Many people try to change their lives by complaining about their current situation.
"I need more willpower. More discipline. More motivation."
But a systems-thinking perspective suggests a different question:
What is flowing into the system in the first place?
Donella Meadows's Thinking in Systems is a classic book on systems thinking. One of the ideas from the book that struck me is the distinction between stocks and flows.
A stock is something that accumulates. Flows change the stock over time.
That provides a useful way to think about something I am currently changing in my own life: my information environment.
Stocks, Flows, and Everyday Life
In a physical system, a bathtub is a stock of water. Water flowing into the tub increases the stock; water flowing out decreases it.
The same basic idea can be applied, with appropriate caution, to human systems.
- Stocks can include knowledge, skills, attention, energy, relationships, habits, and accumulated judgment.
- Inflows can include information, conversations, sleep, exercise, education, relationships, and ideas.
- Outflows can include attention, time, and energy spent on rumination, unnecessary conflict, distraction, exhaustion, and activities that do not advance important goals.
The important point is that changing a stock usually takes time. Changing the flow changes the rate at which the stock changes, but the accumulated stock does not instantly change.
That turns out to be a useful way of thinking about personal change.
Two Information Systems
I have been thinking about two different information environments as Los Angeles and Hawaii.
These are metaphors, not judgments about the actual places.
The Old System: Los Angeles
The old information environment contained too much reactive information: news, YouTube, wiki disputes, arguments, monitoring other people's projects, checking discussions, and trying to expose or correct things that did not ultimately contribute much to my own goals.
The problem wasn't that every individual item was necessarily bad. The problem was the system created by the accumulation of all of them.
One piece of information leads to another. One controversy creates another question. One argument creates a reason to check the response. A response creates another argument. Eventually, attention is being consumed by an information environment that continually generates new reasons to pay attention.
That can create a reinforcing cycle:
controversy → attention → more information → more things to respond to → less available attention → greater reactivity → more controversy.
The individual decisions may look reasonable. The overall system can nevertheless become unproductive.
The New System: Hawaii
The alternative is not simply "consume nothing."
It is to deliberately change the inputs.
Instead of spending large amounts of attention on news, YouTube, and wiki disputes, I am shifting attention toward things such as walking, exercise, community, faith, study, writing, nonprofit work, and completing a substantial learning project.
The centerpiece is my roughly 1,277-hour learning and thinking bootcamp: a large body of structured learning that I can actually complete, use, and turn into something productive (See: How to Learn Faster and Think Better Via a Crash Course).
That creates a very different information cycle:
better inputs → focused attention → learning → accumulated knowledge and skills → productive action → visible progress → greater motivation to continue.
The difference is not merely that one system contains "good information" and the other contains "bad information."
The deeper difference is that one system tends to consume attention, while the other can convert attention into something that accumulates.
Information Quantity Isn't the Whole Problem
There is an important distinction here.
The solution isn't necessarily to consume less information. It is to become more deliberate about which information deserves access to the limited stock of attention.
Someone can become overwhelmed by excellent books, lectures, courses, podcasts, and articles just as easily as by bad information if everything is treated as something that must be consumed immediately.
There is also a difference between information consumption and information conversion.
Information comes in. But what happens next?
Does it become knowledge? Does it change a mental model? Does it improve a skill? Does it become something written? Does it help produce a decision, project, relationship, or other tangible result?
That is where my bootcamp becomes important. The goal isn't simply to put 1,277 hours of information into my head. The goal is to convert learning into durable intellectual capital.
Changing the Goal Changes the System
Another systems-thinking idea that is relevant here is the importance of the system's goal.
The old goal can be described as:
"Find the problem. Understand the controversy. Respond to it. Win the argument."
The new goal is different:
"Learn. Build. Write. Exercise. Develop useful capabilities. Strengthen relationships. Finish important projects."
Those two goals produce very different information requirements.
If the goal is to win arguments, almost every new controversy can become relevant.
If the goal is to build a substantial body of knowledge and capability, most controversies are irrelevant.
This is why simply telling myself to have more discipline would miss the point. Discipline is operating inside the system. Changing the system can change what discipline is required to accomplish.
Structure Can Beat Narrative
For a long time, the narrative might have been:
"I need to expose this."
The new structure is closer to:
"I study for 45 minutes. I walk. I exercise. I attend community activities. I work on the bootcamp. I write. I build."
The second approach doesn't require me to win an internal argument every morning about whether I should be productive.
The environment itself makes the productive behavior easier.
That is an important lesson from systems thinking: changing structure can be more powerful than repeatedly trying to change behavior through willpower.
The Delay: Why You Don't Feel Different Immediately
There is one problem with changing the inflows.
The stock doesn't change immediately.
