Systems / Structure

This section documents the structural thinking that underlies how work is organized on Shank Gym.

The essays here are not guides, frameworks, or methods to apply. They exist to make the logic behind the site visible so it doesn’t drift, flatten, or get mistaken for a set of tools. Over time, any system that isn’t explained eventually gets simplified into something it was never meant to be. This is an attempt to prevent that.

The organizing assumption is straightforward: sustained work behaves more like a system than a workflow. Writing, training, recovery, and field observation all generate feedback, friction, and constraint. Treating them as isolated tasks works briefly, then fails. Treating them as interacting processes holds up longer.

You do not need to read these essays to use the site. They are here for continuity—for future reference, for side-door readers trying to understand why the structure looks the way it does, and for my own record of the theory behind the work.

If you are looking for step-by-step instruction, templates, or technical shortcuts, this section will not be helpful. If you are interested in how structure shapes behavior over time, the essays below explore that territory in more detail.

Systems and Structure

System Theory - A Working Model