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Leitura de 12 min

System Vs. Will Power

Summary

In this episode, host Jonathan Cottrell explores the concept of systems versus willpower, inspired by Scott Adams’ book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. Adams argues that people should stop setting arbitrary goals and instead create systems that encourage learning and sustainable behavior. Cottrell extends this idea, suggesting the real problem is not goals themselves, but goals that rely solely on willpower without a supporting system.

Cottrell explains that systems are built on education and values. For example, instead of a simple weight-loss goal, one might develop a system for learning about healthy eating based on valuing physical and mental health. Goals then become tools to measure progress within the system, not the primary drivers of action. This approach reduces the constant drain on willpower, which is a finite daily resource.

The episode provides practical examples, such as shifting one’s default mindset from “opting in” to exercise to “opting out,” making the healthy choice the automatic path. Cottrell also applies the systems concept to professional contexts like test-driven development, where teams often fail when relying on initial enthusiasm and willpower instead of building sustainable workflows and tools.

Ultimately, Cottrell advises listeners to use their initial energy and excitement to build systems that sustain good habits and decisions. Goals should be derived from values and systems, and willpower should be conserved as a scarce resource. The key takeaway is to replace reliance on intuition and fleeting willpower with deliberate, systematic support for long-term success.

Recommendations

Books

  • How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big — A book by Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) that inspired this episode. Adams argues for creating systems over setting goals as a more effective approach to life and success.

People

  • Scott Adams — The creator of the Dilbert comic strip and author of the book ‘How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.’ His blog post and book ideas on systems versus goals form the basis of this episode’s discussion.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to the topic of willpower versus systems — Jonathan Cottrell introduces the episode’s theme, inspired by Scott Adams and his book. He explains Adams’ core argument: people should create systems instead of setting goals, as systems promote learning and understanding.
  • 00:01:53 — The problem with goals that rely only on willpower — Cottrell refines the idea, arguing the real issue is having arbitrary goals without a system to inform them. Goals that require constant willpower drain a finite resource. He uses the dieting example of constantly saying ‘no’ to unhealthy foods versus having a system for healthy eating.
  • 00:03:01 — Using values and systems to derive meaningful goals — The host explains that goals should be based on personal values (like health) and used to measure progress. Systems of education help define goals (like a target BMI) and inform the actions needed to achieve them, reducing reliance on willpower.
  • 00:04:35 — Willpower as a finite resource and the power of defaults — Cottrell discusses the limited nature of daily willpower. He introduces the concept of ‘positive defaults,’ like making exercise the default daily behavior you must opt out of, not opt into. This simple mental shift is a system that conserves willpower.
  • 00:06:28 — Applying systems to work and avoiding conflict — The discussion extends to professional and personal life. Cottrell notes that systems can prevent conflict in relationships and help teams adopt practices like test-driven development. Relying on initial willpower or intuition often leads to failure when enthusiasm fades.
  • 00:07:52 — Building systems to sustain good habits and behaviors — Cottrell urges listeners to use their initial energy to build systems that sustain good decisions, not just to start a goal. He recommends adopting tools and workflows (like for test-driven development) to make desired behaviors easier and more consistent over time.
  • 00:08:33 — Final advice: conserve willpower and invest in systems — The host concludes by advising listeners not to abandon goals but to base them on values and systems. Willpower, like time and energy, is a non-renewable resource to be used sparingly. The most valuable systems are those that limit willpower expenditure and recapture time.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2017-02-24T08:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:10:13

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, and welcome to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cottrell, and in today’s

[00:00:07] episode we’re talking about willpower versus systems. Today’s episode is inspired by Scott

[00:00:17] Adams. If you’ve never heard of Scott Adams, you’ve probably heard of Dilbert, the comic.

[00:00:23] Scott created Dilbert, and he recently has gone on to write a book. The book is on Amazon. It’s

[00:00:30] called How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, colon, kind of the story of my life.

[00:00:38] And I haven’t read the entire book yet. One of Scott’s assertions in a blog post, he said this

[00:00:46] is a part of what he talks about in the book, but he talked about this in a blog post where he said

[00:00:53] people should stop making goals and instead create systems. So Scott’s argument is quite

[00:01:00] simply that systems encourage you to learn the nuances and to actually learn about why and how

[00:01:08] rather than simply creating a goal. A system, for example, would be learning about how to eat

[00:01:16] healthy, how to eat in such a way that your body is fed properly.

[00:01:23] And Scott outlines this as a better way of thinking about nutrition or a better way of

[00:01:29] thinking about diet than having some arbitrary weight goal, right? So instead of having a goal,

[00:01:37] you have a system, and that system is bettered by education, and it’s bettered by learning.

[00:01:44] And I’d like to extend this thought from Scott a little bit further because I break a little bit

[00:01:53] into this. I think that the real problem isn’t necessarily having a goal. It is having a goal

[00:02:14] that requires only willpower. Let me say that again. Having a goal that you are not systematically

[00:02:23] First of all, determining, right? It’s arbitrary goals that you set without any kind of system

[00:02:30] to inform why you’re setting that goal, number one. And also having goals without having supporting

[00:02:37] systems such that the only thing that gets you to that goal is a constant drain on your willpower.

[00:02:45] So to reuse our dieting example, instead of constantly saying no to the foods that you do

[00:02:52] not want to eat, you have to constantly say no to the foods that you do not want to eat.

[00:02:53] What you can do is create a goal based on your values. So you have to determine your values

[00:03:01] and then create a goal. And a goal is really only there to measure your progress, right?

