Every tool has limitations, but those limitations can be discovered prior to relying on the tool. Systems can be optimized to compensate for limitations, and tailored over time to improve outcomes.

The takeaway is that there is no perfect tool for any job. It’s more efficient to make use of what you have, rather than spending energy looking for perfection, which does not exist.

It is easier to change a way of doing something than to build a new system around a new tool.

For example, thinking about power tool systems. To change brands requires research into the offerings of each brand, different batteries, chargers, and proprietary accessories. They may have different user interfaces, even something as simple as a change in grip angle requires re-training muscle memory. This makes switching cost high.

System Design

When planning a system it is best to begin considering how and when the system will be used. For example, consider building a med kit. The med kit is designed to treat common problems that happen at home, or it can be carried to treat problems that occur on the road.

A med kit for home use is not limited by weight or by size or capacity of the items held inside it. The limit to what it can contain is how quickly you can find the items you need. For example if your home med kit takes up an entire bedroom it is easy to lose the butterfly bandages.

A travel med kit is limited not only by size but by weight. Carrying a heavy or bulky kit is impractical, anything carried on the body will be limited to a few ounces at most.

So while it may be impractical to have multiple med kits at home, some may choose to carry a small medical kit on their person, maybe in a cross body bag, that contains a few bandages, tweezers, gloves, a CPR mask, a sharpie etc.. and have a more capable kit in the trunk of their vehicle.

Building a med kit is also limited by skill. For example even if one could have an entire operating room in their home, it would be if no use if they were not a surgeon. It makes no sense to carry items you’re not trained to use.

Before building any system it is important to think about how it will be used primarily and what the limitations are, then try to design around those limits. It may be of use to also consider secondary uses or complimentary systems that can create synergy.

For example, in my carry kit, I like to have a headlamp because it allows me to have light available hands free. While there are brighter lights available, I’ve found that I don’t need brighter light, I need something that is light weight. Opting for a light weight tool means that the run time will be lower than a heavy duty headlamp, but I always carry a small flashlight anyway, and I’ve chosen one with a lantern on the side of it, which can provide the same kind of low but adequate light for a few more hours. I also carry a small battery charger and a spare cell for my flashlight. With these tools I can have light for a few days, and it all fits in a small pocket on my bag.

The point is the system can compensate for the deficiency of the tools, but only if you design the system around the constraints that you’ve identified.

Identifying Constraints

The best way to identify constraints is through real world experience. You can sit in an armchair and theorize all day, but until you get your hands dirty you will not know all of the things that can go wrong. Even after many years of doing a thing, you may continue to discover things that can go wrong.

Returning to my head lamp illustration, I’ve had brighter lamps, bigger ones, and ones that use alkaline batteries instead of lithium – I chose those tools because they were cost effective, had a lot of power, or because alkaline batteries can be swapped out in seconds, where lithium batteries take hours to recharge.

Carrying extra batteries or having extra weight for more functions and features is annoying when the tool gets used infrequently. Alkaline batteries are called alka-leaks for a reason. In my case, the batteries leaked and corroded the battery compartment and the headlamp was ruined. When it came time to replace my old headlamp, I had learned that lithium lasts long enough, I can carry 1 battery charger that can recharge my lamp, my flashlight, and my phone if need be, reducing weight, and just 1 cable – a USB-C cable, can charge them all. This is the synergy I discussed earlier. The system is actually a meta system, that contains smaller systems. My edc bag is a system of tools – those tools are parts of smaller systems, for example, a lighting system, a repair system, a first aid system, but the design over time has evolved so that my system is optimized to share resources between different functions.

In theory my original system design was perfect. You can buy AAA batteries at any convenience store, which makes my old headlamp more resilient to battery failure, but the limitation wasn’t running out of battery power, it was the batteries themselves. My system needed to rely on frequent battery swaps to avoid the problem with leaking batteries.

Therefore there are ways to optimize even around bad tools, but when the time comes to switch tools, experience is the primary thing to rely upon.

This doesn’t make relying on theory useless. Theory is a great tool to use when you have no experience, and it is the beginning of gaining experience. I don’t think anyone can set out to do anything without at least some concept of how it might go. However for major systems people build in their lives, putting pen to paper before beginning and thinking about the system and the pros and cons of the way it is designed is probably a good start.

Experience is the better method, but it is expensive to obtain because it requires time, trial and error, failure.

Using AI to Increase Mastery

The best way to gain experience is with a coach or mentor. However this makes the cost of gaining experience much higher than simply going out there and winging it, at least in the short term.

People who lack experience may gain it if they are willing to pay for it with money or labor. For some skills, this is a requirement anyway, however for some things AI can actually be quite useful.

For example if designing a budget, you do not need an accountant or an economist to do it for you, even if you have never done it before, systems exist that are pre-built in the form of apps.

You can figure out how to implement the system fairly quickly by reading the documentation or asking focused questions with an AI about money and budgeting concepts, that help you get going faster.

I’ve used AI extensively while designing my physical fitness program. It’s been able to help me improve my form, determine if the weight I’m lifting is appropriate, suggesting new exercises, analyzing my current routine and telling me if I’m doing too much of one type (pulling vs pushing exercises), and linking me to videos where I can see the exercise done in action. With camera enabled AI, like Grok or Meta, it can actually watch your form and coach you to proper form.

This has helped me build a kettlebell and dumbbell routine that’s been effective for me.

AI can be effective at coaching even physical skills, but it can also identify information about common problems, best practices etc with abstract concepts like budgeting, or writing, etc.

While there really isn’t a replacement for human expertise, I’ve found that AI, is about as good as the random chance of finding someone who is a genuine expert.

Systems Thinking

The start of building any system is in the mind. It begins with theory and is refined through experience. Even bad tools can be optimized around, however, nothing can optimize around lack of experience. Gaining experience is expensive due to the cost of effort, failure, and time. Experience can be increased quickly but not cost effectively through coaching, AI tools can assist in gaining mastery quicker, but it still requires rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty.