Titans of industry are turning to this Systems Guy to keep their lives running smoothly

A date in Ben Meer’s early 20s turned into an assessment of everything he was doing wrong.“You dress in baggy clothes,” his date, a Dutch woman, told him.“You eat too fast.

You walk without grace.You don’t speak a second language.

You can’t cook …”Her list of his shortcomings “was longer than a CVS receipt,” Meer recounts in his new book, “How to Be Good at Life” (Avery, out now).The criticism stung because he knew she had a point.

He didn’t have it together in myriad ways.He was running a failing skin-care business from a 350-square-foot apartment and carried $32,000 in credit-card debt.He paid the rent by waiting tables on weekends, working 14-hour shifts.

Eventually, he closed the company and included a sample kit with his application to Cornell’s business school, which accepted him.A class in business operations gave him a different way to think about his problems.His startup, he realized, had no reliable way to bring in sales or handle customer complaints.

He applied that same thinking to his own life, setting up systems to manage his life using savvy and behavioral science — not sheer will power — to meet deadlines, get in workouts, stick to a budget and the like.“We hear things like ‘trust the process,’ but I spent years trusting the process when I didn’t actually have a process,” he said.Meer, now 34, has made a career of teaching that worldview.

He has roughly 2.25 million followers across his social media accounts.Another 252,000 active subscribers receive his free newsletter, System Sunday, which offers practical ways to make smarter choices and avoid distractions.

His advice is simple but effective.Meer charges his phone in the living room, so he sleeps better and doesn’t waste endless hours scrolling.

To watch less TV, he removes the batteries from the remote control so that he has to get up off the couch to put on a second episode.Meer didn’t intend to become a productivity guru.After earning his M...