[00:03:08] If you want to measure your progress, if you want to validate that the system is working,

[00:03:15] that’s what a goal is for. So you may develop a value system that values health, personal,

[00:03:22] mental, and physical health, right? And you value health because you want to be your best self.

[00:03:30] These are very easy things to get on board with. So based on these values, you can identify

[00:03:36] areas where you’re not necessarily as healthy as you could be. You may use an objective system

[00:03:44] to help you determine ways that you can actively invest back into those values, right? But you need

[00:03:52] to use these values and the systems in order to derive goals, right? So you’re actively using

[00:04:00] systems both to determine your goals and to meet your goals, okay? So the system of healthy eating

[00:04:08] may help you define that your ideal, your target weight is at some BMI point, or you want to

[00:04:17] measure your body fat percentage or something like that. And you can develop,

[00:04:22] these goals by using a system of education. And then you can use that same system of education

[00:04:28] to inform the action along the path to accomplishing that goal. Because here’s the

[00:04:35] reality. We only have so much willpower in a given day. And we’ve talked about heuristics on

[00:04:42] this show. We’ve talked about having usable or sensible defaults, positive defaults. So for

[00:04:52] example, we set up a default last year that every day we’re going to exercise, and that is our

[00:04:58] default behavior. Instead of having to opt in to exercise, we now have to opt out of exercise.

[00:05:06] It’s a very simple mental shift, and it doesn’t really change anything tangibly. We aren’t really

[00:05:13] actually changing something about our route. We aren’t changing our gym membership or anything

[00:05:19] like that. We’re just simply shifting this perspective. We’re just simply shifting this

[00:05:22] perspective, our way of talking about exercise. Instead of asking, do you want to exercise today?

[00:05:28] We now ask, do you want to take a break today? Do you want to opt out of exercise today? And this

[00:05:36] is a system that we’ve set up. And there are similar systems for things like health, but there

[00:05:41] are also systems that you can employ in your everyday work, right? So for example, you can

[00:05:49] set up systematic ways of dealing with your body fat percentage. So for example, if you’re

[00:05:52] personal relationships, and some people avoid this idea because it sounds cold or somehow overly

[00:05:59] systematic to them, but there is so much that you can avoid if you create systems around your

[00:06:09] relationships. And when I say avoid, I mean there’s so much conflict that you can avoid. There’s so

[00:06:14] many things that if you only are relying on your intuition, if you’re only relying on your each and

[00:06:22] power to make the right decisions, then your willpower will eventually fail you. And you can

[00:06:28] see this happening all the time. If you look at teams who shift over into test-driven development,

[00:06:36] and if they don’t have a system in place, a lot of times what they’re relying on is their intuition

[00:06:42] and their gut, their willpower, their resolve, right? Because we can have a meeting and talk

[00:06:50] about test-driven development. We can have a meeting and talk about test-driven development.

[00:06:52] We can have a meeting and talk about coding standards, about simplicity, about code review,

[00:06:56] and then walk away from that meeting highly energized in the same way that on January 1st,

[00:07:03] when everybody makes resolutions, they walk away from those resolutions with enough energy to get

[00:07:08] started on them. And very few people have a problem starting on their resolutions. A lot of people

[00:07:16] have a problem starting on them on day two, and on day three, and on day four. Because,

[00:07:22] their willpower begins to run out. If instead of relying on willpower and energy in order to

[00:07:29] accomplish the things that you want to accomplish, in order to reach the goals that you want to

[00:07:33] reach, instead of relying on that willpower and the overabundance of energy that comes from the

[00:07:40] excitement of novelty and agreement, instead of relying on those things, build systems with that

[00:07:46] initial energy. Build ways of sustaining good decisions.

[00:07:52] Build ways of sustaining good behaviors and good habits. Build a system around your test-driven

[00:07:58] development that supports that behavior. Adopt new tools that make test-driven development

[00:08:06] easier to adopt on a more consistent basis. Don’t stop making goals. Don’t stop identifying where

[00:08:15] you want to be, looking into the future, and trying to come up with an objective measurement

[00:08:22] that you would like to hit. Of course, make sure that when you are creating these goals,

[00:08:26] you’re doing so based on values and based on systems. And finally, as you proceed towards

[00:08:33] those goals, don’t use your willpower. This is not enough. Willpower is a powerful thing,

[00:08:41] and it should be used sparingly because you only have so much of it. Willpower and energy and time,

[00:08:49] these are things that are not renewable resources. They’re going to be used up,

[00:08:54] and if they’re used up too quickly, you’re going to end up failing. And the system

[00:08:59] that you put in place to limit your willpower expenditure, those systems are incredibly

[00:09:07] valuable. In the same way that the systems that you put in place in order to recapture time,

[00:09:14] these are incredibly valuable systems. I hope that you will consider the way that you are

[00:09:19] thinking about goals, and how you are spending your energy, and how you are spending your

[00:09:25] willpower, and start creating systems where before you were relying on your intuition and on your

[00:09:31] energy. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea. I hope you’re enjoying

[00:09:36] these episodes. If you are, make sure you go and leave a review in iTunes. This is the best way to

[00:09:43] help other developers just like you stumble on Developer Tea as they’re browsing around

[00:09:49] for new podcasts. So I really appreciate those ratings, those reviews. Those are huge,

[00:09:54] huge helps to the show. Thank you so much for listening. If you don’t want to miss out on

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[00:10:04] Until next time, enjoy your tea.

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