About my book "System life"
How the idea came about
It all started with the fact that I often began to hear from colleagues and friends: «Semyon, when are you going to write a book?» Where did such questions come from?
Firstly, I read quite a lot. I can read several books a month. At work, I am mostly surrounded by people who also read a lot. red_mad_robot has a strong corporate culture that is focused on growth. The company is full of activities for the exchange and generation of knowledge. We often discussed books there. We argued a lot and exchanged opinions. Sometimes my point of view did not coincide with the author of the book, but was welcomed by colleagues during the discussion. Almost always such a discussion ended with a joke that it was time for me to write my own version of the book.
Secondly, people often point out that I tell interesting stories. Probably, this allows me to do a broad outlook and life experience. I am only 33 at the time of writing the book, but various events and decisions allowed me to collect a good amount of experience that tested me for strength and pumped my soft skills. Thirdly, I have accumulated a lot of information about the organization of life from incoming sources that I have ever read, watched and listened to as well as the results of my research on this topic, which were transformed into notes, presentations and speeches. I shared them with people, they kept them for themselves and later gave a good feedback.
Thanks to these factors, for the first time I began to think that I had knowledge that could be recorded and shared with people. The idea took root after a dialogue with my friend Yana Djibouti. She said she didn’t have time for anything, although she had no problems with time management. She’s like Richard Branson, only the female version. She has an infinite number of interests, hobbies and projects. I told her about my task management system. She liked it and asked me to teach her. In a couple of phone calls, I explained everything to her, and she began to implement it. After a couple of weeks, she said that it became much easier for her to control everything, and she started to have more time. Although there were still many questions, and not all the tools were involved, the conversation ended with the fact that it would be cool to make a course or write a book on the topic of organizing life. We even came up with a few names. The current title of the book «System Life» was also among them. So, there was an idea. There were a lot of fears and barriers to start, but more on that later. I was also helped by the desire not only to share useful experiences, but also to show that anyone can write a book. So that people who are afraid, waiting for signs, knowledge or status, start sharing knowledge. That it is not necessary to launch rockets, own a multibillion-dollar marketplace or a unicorn startup to make your own or someone else’s life better. I coped with my barriers myself, but I spent a lot of time on it. I hope this book will be a support for you, help you organise your life and start something new.
How to read this book
I wanted to write a book that you can start reading from any chapter. I wanted it to be small, and to have everything you need. So that at any time you can turn to it, get benefits and not read other books. When I started writing, I realized that it was as impossible as to make a project quickly, cheaply and efficiently. This simply cannot happen. Life is not a goal, but a process. System life is an integrated approach in the form of a continuous cycle of six processes: analysis, planning, management, optimization, reflection and training.
The content of the approach is so large that it can be endlessly studied and experimented with details. You can even understand it in your own way and create your own approach. I tried to select a sequence of six processes in order to catch on to groups of tools and approaches within each. Each chapter is about a separate process that is interconnected with other processes. If you don’t start reading from the beginning, you won’t understand what’s going on. You will also see references to previous chapters and other books. You can always go back to the previous chapter, but it’s better not to switch to the recommended books right away. Read the book to the end, figure out how the whole approach works. Then you will be able to plan further studying of the materials more effectively for yourself. Otherwise, diving into the details of other books may take you in the wrong direction.
I’ve read a lot of non-fiction books. Somewhere I sighed that it was written beautifully in the book, but it doesn’t work that way in real life, and somewhere I found useful insights. Some motivate, others instruct, others teach life, and others show research. There will be nothing like that in this book. I’m not going to motivate you, teach you life and give a bunch of evidence that it works. I don’t see the point in giving banal advice. Everyone knows that smoking is harmful. If a person is shown studies proving the harm of smoking, then he will agree, he will be sad, but most will not quit. Therefore, I don’t see the point in stuffing the book with hundreds of footnotes that no one reads. My goal is to explain how and what processes need to be started in life in order to build a life management system that I use. To make it easier and more organic. Without a thousand proofs, psychological violence and persuasion. So that motivation starts working naturally, and not under the whiplash.
Having received the template of my approach, you will be able to string all the other knowledge and experience on it. You can attribute almost any book to one of the processes and make a list for pumping it. For the sake of this approach, many details had to be sacrificed. Therefore, we will go through some topics at the top level, and I will show you what other books you need to read to understand them. I made a choice in favor of the overall picture before diving into the details of individual fragments. So, anyone can go from the general to the particular and go deeper where necessary. Such a process seems to me more logical and clearer. At the end, you will receive a list of 60 books that will improve your life and make it more systematic.
It is best to read the book step by step from beginning to end. Mark what you already know and where there are blind spots. You can attach notes, write on pages, highlight text, fold pages and etc. Do everything that will allow you to get more benefit from this book. After reading it, take a fresh look at the approach of system life from above, update the blind spots that need to be worked out first. What processes need to be fixed, what tools can be implemented, what knowledge is missing. After reading it, you will already know what to do next. «Just repeat after me» will not work. Although I think the approach is universal, but when you start using it, it will be yours. It will evolve and adapt over time. The main thing is to understand how it works and not to lose these processes in life. Their launch in any form will have a positive impact on your life. Since the basis of my approach is common sense. And here I tried to collect it not only from my own experience and knowledge, but also from the experience of my friends, colleagues and authors of other books. When you understand the meaning and principle of the approach, you will be able to use any tools and implement new processes for yourself. I want to give you a fishing rod, not a fish. So that you can learn to think in a systematic way and be able to get any fish in any conditions. And understand what needed to be studied and implemented for a bigger catch.
I am not an omniscient teacher; I am an ordinary person who wants to share his experience to save your time and effort. I will be glad to receive any feedback about the book and make my approach even better. I am sure that there are still many approaches and knowledge that I have yet to study with you. It’s easy to find me on social media. So, press like buttons, subscribe to new videos, and let’s go!
