When the System Isn't Built for You
I'm writing this to you on a device designed to slow me down.
No, really. Look down at your keyboard right now. QWERTY. That weird layout we all learned in middle school and never questioned.
It was designed in the 1870s to solve a very specific problem: typewriters would jam if you typed too fast. So they deliberately made the keyboard inefficient. Spread the most common letters far apart. Slowed you down just enough that the metal typebars wouldn't collide and get stuck.
Brilliant solution... for 1873.
But here we are in 2025, still typing on a system built to hold us back from a problem that disappeared 65 years ago. I think about this more than I probably should.
How many systems am I still running that were designed for someone else's problem? Someone else's brain? Someone else's life entirely?
I spent most of my life thinking I was the broken one.
My teachers called me scattered. Disorganized. The girl who had potential if only she'd apply herself more.
I couldn't keep track of locker keys. Forgot which books went with which classes. My solution? Carry all of them. Every day. My back hurt, but at least I wasn't forgetting anything.
Year-long goal planning? Never worked. Would start strong in January, dead by February. Traditional planners? I'd buy them with the best intentions, use them for a week, then they'd sit there judging me from my desk.
I read all the productivity books. Getting Things Done. 7 Habits. Atomic Habits. I understood the concepts. Could explain them perfectly. I just couldn't make any of them stick.
For years, I thought: "Everyone else can do this. What's wrong with me? So I did what I always do when something doesn't work. I came up with my own system. My own hacks. My own workarounds.
I created the Self Journal because I needed something that actually worked for how my brain operates. Not a year-long planning system that felt like staring into an endless void. A 13-week system built around a single goal. Short enough to create urgency. Clear enough to see progress.
It was the first planning system that ever worked for me.
And then something interesting happened once I turned it into a product and started selling it. People started reaching out saying it worked for them too. A lot of them mentioned they had ADHD. I thought that was cool. Didn't think much more about it.
Until a few years later when I got diagnosed with ADHD myself. I'd designed something for ADHD brains without knowing I had one.
Narrator: The call was coming from inside the house.
Turns out, I wasn't broken. The system was.
The Framework
Here's the thing: I have ADHD, but this isn't just an ADHD thing.
Think of yourself like an operating system.
You've got your own specifications. Your own way of processing information. Your own energy patterns. Your own requirements for what makes something engaging versus what feels like torture.
Yet most of us spend our lives trying to run scripts that were written for someone else's operating system.
- Year-long goal planning? Written for people whose brains create urgency from distant deadlines.
- Traditional to-do lists? Written for brains that can look at "Call dentist" and just... do it.
- The standard school locker system? Written for kids who naturally track small objects and have executive function.
None of these systems are wrong. They work great, for the people they were designed for.
But if you're not that person? If your brain works differently? If certain "best practices" make you want to set things on fire? Then you're going to spend your whole life thinking you're broken because you can't run someone else's software.
Debug the System
Pick ONE thing that "should work" but doesn't. Your planner. Your goal-setting. Your workspace setup. Whatever's been making you feel like you're failing.
Take 15 minutes and ask:
- Who was this designed for? Someone whose brain creates urgency from importance alone? Someone who "just starts" without needing interest?
- How is your brain different? Need urgency, not deadlines? Interest, not importance? Visible progress, not distant goals?
- What would it look like redesigned for YOU?
Make it easier: Just write down ONE system you're giving yourself permission to stop using.
What system have you been forcing yourself to use that was designed for someone else's brain?
📚 Reading Corner
I've been thinking about "The Myth of Normal" by Gabor Maté, specifically the chapter about how we pathologize normal responses to abnormal systems.
His point: Maybe the problem isn't that you can't focus for an 8-hour workday. Maybe the problem is expecting anyone to maintain focus for 8 straight hours on 10 subjects when they only care about 3.
We're not broken. The expectations are.
🧠 Brain Food
There's a design principle called "Poka-Yoke". Japanese for "mistake-proofing." Instead of training people to be more careful, you design the system so mistakes are impossible.
Like a USB-C cable that only fits one way.
Your life works the same way. Instead of training yourself to have more discipline, design systems where the right choice is the easy choice.
