The Ultimate Guide to Building Personal Systems for Your Life

Have you ever tried a "that girl morning routine," but only stuck to it for three days? Have you ever wondered why the routines, healthy habits, and motivational things you see other people doing to improve their lives don't work for you? It's because you are trying to fit their lifestyle into yours, instead of building routines and systems that work for you. In this guide, I'll show you how to build personal systems that actually fit your lifestyle!

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What personal systems should you use to organize every area of your life?

The Miracle Morning routine could change your life if you had the lifestyle and time to actually do it! 

What about the popular 5 AM routine?

Should you use the Getting Things Done system or the Eisenhower matrix?

What about the Pomodoro method or time-blocking?

It's simple.

You should use none of these systems. Yes, none!

Instead, build your own systems. It'll probably combine ideas from multiple productivity methods. Every productivity and self-help guru swears by a different daily routine or a different system. That's just their own personal system!

It's time to build your own personal systems!

What is a Personal System?

Personal systems (or life systems as I like to call them) are the building blocks of your life. They're the main topic I like to talk about on this blog because I find life systems fascinating.

• It's what you do right after getting up in the morning, and what you do before going to bed
• It's how you organize your closet, your finances, and your grocery shopping list
• It's how you choose what book you are going to read next and decide what to eat for dinner
• It's the to-do list you spend fifteen minutes writing every morning (or the to-do list you don't even have)

Personal Systems to Build

Because everyone's lives are different, the personal systems that will be the most beneficial to you will change based on where you are in life.

Below are some ideas for personal systems you can build to get you started thinking about how you should organize your life!

• Morning routine
• Evening routine
• Weekend routine
• Calendar and scheduling system
• To-do list system
• Email organization system
• House cleaning system
• Workout routine
• Reading system
• Self-improvement system
• Planning routine
• Goal setting system
• Finance and budgeting system
• Meal planning and cooking system
• Time management methods

The Ultimate Guide to Building Personal Systems for Your Life

1. Audit Your Life

2. Research Different Systems

The best systems aren't the "aesthetic" ones. I only make a few pretty bullet journal pages a year. The rest of them are just my to-do lists!

This also isn't about copying and pasting what works for other people. Learning about other people's systems is an ideal place to start, but only take the pieces of their systems that you actually want. No need to try meditating if you don't want to!

As I mentioned above, there are tons of systems out there that people use to organize every area of their lives. Here are a few to learn more about if you don't know where to get started:

• The Bullet Journal System
• The Getting Things Done System
• The Eisenhower Matrix
• The Pomodoro Technique
• The Alastair Method
  
• The Miracle Morning Routine
• Time-Blocking
• Eat That Frog Method
• Inbox Zero
• SMART Goal Setting
• Kanban System
• Personal Knowledge System

3. Build a Test Plan

You might be reading about a successful person's daily routine and instantly spot some things that wouldn't fit your lifestyle. Those are things you can instantly cut from your test plan.

I was reading Tools of Titans by Timothy Ferris, and it kept mentioning things like sitting in a sauna or doing an ice bath for 15 minutes every morning. That's just not feasible for me. 😂

I'm a college student. Currently, I do go running every morning, and that fits my current lifestyle.

Whatever you decide to do, just make sure it's small enough that in a couple of days you won't dread doing it.

Make sure there is a purpose behind everything you are trying out as well. Are you trying to journal because you are interested in the benefits it offers or because you feel like it's essential to having "perfect morning routine?"

Just because someone else does it, doesn't mean you should.

4. Experiment

Now it's time for the fun part! Making positive changes in your life is always exciting!

Because there are so many systems, this will be very different based on what you are testing out, but I think a week is a good amount of time for seeing if you like a specific routine or system.

To keep the experiment small, if it's a new routine, you could try out one step and then add the next one after you decide to keep or delete the previous step.

If it's a new system like a bullet journal, you can start in an old notebook and only test out a few pages at a time. My first bullet journal was in a composition notebook!

Avoid the urge to try to figure out the perfect system or to try to make things perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect system.

After the week is up, it's time to make revisions!

5. Make Revisions + Switch Things Up

6. Take Breaks

Routines get boring!

I love my bullet journal, but I still take breaks from it, and I don't force myself to use it if I don't feel like it.

Make sure that you aren't forcing yourself to always be on. Take time away from your personal systems and routines.

When I'm not in college, I don't follow my routines as closely. I sleep in on the weekends even when I'm at college if I have time. I watch TV sometimes, and I'm not always productive.

Adding variety to your life is one of the best ways to keep life interesting!

Routines are never set in stone. As your life changes, your routines should too.

Start Building Your Own Personal Systems

In a nutshell, these are my tips for trying out a new routine, system, or technique.

1. Pick one new routine, system, or technique to try
1. Routine: Start with one step in the routine (For a morning routine, you could try drinking one cup of water right after you wake up)
2. System: Start with the most basic version of the system that you can (For a bullet journal, this could look like starting with just a weekly layout on a piece of paper)
3. Technique: Only test the technique in one area of your life (For time tracking, you could track just your exercise)
2. Break the system down to its bare bones
3. Try it for seven days daily
4. If you like it, keep going. If you don't, try something else or tweak it to better fit your lifestyle

Building habits takes time, so it's okay to make your personal systems tiny at first and build from there!

Documenting Your Personal Systems

You don't have to write down your personal systems, but if you do, here are some questions to answer as you create your own personal systems. I especially like writing down my routines.

1. When does it happen and how often?
2. What exactly do you do?
3. What tools do you use?

For example, for time tracking, I use this technique on a near daily basis throughout the day for tracking homework and work (only these two areas of my life).

When I sit down to work on a task, I turn on a timer on an app, and when I finish, I turn off the timer. I review my data on a regular basis using the app Boosted.

For my weekend routine, I'd write down that it happens Friday evening through Sunday evening. Then, I'd list all of the things I do over the weekend such as meal prep and looking over my finances. Then, I'd list the tools I use, which is mainly my bullet journal.

For building routines and systems, you can answer these same questions!

Final Notes on the Ultimate Guide to Building Personal Systems for Your Life