Why Self-Discipline Isn’t Enough — The Power of Systems

I recently wrote about the need to be self-disciplined and how it can help one overcome procrastination. After a few days, I heard a word from someone that spoke about why self discipline may not be enough to keep one going as we are humans; we tend to fold sometimes and may not keep to being disciplined and eventually fall off. Depending on our individual capacity, some of us might have a greater discipline nature to retreat and bounce back right where we had fallen off while others may not even find their way back up.

This is where there is a need for systems in place. Systems help to keep us right up when we may be falling off, and these systems can be in the form of an accountability partner, having a daily routine, delegations, setting activity cues, or even possibly having time blocks for activities and making sure there is no disturbance during these times.

DAILY ROUTINES

When we talk about having daily routines, this means you have your each day planned on the calendar so that you already know what you need to do at every particular time of the day. When you keep up to this every day, you will get used to it. Although there are some days that other more pressing task might come up, you can always adjust your calendar to fit in your activity.

You should understand that if you don't consistently take part in this activity, you will not have a system that works. It needs to be part of you before it can work. Daily routines helps you to cut of the stress of decision making at different times of your life, that is because you have already known what you need to do at every point you find your self in time for each day.

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DELEGATIONS

There are some activities that may come up that are not urgent, nor are they important. You can say NO to these activities or either delegate them to someone to do them for you. If you feel they are not something you want to do, instead of letting them take place of your important activities, you can learn to say NO to them. If you can't do that instead, help find someone that can assist you to make sure those activities are done.

Try to make sure that you spend more time on things that are valuable to you. With this in mind, you will not easy get caught up with unimportant activities.

SETTING ACTIVITY CUES

Shape your activity in such a way that the first activity would complement the next activity. This way, it would be easy to get it done. For instance, I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I do is my morning fellowship; the next thing after that is to clear my room, and then next to clean my kitchen; then after that, I go out for a run, and when I am back, I brush my teeth and take my bath. You see that set of morning routines? Clearing my room would encourage me to also clean my kitchen. After I go for a run, I will be very sweaty, so I will really need to clean up, which requires me to go to the bathroom to bathe and brush.

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TIME BLOCKS

For time blocks, you put yourself in a place of deep work where you take care of distractions; you put away everything. An example for me is when I put my phone on DND and I freeze all my social media applications. In this way, I do not get any form of distraction from my phone in any way. Even calls, I will not be able to receive them because I placed them on silence through Do not Disturb (DND).

During this periods, I make sure I don't do anything asides from the activity that was planned for that time. This way I get to discipline my self to use that time perfectly.

ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER

This cannot be overemphasised. Most times, we think we can do it alone, but at some point in life, it will become too heavy for us to carry alone. This is the point where we need someone to help us with the load and motivate us to keep going. An example is going to the gym. If you just want to start out with the gym for the first time and you believe you will be consistent,. There is a high probability that you will give up in weeks, if not days, if you are doing it all alone without having someone accountable to you.

If there is someone who comes to knock at your door to push you out of bed to at least lift something and stay consistent each and every day. You will be able to stay up and not give up.

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All these mentioned are not possible if you don't consistently make plans for these activities on calendar and schedule them accordingly. It is very okay to keep adjusting the schedules according to how convenient it can be for you.