- Tana Fis Letters
- Posts
- no.7. Understand your LifeOS
Edition no. 7 - March 9th, 2023
All areas of your life are connected.
It's time to acknowledge that nothing lives in isolation.
Everything in your life is connected:
For example, your thoughts influence your health. Your health affects your behaviors. Your behaviors impact your thoughts.
This seems rather intuitive, but people don't apply this way of thinking to their life. They see different aspects of life as unrelated to others.
If that's you, this is totally OK. You never learned this in school. Actually, school taught you the exact opposite:
“Physics exists isolated from Biology.”
“Math doesn't influence English.”
“Art is unrelated to Chemistry.”
What a disservice to humanity. All of these subjects are absolutely connected somehow.
It's time to correct things. ↓
As I mentioned last week, this issue, Fis Letter no.7, is special.
For the first time, I'm publicly sharing my personal LifeOS theory and diagram. I've been working on it since April 2022, and have developed it into a neat and comprehensive diagram (diagrams=📈).
The LifeOS, or Life Operating System, is a powerful way to understand and improve your life by applying Life Management.
The LifeOS provides an overview of your life, and then you apply Life Management to improve its quality.
Join me in looking at life through the lens of Systems Thinking.
(If you just want the diagram, scroll down to Notes.)
💬 4 Quotes
Quote 1
“The first law of ecology is that everything is connected to everything else.”
Systems Thinking is closely related to Ecology, which by definition means the study of relationships between living organisms.
There is an entire field in Academia, with tens of thousands of people, dedicated to studying relationships between living systems.
Nothing in nature is isolated from the whole.
Nothing in your life is isolated from the whole.
Quote 2
“At the forefront of contemporary science, we no longer see the universe as a machine composed of elementary building blocks.
We have discovered that the material world is a network of inseparable patterns of relationships; that the planet as a whole is a living, self-regulating system.”
Systems Thinking is a shift in Worldview.
The way we understand the world changes:
From: Isolated components (machines).
To: Connected systems (networks).
This applies on large scales, such as the world economy, and small scales, such as your life.
LifeOS is the application of this principle to study your life.
The LifeOS is here to help you understand how the systems (areas) in your life are related to each other.
Quote 3
“Systems Thinking is when you study components by its job within a system, instead of breaking everything down into individual components.”
Additionally, August Bradley points out 3 underlying concepts to understand Systems Thinking:
All systems are part of a larger system.
Every system is defined by its function in the larger system.
The system's important properties come from the interactions of its parts. (Within the same system and with other systems.)
Again, it's all about interactions and relationships.
When you apply this thinking to your life (life = larger system), you start to study (and improve) interactions between areas of your life (areas = smaller systems).
Quote 4
“Change your thinking. Change your life. Your thoughts create your reality.”
I'm done with the context. Let's get to the meat of things!
Let's get started with the mother of all systems:
Your Thoughts (your mind).
We live in a mental universe. Mental creation precedes physical creation. The thoughts in your mind (greatly) influence all other systems.
Keep this in mind for the rest of your life.
You become what you think about. What goes through your mind influences everything that happens in your life.
Take care of your thoughts.
Think positive.
Now let's get to the LifeOS Diagram ↓.
📄 3 Notes
1. The LifeOS Diagram
After many previous versions, here’s the LifeOS diagram!
This is (approximately) how life works.
Each box is a system, and each shaded area is a larger system.
Input:
🌬️ Inspiration
📚 Content
🍎 Nutrition
Life:
💭 Thoughts
🔭 Vision
🎯 Goals
🤾♂️ Behavior
🫀 Emotions
💪🏽 Health
🏡 Environment
Output:
🍃 Fulfillment
📈 Output
💰 Finances
Systems interact with one another, and together, they compose a grand system that shapes the entirety of your life.
I will save the exact definition of each system for a later issue. For now, there are a few key points to be made here:
1.1 Thoughts create reality
As we mentioned before, your thoughts influence everything.
For simplicity and aesthetics, I didn't add all the arrows from 💭 Thoughts to all the other boxes, but that's how it works in reality.
Everything, and I mean, Everything, is shaped by the thoughts you cultivate in your mind.
1.2 Behavior is the major bottleneck
Behavior is Action.
Your 🤾♂️ Behavior is central to everything that happens in life, and it's the central system in the LifeOS diagram.
You can't change your health without changing behaviors, and you can't create output without action.
