How to actualise your vision with more ease
If you’re anything like me, your mind is always buzzing with new ideas, exciting possibilities, and ambitious projects. But sometimes, this creativity and curiosity can leave you with a trail of half-finished projects and unexplored ideas. That’s where my waterfall system comes in — it’s a simple yet powerful framework I developed to help bring clarity, focus, and intentionality to your life.
In this post, I’ll walk you through the five pillars of the system and show you how to align them with your goals, so you can live a more mindful life.
The waterfall system is made up of the following:
1 vision
2 keystone habits
3 projects
4 gatekeepers
5 sources of information
Why a waterfall? Well, each step flows into the step above it. So, I suppose it’s more of a reverse waterfall really… Anyway let's break it down. It all starts with:
1 Vision
You may already know what your vision is, so go ahead and write it down. If not, ask yourself the following questions:
What are the things that bring me joy and fulfilment when I'm doing them?
What are the things that I value most about my current life, and what would I want to preserve or replicate in my future?
What would I regret not doing if I were 90 years old looking back on my life?
Next we move into:
2 Keystone Habits
Keystone habits are the daily actions that are simple in nature but lead to a cascade of positive effects. For example, making your bed in the morning or not buying junk food.
Here you want to ask yourself:
What are the daily habits that will help me make progress towards my vision?
You may find there are more than 2 habits that support your success but the goal here is to keep it simple so that it's achievable. To narrow it down to just 2 habits think of it in a different way:
“If I didn't do these 2 habits, I would find it much harder to make progress towards my vision.”
My two keystone habits are:
Creating a daily plan
Going on a daily walk
Without a daily plan my day can very easily get pulled in a million different directions and without a daily walk I can easily end up mentally fatigued and overwhelmed.
Next up is:
3 Projects
There's a very good reason for having just 3 projects. Any more and you are decreasing your focus.
A project can be a big undertaking, often spanning weeks or months and involving lists and lists of tasks to complete. Having more than 3 projects at any one time can very quickly become overwhelming.
This section is a little more personal to your own specific life but as an example you might have:
A health goal
A creative project
A personal development pursuit
Which leads me nicely onto:
4 Gatekeepers
I've aptly called these gatekeepers because these 4 steps literally act as the barrier between your vision and the million and one distractions we face.
They are the filter of your ideas and the defenders of your vision.
My four gatekeepers are:
Vision
Cost
Time
Resources
Yours may differ slightly to mine and I suggest sitting down to deeply consider yours.
When I have a new idea for something I want to do or pursue, I'll run it through the four steps by answering a series of questions:
Vision
Is this in alignment with my vision?
Yes → Continue to step 2
No → Don't do it
Cost
Does this require financial investment and is that realistic right now?
Yes → Continue to step 3
No → Add to green room (I'll explain this in a moment)
Time
How long will this take and do I have the time for this?
Yes → Continue to step 4
No → Do I need to make time for this?
Yes → Continue to step 4
No → Add to green room
Resources
Do I have the tools and knowledge to execute this right now?
Yes → Plan it out
No → Is it realistic to acquire the resources right now?
Yes → Plan it out
No → Add to green room
Now to quickly explain what I mean by ‘green room’…
A green room is the room or area used by people when they are waiting to go on stage. So for me, my green room is the waiting area for my ideas before they're ready to take space in a project slot.
Finally we have our:
5 Sources of Information
According to a study, Americans consume around 34GB of media every day! And this was in 2008 before TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts even came onto the scene!
It's no wonder we're suffering from information overload. That is a lot of information to process.
My attempt at combatting this information overload is to minimise the sources of information I am absorbing.
So, what counts as a ‘source of information’?
Well that can be anything from books to podcasts and newsletters to AI.
The primary idea here is that it's slow media or long media. ie. anything that doesn't have trending audio or multiple fast cuts!
My current sources of information include:
Myself
AI
1 book
1 newsletter
1 course
You can include whatever you want in your 5. You might have a favourite podcast or newsletter that can take up a slot. Or, like me, you might love going to AI to talk through your latest ideas and answer your most burning questions.
The policy here is one in one out. So when I finish one of my books or courses, I have a slot open for a new source. Or if I have a new source that I organically come across, then I will decide if I need to swap out an existing source.
A quick side note:
If a project you’re working on involves research of any kind then that is permitted outside of these 5 sources of information. These 5 sources are primarily for passive information (ie. information that is being sent to you rather than that you are seeking out).
If you are doing research, be mindful to not get lost opening tab after tab of ‘interesting’ articles and stick to what you wanted to research.
I have been extremely intentional here by eliminating ‘passive’ sources of information from my life (ie. newsletters, Instagram and YouTube recommendations) and I highly recommend you try the same. Even if it's just for a week, give it a go to see what happens.
How it all works together
Now that we've reached the bottom of the triangle, let's think of it in the reverse to really solidify it's magic in our minds:
We have many sources of information coming at us every day of the week so we intentionally choose just 5 sources to minimise this bombardment of information.
From our 5 sources of information we inevitably generate new ideas of things we want to do or try in our lives. So for any new idea we have we run it through past our 4 gatekeepers. Only if it is approved by all 4 gatekeepers does it make it to one of our 3 project slots.
For us to successfully make progress with our projects we need 2 keystone habits that we implement daily.
Finally, when we achieve all the steps prior, we can actualise our vision with more ease, simplicity and grace.
