Everyday Systems Podcast

Meta Systems are systems for managing other systems: to track and boster them. Personal Punchcards, The Life Log, Mantrafication, and Loose Lips Sink Ships.

Soul systems are systems for detaching yourself from the frenzy of everyday life to reflect, for learning, for recovering, for devoting more of your limited time to what’s important, for figuring out what’s important to begin with. Systems discussed include: Audiodidact. The Study Habit. Demogorgon vs. Asmodeus, Timebox Lord, G-Ray Vision, VC Cat,  Posifactive and Weekend Luddite.

2021 was miserable in most respects, but it’s been another fantastic opportunity to test the true mettle of Everyday Systems. Part 1 reviews Body and Spirits systems: The No S Diet, Shovelglove, Urban Ranger, Lawful Good Biker, Glass Ceiling, Low Smoking.

An inspiringly ridiculous image to ward off the dreaded "what the hell" effect.

Specific techniques for making study a daily habit

How to go from "study=cramming" to making learning a lifelong habit

A helpful image from WWII propaganda to keep you from sabotaging your self-improvement efforts with premature talk.

All the self-help books ever written distilled into one word, with a note of enlightened self-mockery that makes the whole thing bearable:

Engineer intentional redundancy into your habit systems to make them fault tolerant.

Habit tracking when apps or magic markers won't cut it

How pandemic proof are the Everyday Systems? A quick review of 14 systems and how they are holding up.

A system for balancing "infinite work" with "first things."

How to ingore both of the evil voices in your head and attain comic detachment from your psychomachia.

Reflect on what is giving you trouble with your self improvement system. Write a contract with yourself on a 4*6 index card. Record yourself speaking it. Listen to this recorded mantra every day.  

No S for the soul? 14-Year Jubilee updates on 8 "spiritual" systems: Weekend Luddite, Audiodidact, Chain of Self-command, Low Smoking, G-Ray Vision, Monthly Resolution, Lawful Good Biker and The Study Habit

It's been 14 years now since everyday systems first went online in 2002.   And I think that significant anniversary deserves some kind of acknowledgement.   So I think what I'm going to do to observe this is give a kind of "state of the systems" check-in episode, a brief tour of how all the everyday systems are still working for me, -- whether they're still working for me --  how I notice they're working for other people, and any additional insights I might have about them

Are my low podcast production values good enough to produce an audiobook? You be the judge! For this episode, an experimental reading of Chapter 1 of the No S Diet book. Let me know if a few tweaks here and there might do the trick, or if I had better rethink this whole project.

Habit is powerful. But is it always the answer? Is there room for one-time, decisive actions in the realm of self-improvement? I think there is -- but perhaps not quite where you expect it.

In which the subtle but crucial difference between S-days and Cheat Days is expounded upon.