<100 subscribers

The Paradox of Scaling Through Inaction: Why Smart People Build Systems

newsletter.scottdclary.com

Learn More

You wake up to the shrill sound of your alarm, already feeling behind. You gulp down your coffee, cold plunge, sauna, gym, meditate, journal, rush to work, and dive into your never-ending to-do list. Sound familiar? Congratulations, you're a card-carrying member of the "Productivity Cult."

News flash. You're not actually being productive. You're just busy. And busy is the enemy of truly scaling your impact.

The "rise and grind" mentality isn't just unhealthy—it's downright dangerous. It's a modern-day cult that's convinced you that your worth is tied to how many hours you work, how many emails you send, or how little sleep you get.

But guess what? While you're busy patting yourself on the back for pulling another all-nighter, the truly successful people are getting 8 hours of sleep and letting their systems do the heavy lifting.

Think about it:

• Elon Musk might tweet about working 100-hour weeks, but he's not the one building the Teslas or launching the rockets. He's built systems that do that for him.

• Warren Buffett spends 80% of his day reading and thinking. Not exactly what you'd call "hustling," is it?

• Jeff Bezos makes a few high-level decisions a day and lets Amazon's vast systems handle the rest.

The hustle mentality is keeping you small, focused on tasks instead of impact. It's time to break free.

Here's a harsh truth: Your obsession with productivity is making you a really efficient cog in someone else's machine.

You're not maximizing your output. You're maximizing your exploitation.

Every time you pride yourself on "inbox zero" or staying late at the office, you're essentially saying, "Please, sir, may I have another task?" You're volunteering to be a hamster on a wheel, running faster and faster but going nowhere.

Real freedom—and real success—comes from building systems that work for you, not the other way around.

Look at your to-do list.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now, let me tell you what that list really is: It's a monument to your failures. It's a constant reminder of all the things you haven't done yet. And the worst part? It never ends. You cross off three items and add five more.

Your to-do list isn't a productivity tool. It's a anxiety-generating machine.

The most successful people in the world don't have long to-do lists. They have short, high-impact priority lists and systems that handle the rest.

So how do you escape this cycle of busy-ness masquerading as productivity? It starts with a mindset shift:

1. Stop glorifying busyness. Being busy isn't a badge of honor. It's a sign that you don't know how to prioritize or delegate.

2. Focus on impact, not activity. Ask yourself: "Is this task actually moving the needle, or am I just staying busy?"

3. Embrace strategic laziness. Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is nothing. Give yourself permission to think, to strategize, to let your systems work for you.

4. Build systems, not to-do lists. Instead of writing down tasks, start thinking about how you can create a system that eliminates the need for that task altogether.

Remember, the goal isn't to do more. It's to achieve more. And that happens when you step off the hamster wheel and start building systems that work harder than you ever could.

Now, let’s dive even deeper into the counterintuitive world of true productivity. It's time to talk about leverage, and why your understanding of it is probably all wrong.

When most people hear "leverage," they think of financial leverage or maybe using a tool to move a heavy object. But in the world of scalable success, leverage is something far more powerful—and far more misunderstood.

True leverage is about creating systems where your input is minimal, but your output is maximal. It's about building machines that work for you 24/7, even when you're sleeping, vacationing, or doing absolutely nothing.

The most powerful forms of leverage often look like inaction to the untrained eye.

Let's get a bit nerdy for a moment. Most people operate on a linear scale:

• Work 1 hour, get 1 hour's worth of results.

• Write 1 email, get 1 person's attention.

• Make 1 sales call, maybe get 1 sale.

But the real players? They're operating exponentially:

• Spend 1 hour building a system, get 1000 hours of work done automatically.

• Write 1 blog post, reach millions of people over years.

• Create 1 product, sell it infinitely with minimal additional effort.

This is why Jeff Bezos can make a few key decisions a day while Amazon generates billions. It's why a software developer can write code once and have it solve problems for thousands of users continuously.

You're not playing the same game as these people. You're not even in the same league. But you could be.

Let's look at some examples that'll make your "hustle" look like child's play:

1. Passive Income Pioneers: Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income built systems that generate hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly, mostly through affiliate marketing and digital products. His primary "work" now? Thinking of new ideas and occasionally updating his systems.

2. Software Magnates: Markus Frind famously ran PlentyOfFish, once one of the largest dating sites in the world, working only a few hours a week. How? By building robust algorithms and systems that ran themselves.

3. Content Creators: Mr. Beast, one of YouTube's biggest stars, spends months planning videos that take days to film but generate millions in revenue for years. His leverage? Creative systems that turn ideas into viral content machines.

