, you can achieve whatever you want?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” says entrepreneur Jim Rohn. Why not surround yourself with some of the brightest and most successful people who have ever lived, people who have a growth mindset? Why not benefit from their experience and read their books, as this allows you to benefit from the same models that have become successful?

Next steps

Start by thinking about the systems in your life. Think about how you can make small changes to achieve the results you're looking for. Here are a few action steps to help you start implementing systemic thinking on your own:

Start by looking for a broken system in your life. Here are some questions to help you decide which systems can be improved:

1. What do I wish was different?
2. What is bothering me?
3. What is something I don't want to do anymore?
4. What if I had more time?

Discover what inputs should be changed.

Here are some questions to help you know what to change:

1. Where should I start?
2. What should I stop doing?
3. What do I need to keep doing?

Determine the process changes you want to make. Here are some questions to help you figure out what to fix:

1. How can I spend more time on the thing I don't want to do?
2. How can I spend more time on the thing I want to do?
3. How can I get rid of this thing that is not a good use of my time?

Remember, you can implement good systems without having to invent the entire system yourself. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. By surrounding yourself with other successful, like-minded people who have figured things out on their own, you can tap into their expertise, cut back on the process, and save yourself time.