I saw a video yesterday that was a great reminder. It said something like, “Systems beat goals every time.” The idea is that goals are great to have, but if you don’t have systems that give you the daily actions you need to take to achieve them, it’s much harder to get there. They’re both important and work together; goals give you a target, and systems give you the actions.

Everything you want in life needs some kind of system. Businesses need systems to get the work done well and on time, serve customers in the best way possible, and run the team. You need systems for exercise and a healthy diet if you want to be in shape.

We may not have them all written out and detailed, but we follow systems whether we’re aware of it or not. The simplest system I’ve been running for years is the Power List: five critical tasks every day to move my life forward. I have lots of other systems that operate inside of that, but the five critical tasks hold it all together.

The daily actions are what count. If you do the things you need to do, you should be able to achieve most of the things you want in life.

— Bus