We restate a process presented by Stanley as a technique to prove that there exists exactly one $d$-differential distributive lattice for any positive integer $d$. This process can be trivially extended to apply to distributive finitary lattices that have a variety of differential poset structures. It can be viewed as an algorithm for constructing such lattices. Alternatively, it can be viewed as an algorithm for analyzing and characterizing such lattices. We show that the process can be used to prove properties of all weighted-differential lattices with positive weights. We present this with the hope that this approach can be used as the basis for a complete characterization of distributive lattices with a weighted-differential structure with positive weights.