You don’t raise to the level of your goals, You fall to the level of your systems.
This idea got popularised in Atomic Habits I believe.
The first time I read this line, I felt like I had stumbled upon a treasure. I got so obsessed with it. It made so much sense; you can have goals with hopes to raise to their level, but you will ultimately only fall to the level of your daily routines, daily habits.
I started building systems.
It would have been amazing if I had just stick to it, but I never got satisfied with any system. I always felt something was missing, or something could be improved. Sometimes I knew what it was missing, sometimes I was just foolishly following everyone’s system so that I could steal the best parts of them and build the perfect system.
I threw myself into the rabbit hole. I would almost always end up with a Frankenstein monster for a system, individual parts that are beautiful and functional independently or in their system but when I steal them into mine they turn out to be hideous or broken.
I did this with almost everything, even when working on a project I will search for ways that are more efficient, more optimal, more easy and such.
I did it with my note taking app, looking for ways to make it easier but ultimately never end up using it.
I want to end this with
Premature optimisation is the root of all evil.