Pay close attention:
There is ONE (1) arrow from your Life, to your 📈 Outputs. And it originates from your 🤾♂️ Behavior.
If you don't take ACTION, nothing will ever happen, and your life will never improve.
1.3 What matters is your Output(s)
Let's simplify things, and skip the philosophical question of "what's the meaning of life?"
In simple terms, Life is about creating meaningful output and fostering fulfillment.
Before you jump out of your seat, listen up.
Your 📈 Output(s) can be literally anything, from raising a child, getting stronger, or transporting passengers to writing a book, finding a partner, or managing a team.
But ultimately, what matters in life is creating some form of output(s).
All the systems in life are directed at one single purpose, and that is to manifest the set of outputs you desire in life.
In turn, 🍃 Fulfillment may come from both working towards and/or achieving this set of outputs, but this is also a matter for another issue.
If you didn't yet define your Outputs, that's a good (the best) place to start.
2. The Support Systems
Luckily, you are not alone in the journey of life!!
Your 🤾♂️ Behaviors are still the bottleneck, but you have multiple ways to leverage your actions to better create (better) outputs and results.
Leverage means you take an action once, and benefit from it multiple times.
Here is the complete LifeOS, with the Support Systems.
The 4 Support Systems are:
🧭 Review
🧠 Second Brain
🌐 Social Network
👔 Business
Each one of these provides you with more and better paths to create the results (outputs) you desire.
Here is the breakdown of each of these.
2.1 🧠 Second Brain
If you are reading this Letter, you know the importance of a Second Brain.
Your Second Brain is the ultimate support system for creating outputs.
This is where you Capture, Organize, and Distill knowledge that helps you Express yourself better and create more outputs with higher quality.
A 🧠 Second Brain is also the perfect place for Life Management.
It's where you track your current status and progress in all systems of life, always looking to improve them!
2.2 🧭 Review
Reviews are a form of reflection and redirection. The objective of reviews is to consistently get better.
It's a dedicated moment to look for ways to improve any, or all, of the systems in your life.
When you review your behavior:
You iterate
You improve
You adjust directions
🧭 Reviews create better results.
2.3 🌐 Social Network
You are literally not alone.
Your Social Network can bring a huge boost to your Outputs.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African Proverb
Humans are social beings.
Your network is your net worth.
Your 🌐 Social Network is a MASSIVE Area.
Use your social relationships to maximize results.
2.4 👔 Business
Business here applies to a company you work for, or own, and also your Career and reputation.
Past work in your career (your reputation) can get you results (outputs).
Similarly, just being a part of a business will already provide you with outputs.
👔 Business is an important support area when looking at your LifeOS.
3. Feedback Loops and Triangulations
An important aspect of Systems Thinking is feedback loops.
Feedback Loops happen when the effect from one iteration propagates into the next ones.
With repeated interactions, these effects propagate. This means feedback loops will eventually have an Exponential effect, which is extremely powerful.
A simple example is reviewing your goals and behaviors:
When you review your behavior and set new goals, your future behavior will improve, and this improvement will carry over to the next interactions.
The next time you review your behavior, the past improvements are still there, and you will stack improvements! (Exponential growth.)
The LifeOS diagram is designed so you can identify patterns that hold cause-and-effect properties:
"System 1 causes an effect on system 2"
A very powerful cause-and-effect relationship comes from Triangulations.
Triangulations are 2-3 systems that create a triangle of influence, which forms a cycle.
There are many triangulations in the LifeOS diagram.
By identifying them, you have an opportunity to introduce a positive feedback loop! (Or break a negative feedback loop.)
🔗 2 Links
Link 1: Systems Thinking, by August Bradley
August Bradley is a phenomenal guy. I've learned a lot about Systems Thinking and Life Management from him.
I absolutely recommend checking out his YouTube channel, and this is a good place to start!
He clearly explains the fundamental concepts of Systems Thinking.
Be careful; opening this can be one of those rabbit holes.
Link 2: Key Systems Thinking Concepts, by Leyla Acaroglu
I studied this article several times, as it presents 6 key concepts regarding Systems Thinking in a very digestible way.
You'll find clear definitions for Interconnectedness, Synthesis, Emergence, Feedback Loops, Causality, and Systems Mapping.
Worth a read or a bookmark!
That's it. Thank you for reading!
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See you next week, my friend!
Cheers,
Fis