4. Investors: Warren Buffett's greatest skill isn't picking stocks—it's building a system (Berkshire Hathaway) that autonomously allocates capital and compounds wealth. His primary job? Reading and thinking.

Notice a pattern? None of these people are working 80-hour weeks. They're not "hustling" in the traditional sense. They're thinking, planning, and letting their systems do the heavy lifting.

Here's where it gets really mind-bending: Often, the most impactful thing you can do is... nothing.

• By not immediately responding to every email, you train people to respect your time and solve problems independently.

• By not jumping on every opportunity, you leave room for truly golden chances to come your way.

• By not constantly tinkering with your systems, you allow them to run at full efficiency and gather meaningful data.

This isn't laziness—it's strategic inaction. It's understanding that sometimes, the void you create by doing less is filled by opportunities and efficiencies you never would have discovered otherwise.

So how do you start leveraging this paradox? It starts with a fundamental shift in how you view your role/business:

1. Stop being a doer and start being a designer. Your job isn't to do tasks—it's to design systems that do tasks.

2. Invest time in thinking and planning. The most valuable work often looks like staring out a window, lost in thought.

3. Automate ruthlessly. If a task can be done by a machine or an algorithm, it should be.

4. Build once, benefit infinitely. Focus on creating assets and systems that can be used repeatedly without additional effort.

5. Embrace strategic procrastination. Sometimes, problems solve themselves if you wait long enough. Give space for this to happen.

Remember, the goal isn't to fill your time with productive tasks. It's to create systems of such leverage that you become nearly irrelevant to their ongoing operation.

If you've made it this far, congratulations. You're ready to leave the hamster wheel behind and enter the world of systems thinking. This is where the magic happens—where real scalability and leverage are born. But fair warning: this might just make you look lazy to the uninitiated.

We've all been taught to set goals. SMART goals, stretch goals, 5-year plans—the self-help industry is built on this stuff. But here's the dirty secret: goals are for amateurs. Systems are for pros.

Here's why:

1. Goals are finite, systems are infinite. When you achieve a goal, you're done. But a good system keeps producing results indefinitely.

2. Goals rely on willpower, systems become habits. Willpower is a finite resource. Systems, once established, run on autopilot.

3. Goals are about the destination, systems are about the journey. And guess what? The journey never ends if you're truly scaling.

4. Goals create a yo-yo effect, systems create consistent progress. Miss a goal, and you're "behind." A good system keeps churning out results, good days and bad.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, puts it brilliantly: "Losers have goals. Winners have systems."

Remember our talk about exponential impact? This is where systems really shine. A well-designed system doesn't just work—it improves itself over time.

Think about it:

• A workout routine doesn't just keep you fit—it makes each subsequent workout more effective.

• A content creation system doesn't just produce content—it builds an audience that makes future content more impactful.

• A learning system doesn't just add knowledge—it improves your ability to learn, making future learning faster and more efficient.

This is the real secret of the ultra-successful. They're not working harder than you. Their systems are just compounding faster than yours.

So how do you start thinking in systems? It's a paradigm shift, but here are some key principles:

1. Look for patterns, not isolated events. If you find yourself doing something more than once, that's a system waiting to be optimized.

2. Focus on inputs, not outputs. You can't control outcomes directly, but you can control the systems that lead to those outcomes.

3. Embrace feedback loops. A good system has built-in mechanisms for improvement. It learns from its own performance.

4. Think long-term. A task is about today. A system is about forever.

5. Seek scalability. Always ask: "How can this work without my direct involvement?"

Let's look at some examples to really drive this home:

• Task Thinking: "I need to post on social media today." Systems Thinking: "I need a content calendar and scheduling tool that ensures I'm consistently engaging with my audience."

• Task Thinking: "I need to make 20 sales calls today." Systems Thinking: "I need a lead generation and nurturing system that consistently fills my pipeline with qualified prospects."

• Task Thinking: "I need to learn this new skill for my job." Systems Thinking: "I need a personal knowledge management system that continuously expands my skillset and makes learning a habitual part of my workflow."

See the difference? Systems thinkers aren't focused on today's to-do list. They're focused on creating machines that make the to-do list obsolete.

Now, let's go meta for a moment. The ultimate form of systems thinking is creating systems that create other systems. This is where true scalability lies.

Imagine:

• A business system that not only generates profit but also identifies new market opportunities and spins up new businesses to capture them.

• A learning system that not only helps you acquire knowledge but also generates new learning techniques tailored to your evolving cognitive style.

• A networking system that not only connects you with valuable contacts but also trains those contacts to become nodes in their own networking systems, exponentially expanding your reach.

This is thinking at a level most people never reach. It's not about building a machine—it's about building a machine that builds machines.

At this point, you might be thinking, "This all sounds great, but also kind of... lazy." And you're right. It is lazy—strategically lazy.

