I love systems and hate willpower.

I especially love the simplest systems: pick a goal, understand your existing inertia, work with that inertia to re-route it to somewhere you’d like. Willpower “relies on the weather,” as my old boss used to say, so we need to pretend it doesn’t and will never exist. If it shows up, great, but we don’t need it. Systems will do.

I’ve used this example before but it’s a great one - in 2018, I decided I wanted to run a marathon even though I’d never run more than 6 miles before. The big change I made was to put my running shoes on every morning for seven months.

If I didn’t run, at some point during the morning I had to tuck my tail between my legs and change out of my shoes. This made me feel like an idiot.

On the days I didn’t feel like running I’d say “I’ll do a mile then shower and change,” but, once I was out there, I ended up doing 3 or 5 or 10.

As a result of putting running shoes on every morning (a tactic lots of people before me have used), seven months later a marathon happened. It was a side-effect.

About six weeks in the running part was automatic, so I started looking into running programs and diet and other ways to be a better runner. But, those things only happened after that early momentum.

The problem I’ve found helping our founders build systems is that they want to jump straight to that second part. They ask questions things like whether their system should be in Notion or Airtable, which is maybe relevant long-term, but not the place to start. Your first system should be as simple as humanly possible - the “put on your running shorts” of systems.

So, today, on this sunny and beautiful (at least in Connecticut) Sunday, I challenge you to make a ”Running Shoes System” for next week. A way to build inertia in a dead simple way towards something you want.

Here’s an example.