What I Learned about Focusing on ‘Upstream’ Problems Rather than ‘Downstream’ Problems

Lessons from Dan Heath’s book Upstream and the three barriers to overcome to do more upstream thinking

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Dan Heath’s book Upstream presents an interesting premise: How do we prevent problems upstream so they don’t occur downstream?

Consider the following example to clarify what I mean when I say upstream vs. downstream: You get invited to a wedding so you dust off your fancy clothes and try it on because you do not know if you still fit into these clothes. Unfortunately, as you try on your pants or dress, you find it uncomfortably tight. You reflect on the things you did leading up to this point: the lack of sleep, the lack of physical activity, multiple nights of takeout food because you didn’t have time to cook, stress from your work or finances, etc. The downstream problem is your weight (or more specifically, trying to fit into clothes). The immediate upstream activities you could have done to prevent this include sleeping better, exercising more, and eating healthier.

You can also think about further upstream activities that affect your weight: moving to a place where the only way to get around is a car vs. moving to a place where public transit is great (and therefore, more…