The most successful people in the world look lazy to the uninitiated. They're not running around putting out fires. They're not drowning in busy work. They're often found thinking, reading, or seemingly doing nothing at all.

But make no mistake—their systems are working tirelessly, even when they're not.

This is the art of lazy success. It's about front-loading your effort into building systems so robust and efficient that they don't need your constant attention to function.

It's about being the laziest hard worker you know.

Alright, you're sold on the idea of systems thinking. You're ready to become a strategic sloth, a lazy genius, a productivity paradox. But how do you actually do it? How do you start building these magical systems that work harder than you ever could?

Let's get our hands dirty (but not too dirty—we're aiming for laziness, remember?).

Before you can build efficient systems, you need to know where you're wasting time and energy. But here's the twist: we're not just looking for obvious time-wasters like scrolling social media. We're looking for sneaky productivity traps that masquerade as important work.

Ask yourself:

• What tasks do I repeat often?

• What decisions am I constantly making?

• Where do I feel like I'm always playing catch-up?

• What "urgent" issues keep derailing my day?

These are your system opportunities. Each repetitive task, each recurring decision, is a chance to build a system that works for you.

Now, here's where we flip the script on traditional productivity advice. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is... nothing.

Strategic procrastination isn't about being lazy. It's about giving problems time to solve themselves, or for better solutions to emerge.

Here's how to procrastinate strategically:

• When a non-urgent request comes in, wait 24-48 hours before responding. Often, the issue resolves itself.

• For complex problems, sleep on it. Your subconscious often solves problems while you rest.

• Before starting a project, ask: "What would happen if I didn't do this at all?"

Remember, every task you eliminate is better than any task you optimize.

The holy grail of systems thinking is creating systems that improve themselves. Here's how:

1. Build measurement into your systems. You can't improve what you don't measure.

2. Create automated triggers. When certain conditions are met, your system should automatically adjust.

3. Use A/B testing. Have your system randomly try different approaches and stick with what works best.

4. Implement machine learning where possible. Modern AI tools can optimize systems far better than humans in many cases.

For example:

• An email marketing system that automatically adjusts send times based on open rates.

• A content creation system that uses AI to generate multiple headlines and automatically selects the best-performing one.

• A personal finance system that automatically adjusts your budget based on spending patterns and financial goals.

True leverage often comes from other people. But we're not talking about traditional delegation here. We're talking about creating systems that allow others to contribute to your goals while pursuing their own.

Some ideas:

• Create a knowledge base that allows your team to solve problems without your input.

• Build a community around your product or service where users help each other.

• Use platforms like Mechanical Turk or Upwork to create systems for tasks that require human input.

The key is to create win-win systems where others are incentivized to contribute to your goals.

The ultimate lazy system is one that, once set up, requires minimal ongoing input from you. Here's how to create them:

1. Automate ruthlessly. Use tools like Zapier, IFTTT, or custom scripts to connect different parts of your workflow.

2. Create decision trees. For any process that requires decisions, create a flowchart that others (or algorithms) can follow.

3. Build redundancy. Your systems should have backup plans for when things go wrong.

4. Use the "if-then" framework. Set up automatic responses to common situations.

For example:

• IF website traffic drops below X, THEN automatically increase ad spend by Y.

• IF customer hasn't engaged in 30 days, THEN trigger a re-engagement email sequence.

• IF project is 20% over budget, THEN alert management and pause non-essential spending.

We're living in the age of AI, and not leveraging it is like trying to chop down a forest with a butter knife when you have a chainsaw at your disposal.

Consider creating your own AI assistant using GPT models or other AI tools. This assistant can:

• Draft emails and responses based on your communication style

• Generate content ideas and even rough drafts

• Analyze data and provide insights

• Help with coding and problem-solving

The key is to create prompts and workflows that allow the AI to operate as an extension of your own thinking processes.

1. Map out your current workflows and identify system opportunities.

2. For each opportunity, ask: "How can I make this happen without my direct involvement?"

3. Build measurement and feedback loops into each system.

4. Automate what you can, delegate what you can't.

5. Create decision trees and if-then frameworks for complex processes.

6. Leverage AI and other people's skills to extend your capabilities.

7. Continuously refine and optimize based on feedback and results.

Remember, the goal isn't to work hard. It's to set up systems that make hard work unnecessary.

Congratulations, you've made it to the final stretch. You're armed with the knowledge of systems thinking and ready to build your lazy empire. But before you go off and start "optimizing" everything in sight, let's talk about the dark side of systems: pseudo-systems.

These are the wolves in sheep's clothing, the busy work masquerading as productivity, the time-sucks that promise efficiency but deliver complexity. Let's pull back the curtain on these imposters and learn how to avoid them.

