Build your machine. Focus on each task or case at hand and you will be stuck dealing with them one by one. Instead, build a machine by observing what you’re doing and why, extrapolating the relevant principles from the cases at hand, and systemizing that process. It typically takes about twice as long to build a machine as it does to resolve the task at hand, but it pays off many times over because the learning and efficiency compound into the future.

Systemize your principles and how they will be implemented. If you have good principles that guide you from your values to your day-to-day decisions but you don’t have a systematic way of making sure they’re regularly applied, they’re not of much use. It’s essential to build your most important principles into habits and help others do so as well. Bridgewater’s tools and culture are designed to do just that.
