Section 4.3. Systems That Succeed

4.3. Systems That Succeed

I've explained why follow-through is important, that we shouldn't trust our brains, and the qualities of systems that fail. Now I'll explain what makes a system that will succeed.

A good system has the following qualities:

• Portable. You can take it everywhere.

• Reliable. It remembers everything you need, so you don't have to.

• Manageable chunks. Not a million little notes, not one List of Doom.

The elements we need to make a good system are:

• Calendar. A place to record recurring meetings, appointments, holidays, and so on.

• Life-goals list. A few blank pages to keep our long term goals and other notes.

• A day-by-day section. For each day we have:

  • To do list. A prioritized list just for that day.

  • Schedule. An hour-by-hour schedule for that day.

The essence of the system is the day-by-day page, which should be big enough for both that day's schedule and that day's to do list. FranklinCovey and Filofax sell stationery like that (see Figure 4-1). Alternatively, you can keep this information in a PDA. We're going to take our organizer with us everywhere we go so that if someone asks us to do something, we can record it right away and not be tempted to scribble it on a slip of paper that will be lost before we can copy it into our PAA/PDA.