The productivity industry is worth billions, and it's built on a lie: that being busy equals being productive. Let's dissect some popular "systems" that are actually keeping you trapped in the hamster wheel:

1. The Pomodoro Technique: Sure, it helps you focus, but it doesn't eliminate work. It just chops it into tomato-shaped pieces.

2. Inbox Zero: Congratulations, you've spent hours organizing emails instead of actually doing meaningful work.

3. Kanban Boards: Moving digital sticky notes around feels productive, but are you actually creating value or just shuffling tasks?

These aren't real systems—they're task management tools. And while they have their place, they won't create the leverage we're after.

Real systems eliminate or automate work. They don't just organize it.

Here's a hard truth: You can spend years "optimizing" a process that shouldn't exist in the first place.

This is the productivity equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. You're so focused on doing things right, you forget to ask if you're doing the right things.

Examples of misguided optimization:

• Spending hours crafting the perfect email template... for emails that don't need to be sent at all.

• Optimizing your filing system for documents you'll never reference again.

• Creating elaborate project management workflows for projects that don't align with your core goals.

Before you optimize, ask: "Should this process exist at all? Does it directly contribute to my most important goals?"

If the answer is no, your best optimization is elimination.

Systems should simplify your life, not complicate it. But it's easy to fall into the trap of creating systems so complex that maintaining them becomes a job in itself.

Signs you've fallen into the complexity trap:

• You spend more time managing your system than doing actual work.

• Your system requires extensive documentation to use.

• You need multiple tools and platforms to keep your system running.

• Onboarding someone new to your system takes longer than teaching them the task itself.

Remember, the goal is strategic laziness. If your system isn't making your life easier, it's not a system—it's a burden.

A note to remember.

Automation is powerful, but it's not always the answer. Sometimes, the human touch is irreplaceable.

Dangers of over-automation:

• Losing the personal connection with clients or team members.

• Missing important nuances that an AI or algorithm might overlook.

• Creating a rigid system that can't adapt to unique situations.

Before you automate, ask:

• Does this task require human judgment or creativity?

• Will automation remove a valuable personal touch?

• Is the cost and complexity of automation worth the time saved?

Sometimes, the most efficient system is a well-trained human with good judgment.

In the quest for the perfect system, it's easy to fall into the trap of constantly chasing the newest tools and technologies. But remember:

A fool with a tool is still a fool.

New tech can't fix bad systems thinking. In fact, it often obscures the real issues.

Before adopting any new tool, ask:

• Does this solve a real problem in my current system?

• Can I achieve the same result with tools I already have?

• Will the time invested in learning this new tool pay off?

The best system is often the simplest one that gets the job done.

To make sure you're creating real, value-generating systems and not just sophisticated busy work, run your ideas through this checklist:

1. Elimination: Can this process be eliminated entirely?

2. Automation: If it can't be eliminated, can it be automated?

3. Delegation: If it can't be automated, can it be delegated?

4. Simplification: How can this process be made simpler?

5. Value alignment: Does this system directly contribute to my most important goals?

6. Scalability: Can this system handle 10x the current load without breaking?

7. Self-improvement: Does this system have built-in mechanisms for learning and optimization?

8. Time ROI: Does the time saved by this system significantly outweigh the time invested in creating and maintaining it?

If your system checks all these boxes, congratulations—you're on your way to building a true lazy empire.

Building effective systems isn't easy. It requires upfront effort, constant refinement, and the courage to challenge conventional productivity wisdom.

But the payoff is enormous: a life where you're no longer a slave to your to-do list, where your impact far exceeds your input, where you have the freedom to focus on what truly matters.

Remember, the goal isn't to do more. It's to accomplish more by doing less.

So go forth and be systematically lazy. Your future self will thank you for it.

And who knows? Maybe one day, you'll build a system so effective that you can take a permanent vacation while your empire runs itself.

Now that's what I call productivity.

Scott

Subscribe to get this newsletter in your inbox, every week.

• Hubspot — https://hubspot.com/

• Hustle & Flowchart Podcast — https://hustleandflowchart.com/

• NetSuite —  https://netsuite.com/scottclary/

• Indeed — https://indeed.com/clary

• Range Rover Sport — https://www.landroverusa.com/

• CIBC Innovation Banking Podcast — https://www.innovationbanking.cibc.com/podcasts/

• SmarterVitamins — https://smartervitamins.com/scott (Code: Scott)

• NerdWallet — https://www.nerdwallet.com/learnmore

• LinkedIn Jobs — https://linkedin.com/excellence

• Success Story (Top 10 Business Podcast)

• Newsletter (321k Subs)

• Social Media