What is your 'Ecosystem'?

Take a look around you.

Since it's a Sunday, you might be sitting at home, reading this on your computer or phone, perhaps in the company of your family members and pets.

In the preceding sentence, I have mentioned at least six ecosystems or their parts. Let's examine them a little more closely for their form and function:

• you: a human being and a person made up of a neural network and smaller sensory and functional systems, as well as your own unique set of values, experiences, strengths, and limitations. This ecosystem continues to grow with time, good habits, and experiences.
• computer: an ecosystem made up of electronic architecture, applications, and space to keep your work, files, email, etc. Part of your larger digital ecosystem that grows as you continue to use its parts and work on different things.
• phone: an ecosystem consisting of your personal, professional, and social contacts, as well as applications that allow you to connect and interact with them. Part of your larger digital ecosystem that continues to grow with your personal, professional, and social interactions.
• home: an ecosystem providing different spaces to carry out domestic functions such as cooking, sleeping, and cleaning, each equipped with the necessary instruments that are required to facilitate the execution of those respective functions. Spaces are connected yet independent for the most part.
• family: an ecosystem of interconnected individuals with their respectively defined functions and inter-dependencies.

Each of the items I have mentioned above is indispensable. Each one adds to our identity and function. If any one of them is stressed, or worse, malfunctions, it can quickly lead to significant loss, and a long and expensive road to recovery.

Almost everything that is sustained over time and has value, evolves into an ecosystem that can be clearly defined and identified by its form and function. From the tiniest microbes in the deepest of oceans, to our solar system and the galaxies that lay beyond it, everything falls within a system that is governed by certain mechanisms and rules that allow it to function.

However, while each of them are a discrete entity, their inter-connectivity with other systems is what generates the most meaningful impact. In fact, companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google all bank on inter-connectivity. Out of all these, Apple stands tall when it comes to creating ecosystems where everything is seamlessly (and effortlessly) interconnected.

Drawing on these observations, I began to think if I have identified and defined the ecosystem(s) that I work within, and created the rules and mechanisms that allow me to function optimally. Additionally, instead of operating in silos for different areas of my personal and professional life, I wanted to come up with a way that allows me to govern through independent, yet connected portals. Here are a few areas that I have identified and that I am currently working on to define in terms of form, function, and the rules that they operate with:

• Learning Ecosystem: I am upping my skill sets through learning programs for R, Python, Microsoft Excel, and Tableau. I have to strategically define time and utilize resources to be able to complete my learning within the time frame I have defined.

• Work Ecosystem: My work as an educator, systems developer, and entrepreneur requires me to shuffle a lot of different tasks throughout the day. My to-do list ranges from daily phone calls, sending and responding to student emails, team meetings via Zoom, setting reminders, keeping track of deadlines, research, web site design, application development, and more.

I needed a visually efficient, hierarchical, and flexible way to manage my tasks and keep track of my calendar. It also had to be digital so I can scratch off all "offline" organizational methods.

• Resource Database: This was perhaps the toughest of all to navigate. I'm sure any one can relate to all the files, folders, screenshots, bookmarks, articles, lectures, posts, tutorials, TED-talks, YouTube videos, and hundreds if not thousands of links that we have saved yet can't find them we need them. Whether you use Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Mega, or whatever new service has been launched, it really doesn't matter as long as you have a system that works. For me, the toughest battle was keeping track of all the links to the incredible resources I have come across online, and so I had to build a system from scratch.

In the image below, I categorize the resource according to its format ...

... and give it the appropriate tags

Yes, this may seem very overwhelming, and it was, at first. But now, it makes it infinitely easier to manage everything I do. A side-effect of all this granular organization is that it has reprogrammed my brain to work, and capitalize on, the chunks of information that I learn by building better connections between them. Our brain thrive on the number and quality of those connections.

In conclusion, everything around us is a collection of intricately built systems. The systems that are built on best practices for communication, hierarchy, and granularity, also work the best and produce incredible results. One of the best examples in nature of such high-productivity systems are bee colonies. They have established hierarchies and clear communication through odor and movement.

How do you manage your ecosystems?

#productivity #ecosystems #learning #taskmanagement