You never should have bought those hideous skinny jeans

A framework is an essential supporting structure.

It’s a set ideas of you use in to deal with complex problems and decisions.

In short, frameworks bring order to situations. You work in systems so you can look at the bigger picture, account for growth and be prepared for any unforeseen consequences.

But it’s not a shortcut. It’s not a cheat code. Thinking in frameworks is still work, and it requires practice. But the more you do it, the easier you will be able to come into a situation, recognize the challenge you’re facing and identify which tools you have at your disposal to address the problem.

I’m someone who thinks in frameworks for virtually everything. It makes my life easier by giving me the right lens to think about things. Especially when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Because too much freedom is counterproductive. I’m a big constraints guy. I like just enough structure to simplify things, but not so much that my creativity gets stamped out. Here’s one example.

What’s your framework? How are you using systems thinking in new and ambiguous situations to solve problems and bring order?

When I first started my career as a writer and public speaker, my mentor showed me exactly how he thought in frameworks. I would shadow him at his office for a day. Each time he’d finish a conversation with a client or an employee, he’d get inspired for something to write about.

Jeffrey would march right over to his flip chart and start building it out. Form and structure and order would naturally arise out of his scribbles. And within five minutes, some mind map, chart, model or list would emerge on the paper. Then he would take a picture of it, email it to himself, and have it cued up for the next time he sat down to write.

Holy shit. Now that’s how you think in frameworks.

Turns out, the mental models like this fortify and sustain you when you’re engaged in the hard work of inventing something new. Even if you’re not a writer or a businessperson, the process is useful for any endeavor.

Now, forgive me for being so meta, but I’ve actually put together a framework for creating frameworks.

Here we go.

Clue number one is to think about what boundaries may helpful for your situation.

Are there compartments into which to put the many elements of your situation?

Remember, in any complex experience, there are bound to be lot of inner pieces floating around. You’ll want to introduce some kind of structure. To break them into groups.

I find it’s helpful to think of my mind as a spreadsheet. I start parsing out all the information and ideas and thoughts I have into columns, rows and cells. Boundaries arise naturally and bring order to the chaos.

Imagine your house is cluttered and you need to do some spring purging. Why not put everything into three piles?

Clothes to put out on the stoop, clothes to donate to charity, and clothes to burn in a dumpster fire because you never should have bought those hideous skinny jeans in the first place.

That’s a boundary.

Another trick for frameworking is to identify your organizing principle.

As you consider your situation, see if there is a core assumption from which everything else by proximity can derive a classification or a value. Some kind of central reference point that allows the rest of your thoughts to be located and used.

Like a two by two matrix. Or a spectrum that plots ideas on a continuum. Maybe a pentagonal breakdown of everything into five. Or a binary test to classify your experience as one thing or another. Then again, the organizing principle could simply be a checklist.

As long as you start giving yourself constraints, answers will fall into place.

Personally, I almost always default to a list of questions to ask myself. As a deeply reflective and curious person, I know easier to engage to my brain when I’ve framed things in terms of inquiry. Perhaps there’s a parallel strategy that will work for your personality and thinking style.

One more tactic for frameworking is to consider the order of operations.

Imagine you’re a user experience designer building a narrative about how things need to sequence.

Consider the logical, linear path that satisfies your sense of order. Separate the stuff that must happen first, and must happen last. Then whatever’s left, put it in the middle.

Almost like one of those, if this, then that programs. When specified events occur, certain follow up tasks are triggered and handled.

Now, for a creative like me who isn’t a natural linear thinker, the order of operations strategy is one that I’ve had to teach myself over the years. That’s what happens when you work at startups with software engineers, product designers and data analysts. These guys have that analytical thought process that follows a known step by step progression similar to a straight line.

Left brain workers are expert at identifying a starting point that follows a sequence of connected series, ultimately leading to a solution.

But once you learn view it as just another framework, it becomes less intimidating.

Remember, frameworks requires constraints, and constraints set you free. Next time you’re dealing with complex problems and decisions, try thinking in frameworks.

Give yourself the right lens to approach things.

You’ll discover that an ounce of structure is worth a pound of clarity.

What fortifies and sustains you when you’re engaged in ambiguous situations?