He Has a System for Everything

For those of you who don't recognize that line, it's from a favorite Burk family movie My Blue Heaven. And a perfect place to start this post.

In the movie, FBI agent Barney Coopersmith (Rick Moranis) is being jilted by his wife Margaret, a physical therapist specializing in baseball players, for a twenty-something relief pitcher. The reason is that Margaret, who speaks the line serving as title to this post, finds Barney to be no fun. This is owing to his rather routinized approach to life, as she notes, even having a system for eating pancakes.

While I wouldn't equate myself to Barney Coopersmith (I'm taller), I do have a systems view of life. I've never really understood if this is due to a loss of oxygen to the brain during birth or an extra chromosome. But I've been out of denial for quite a while now and have learned to live with it. And as many of you know, inflict it on others whenever possible.

I must admit it's not a bad life despite the common aversion to this affliction, often confused with habit. However, there is a difference. A habit is a behavior pattern usually driven by convenience or personal need. Habits can be good (flossing, saying please and thank you, looking both ways before stepping off the curb) or bad (binge drinking, texting while driving, messin' with Sasquatch).

A system on the other hand is a behavior pattern designed to meet a goal. I know the "g" word can be offensive, and foster bad memories of planning, effort and requirements foisted upon us by others. But if one has goals of one's own choosing, either small in scope or more significant, systems can come in handy. I guess I've always had a lot of goals, because I can trace my need for and use of systems back even to my adolescence (3x5 index cards pasted to the back of my early vinyl sleeves with pertinent sorting information). So to understand my predeliction for systems, we need to talk about goals.

Now there are the heavy weights, like getting an education, having a career, raising a family, etc. Goal-setting for such monumental outcomes is fairly common place, and practiced even by those not encumbered by an inherent systems orientation. One of the great mysteries of life for me is why so many people who appreciate systems for securing big things utterly disregard their effectiveness in creating smaller, day-to-day, but highly desirable states of being.

One reason I theorize for this breakdown in logic is the general notion that systems must be complicated, high-maintenance and often more trouble than they're worth. If this is your impression, as my former Franklin guru Hyrum Smith would say, you have an error in your "belief window". Actually, a system must be exactly the trouble it's worth or you shouldn't use it. And if you've experienced systems more burdensome than their benefits, you've been doing it wrong. I realize these are bold claims, but I stand by them (and am available for personal consultation for those who suffer from systems phobias; I work for food).

But back to my goals. For one, I like to minimize the cost of, well, everything. I learned long ago from an unlikely source (which I will only disclose to anyone interested over a glass of my favorite libation) that it's not how much you earn that dictates your financial fortunes, it's how much you don't spend. There are of course exceptions to this principle. If you earn nothing, it doesn't matter how much you spend. You'll always be in the red. But on the whole, I've found this idea very constructive and instructive.

So how do you minimize costs? First you have a system to track expenses, to the extent that interests you (you don't need to track income; the IRS and others like banking institutions will do that for you). Second, you need to get the most out of what you do spend. This is a little trickier, as it often means keeping things a little longer, re-purposing old items for new jobs, and being able to resist having the latest and greatest of everything. It's always been my thinking that the longer you use anything, the more prudent your original investment in that item was.

So, a system for maintaining your possessions, storing them when no longer in use for possible future needs, and doing so in such a way that you can find them when you want them, can be very useful in meeting this goal. All it really takes to manage such a system is a few designated bins and the discipline to put things in their respective bins when not in use. Simple, right? Oh. Yeah. I did use the "d" word. Sorry. I know that can be a challenge for some.

Just this morning I was able to replace my failing garage cassette player at no cost. It was a favorite as it was my grandmother's. She liked to sit in her sun room and listen to gospel music on it. But it's now starting to eat tapes, so I replaced it with a little bit fancier model from my retired electronics storage bin. This one was Nancy's Mom's, and it has a dual-deck relay system - sweet. What? You don't have a garage cassette tape player?

Another tip I would offer here is that keeping old things in storage has one drawback. Things, especially things that plug in, liked to be used. They endure much better in service than they do sitting and waiting. So I suggest every so often just pulling them out, dusting them off and firing them up for a time. A far better idea is to give each of these lasting treasures a job, even if it's a small one, while it's waiting for return to full-time employment (we all like to have purpose).

I have done this with a number of my old toys. Like the 20" Sony Trinitron that I bought with my first management cash award in 1980. Long since pushed aside by modern flat screen HDTVs, this gem now sits on my furnace room workbench and gets occasional use during fix-it projects or those beloved moments on the treadmill.

Another example is my old PDA. Having been replaced as a pocket organizer by today's smart phones (synced with my day planner, of course), it now serves as a portable home for my book and movie listings. This device comes in handy when I'm browsing used movie and book store stacks, looking for treasure (which in the past had upon occasion resulted in purchase of treasure I already owned but didn't remember).

But let's move on. Another goal I have is to fit as much fun into life as possible (one could argue the moral and ethical merits of such a goal, but save your breath; not interested in overcoming this character flaw). A planning system or two to inventory options, schedule events, secure facilities and complete preparations is a necessity here.

My personal choice for planning since 1989 has been the Franklin system appropriately modified to suit my idiosyncrasies. But there are several other subsystems that support my quest for max fun. Among these are the Disney Vacation Club point tracking system (of my own design, of course), the extended family calendar, my loading and packing protocols, and since the mid-90s a little group we call the Burk/Dyle Vacation Club. I could wax at length on the virtues of long-term thinking and planning systems, but their magic is succinctly summed up by my good friend Dave Dyle with the words "if it's in the planner, it happens". QED

I have many other areas of activity that benefit from simple but useful systems. There are my book and movie listings (noted above) and music collection index that keep track of those respective items, what I have, where they are, what's yet to be read, viewed or digitized. I maintain these lists during late evening lab viewings of old movies or live sporting events, in between the good parts. There are my hobby cubbies where I keep all supplies needed to support music and photo projects (card stock, blank CDs, jewel boxes, labels, etc.) And there is my daily fitness system that monitors sleep, exercise, diet and stress management investments (and their occasional shortcomings).

Another essential system we have nurtured in the family for as long as we've been a family is our internal communication. More elaborate in the past (see previous post Family Meetings), our weekly reviews of events and discussions of items of interest have over the years helped us all succeed in our various pursuits and served to strengthen relationships. Now, in retirement, the system is reduced to a Monday (or for the well-informed "Second Sunday") morning review of issues and/or chores we need to address, and desired joint movie or golf outings for the week. More importantly, this regular check-in helps us avoid taking just being together (which we almost always are) for actually doing things together. 

There are still other important systems in my life that I would like to talk about - those that support activities like the Spinner Invitational (my former bowling team's annual golf outing) and my relentless quest to track down and own as many cheesy sci-fi movies as my allowance will permit. But I'll save discussion of these close-to-my-heart matters for future posts.

Suffice it to say that, like Barney Coopersmith, I guess I really do have a system for everything (or almost everything; I haven't mastered the pancake thing yet). But it's only because I see the world as an endless set of integrated systems within which we all live. So we each have a choice. We can cruise through life accepting (and often complaining about) the limitations set for us by the systems of nature or other people (which as the Hawaiians believe are really just a peculiar part of nature). Or, we can do our best to sort out the systems that affect our lives, understand them, and try to manage them to our advantage by intervening in just the right way at just the right time. I've always felt the latter was worth the effort.

As always, comments welcome.

Grosse Pointe Charles