If you turn off the faucet on a bathtub, the water doesn't disappear instantly. If you open the faucet, the tub doesn't become full instantly either.
The same principle applies to personal systems.
You can change your information environment today and still feel the effects of the old environment tomorrow.
You can stop checking the news and still find yourself wondering what happened in the news.
You can stop monitoring arguments and still feel an impulse to check whether somebody responded.
You can start studying and still wonder why you don't yet feel like a radically different person.
That doesn't necessarily mean the change isn't working.
It may simply mean that the system contains accumulated stocks and delays.
The Old Pattern Can Continue Echoing
There is also a psychological component to the transition.
If you have spent a long time scanning for problems, controversy, or things that require a response, a quieter environment can initially feel strange.
You may even wonder:
"Shouldn't something be happening?"
But nothing necessarily needs to be happening.
When the old information environment stops generating constant demands for attention, the resulting empty space can initially feel like a problem.
It isn't necessarily a problem.
It may be available cognitive capacity.
The interesting question then becomes: What will I do with it?
New Inputs Need Time to Compound
One walk doesn't transform physical fitness.
One good conversation doesn't transform a social network.
One book doesn't transform a worldview.
One study session doesn't transform a body of knowledge.
But repeated actions accumulate.
Thirty walks are different from one walk.
Hundreds of hours of structured study are different from watching an occasional educational video.
A completed body of writing is different from repeatedly thinking about writing.
A skill practiced over hundreds of hours becomes part of a person's capabilities in a way that a few hours of exposure cannot accomplish.
This is where the stock-and-flow metaphor becomes particularly useful to me.
The objective isn't merely to change today's mood. It is to change what accumulates.
Changing Identity Through Evidence
There is also an identity component.
One way to think about identity change is:
new identity → new actions → new evidence → updated self-concept → stronger identity.
Instead of waiting to feel like a disciplined learner, I can behave like one.
Instead of waiting to feel like a writer, I can write.
Instead of waiting to feel like someone who has moved beyond constant online conflict, I can stop feeding the conflict.
The evidence accumulates.
Eventually, the new behavior doesn't seem quite so new.
Don't Keep Turning the Faucet Back On
There is a temptation during any transition to check whether the old system is still there.
"Maybe I'll just look at the news for a few minutes."
"Maybe I'll just see what happened on the wiki."
"Maybe I'll check that argument one more time."
But if the objective is to change the system's information flow, repeatedly reopening the old channels makes the experiment harder to evaluate.
You don't need to prove that the old information environment was harmful every day.
You need to find out what happens when you stop feeding it.
That doesn't mean never consuming news or never participating in disagreement. It means making those activities subordinate to larger goals rather than allowing them to become the default architecture of attention.
The Transition Is a Systems Experiment
I'm therefore beginning to think of this less as a test of willpower and more as a systems experiment.
Change the inputs.
Change the goals.
Change the daily structure.
Give the accumulated stocks time to change.
Observe what happens.
Adjust the system based on evidence.
That last part matters. A systems model is a hypothesis about how a system works. It should be tested rather than treated as revealed truth.
That is also why I want to read Meadows's original book rather than relying indefinitely on a summary. A summary can introduce a useful model. The original book can tell me whether I actually understand the model.
From Consuming Information to Building Capacity
The larger lesson for me is that changing an information diet isn't really about creating a perfectly peaceful life.
It is about deciding what deserves to accumulate.
If most of my attention flows toward arguments, controversies, and constantly changing online events, those activities will consume a significant portion of my finite attention.
If more attention flows toward learning, exercise, relationships, faith, writing, and building, those activities can accumulate into different kinds of capacity.
And that is the distinction I find most useful:
Some information gives you something to react to. Other information gives you something to build with.
The first can keep a person busy indefinitely.
The second can produce a stock of knowledge, skills, judgment, relationships, and completed work.
Los Angeles to Hawaii
So the Los Angeles/Hawaii metaphor isn't really about geography.
It's about information environments.
The old environment trained attention to look outward for the next controversy.
The new environment is designed to direct attention toward learning, relationships, physical activity, faith, creativity, and construction.
The change may not feel dramatic on day one.
It may not even feel dramatic after a week.
Stocks change gradually.
Flows change direction first. Accumulation comes later.
That means patience is part of the process.
Change the inputs. Change the structure. Give the stocks time to turn over.
The Los Angeles air doesn't clear in a day after you land in Hawaii.
But every day you walk, study, build, write, exercise, and invest in worthwhile relationships, you're spending less time breathing the old air and more time creating the conditions for a different system.
Conceptual Map 1: Changing Your Inputs Changes the System
Conceptual Map 2: Why Change Isn't Instant
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