11 | Using Strategic Systems to Reduce Your Overwhelm

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Table of Contents

Podcast Description

Even as a pretty digitally organized person, I had no idea what systems were until way later into my entrepreneurial years. And you know what? I strongly believe that if I had implemented these sooner, I would be way ahead than where I am now.

Not to say that I don’t like where I’m at or that I have regrets, but if I can help you get to where you want to be sooner, then that’s my goal and strategic systems can help you get there.

So in today’s episode, I’m going to let you in on what strategic systems even are and why you need to implement asap.

Links Referenced in Episode:

▶ Listen to episode 4: How To Prioritize Your Weekly Biz Tasks

▶ Listen to episode 10: How To Prevent Burnout as an Entrepreneur (And Why You Should Care)

Connect with me:

Website | FB Group | Instagram

Episode Transcript

(Note: This is a formatted AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through, but is not an optimized blog post. Please excuse any spelling or grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

Episode Introduction

Even as a pretty organized person myself, I had no idea what systems were until later on after starting my business. And you know what?

I strongly believe that if I had implemented them sooner, I would be well more ahead than where I am at now. Now look, not to say that I don’t like where I’m at or that I have any regrets or anything like that. But if I can help you get to where you want to get sooner, then that’s my goal and I know that strategic systems can help you get there.

So in today’s episode, I’m going to be letting you in on exactly what strategic systems are and why you need to implement them as soon as possible, even if and especially, well before you have a team of your own. So are you ready? Let’s dive in!

Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, your host of the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast, where I’m on a mission to help online entrepreneurs like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelm goodbye. Here, you’re going to learn strategies that will boost your productivity so that you can scale your online biz and impact lives sooner.

It’s your time to shine! So let’s get started.

Intro to Systems

Hey, welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast, episode 11. I’m going to start this episode by saying that when I first started out, I had absolutely no idea what the heck systems were. I thought I was pretty organized and handy with my planners and yeah, I had a few. But then as my business grew and as I had more ideas and as I had a more moving pieces to my online business,

I realized that something was missing. And perhaps this is where you’re at too.

It feels like you have some sort of system down, but for some reason, things are still falling through the cracks and you’re not being as consistent as you like. But don’t even get me started with where the heck your files are saved. I mean, this wasn’t just me, right?

And even now hearing the word systems, you may still be confused as far as what these are and how it varies from what you’re doing right now. But let me tell you that I’m not just talking about a specific project management tool here.

I’m talking about setting up actual strategic systems that will help move your business forward. Because here’s the thing, without an organized system you’re missing out on an essential piece that’s critical for your biz growth and for your sanity too.

What Are Strategic Systems?

But first, I want you to know that there is a difference between a system and a strategic system. Anyone can put together a cute little system, but if there’s no real strategy behind it, it’ll fall short to helping you actually get things done consistently.

They’re the ones that typically end up becoming a centralized, like organization hub for all of your business things and allow you to easily plan and schedule everything else that needs to be done from start to finish.

The key difference though, is that just like anything else, systems versus strategic systems is the time that you take to think through the strategy and the why behind each system that you create, and how it fits into your business ecosystem that ultimately leads you away from the disorganized and overwhelmed path, and towards, the path of increased biz profitability.

Strategic systems is something that I absolutely love teaching.

Why You Need Strategic Systems (Even as a Beginner)

But I know you’re probably thinking, how strategic systems actually help you as a blogger, content or course creator, and why you need, like, why am I telling you that you need to implement them as soon as possible. So here’s why.

Allows flexibility in your planning

You need to create flexible plans that help you maintain consistency and help you complete your online biz tasks, whether it’s a blog post, a printable, or a social media posting or whatever it is.

When you have a strategic system in place for this, you are better able to find a pattern, a rhythm of your planning and then you’re able to think ahead. You’re able to batch, you’re able to do all of these different things that you weren’t able to do previously because now, you’re not only just planning.

You’re adding the strategy behind your plans and your scheduling according to that, while still adding flexibility to move things around easily when things don’t go as planned. Because as you know, and as I mentioned in previous episodes, not everything is going to go as planned.

Helps you get time back in your day

The second thing is, so that way you can earn time back in your day. So that way you can accomplish more in biz tasks or even just enjoy those extra hours with your loved ones, watching Netflix like we do, or playing games or whatever, going out doors, whatever that looks like for you.

By having a system in place, you know where things are, you know exactly what needs to get done and when. You’re able to visually see everything that you’re working on. You’re taking away the overwhelm.

All of these different things contribute to you getting time back in your day that you can choose to whether put that time back into working and growing your online business, or saying, you know what, I’m going to take this extra hour and go spend it with my family, or go read books or whatever that looks like for you.

Organizes your thoughts and projects

The other thing is that it really helps you organize your thoughts, your projects, and all of the little tasks that you’re constantly forgetting to do, but then you have to go back and do it anyways, because it was an important one.

So, yeah, sure. You can have like a bunch of checklists here and there, but when you have a strategic system, you’re kind of going a little bit deeper than your typical, write a headline for this blog post or publish my printable on Etsy, or post this on social media. Right.

You are going very detailed and you’re able to organize your thoughts and all of your projects in a way that’s going to help you see all of the little tasks that are involved with getting whatever that thing is done.

Because yes, all of those little tasks add up. And if you’re not keeping track of them, if you’re not taking account for them, then that’s when you start to fall off your planning.

That is when you start to not be consistent because those five minute tasks, those two minutes tasks, they add up. And while you’re doing them if you get distracted, or if you’re doing a bit of the context switching, those five minutes easily become 30 minutes without you even realizing it.

So that’s why strategic systems are incredibly useful to help you organize your thoughts in a single way that is going to help you really stay consistent with all of your planning.

Reduces frustration

Strategic systems also help you avoid the frustration of not knowing what to prioritize from your long to-do list.

Now, in episode four, I go over how to prioritize your weekly biz tasks so definitely go back and reference that episode. But strategic systems can help you with this because they visually point in your face what is a priority.

You can visually add like visual markers to show you, okay, this is a priority. This is not. You can see all your deadlines for all of the different things that you’re working on in a single place versus having them in so many different planners or having to change all of these different pages and all of these different things.

If you have a lot of things going on, you need a more strategic way to know what is priority.

Because if you have something, you know, over here on this journal about the captions that you need to add on Instagram, and then on your calendar, you have all of your important dates, and then in your planner, you have your, what you’re actually working on for the week, which by the way, that is exactly how my setup used to be…

So I know the frustration of not knowing what to prioritize when we have all of these moving pieces. I know that frustration all too well. And that’s why it’s so important that you have a system for your systems. A system for how to know what your priorities are without having to go crazy before you get to that point.

Provides you a full picture of your online business

And then lastly, whenever you have a simple system, it will allow you to treat your blog, your shop, your products, whatever it is that you do, like a true business without feeling like an imposter in doing so.

Because I don’t know about you, but if you kind of have like something that you can see, if you can visually see all of the things that you’re doing. You can see that whoa, like I’m actually doing a lot.

Because I know that as you know, starting as a blogger myself, you kind of get looked at like, you’re just a blogger. Like, what do you do? And even me coming into it, I didn’t know all the things that I would have to do. I just thought that I was just going to have to write like articles and that was it.

I had no idea about SEO and that I have to promote it and then to make money, I should start an email list and all of these different things. Right. Which that’s all the multiple hats that you wear as an online business owner.

So when you have a simple system that allows you to visually see all of these moving pieces, you kind of start to shift the way that you think about yourself in the way that you manage all of these different things.

And it helps take away that a little, that little imposter syndrome? Just a little bit, because now you’re seeing like, hey, I do have a lot going on and here’s my proof. Even if it’s proof to myself, but here’s everything that I have going on.

Episode Wrap-Up

So as you can see, by implementing strategic systems early on, or as soon as possible, if I’m being honest, it actually saves you from so many struggles that you may be currently facing. It does this while helping you avoid overwhelm and burnout in the process, something of which I covered in the previous episode.

And it does that because you’re giving yourself a much more organized and centralized and strategic way to manage your business because yes, as an online entrepreneur, you are wearing multiple, multiple hats.

And so you need to be smart about how you’re managing all those different things in order to help you get to where you want to get to faster with less stress. And that is exactly what this podcast strives to help you with.

So these are all of the reasons why you should really implement strategic systems as soon as possible if you haven’t done so already. And you can definitely start small.

You don’t have to go and implement multiple systems at once. But you do want to start thinking about it and it’s something for you to consider.

Coming Up Soon + Close

And don’t worry, in the next episode, I’m actually going to take you a little bit behind the scenes and tell you how I use and how you can use Trello to organize your business.

Trello is my top favorite and basically the only project management tool I use besides Google to organize my entire business. It houses all of my strategic systems.

And then in the next episode, I’m going to review all of the different ways that you can use it too. So definitely stay tuned for that episode.

And you know what? Next week, I’ll actually be opening up the doors to my signature program, Level Up Your Biz with Trello.

This program is really going to help you get all of these strategic systems implemented with ease. Because look, here’s the thing. Without an organized system, you’re really missing out on an essential piece that’s critical for your business growth and for your sanity too.

And I know that you’re just so tired of feeling frustrated whenever you can’t find that file or that link that you saved and you don’t know where to pick up because something always just seems to come up after you have planned out your week.

So this program is really going to help you start consistently working on your online biz without feeling so drained every time you sit at your computer. And it’s also going to help you not even have to think twice about where something is stored because you’ll be able to find everything exactly when you need it.

Now wouldn’t that be amazing? So anyways, stay tuned for next week when I will be opening up the doors for Level Up Your Biz with Trello. So be sure you’re on the waitlist by heading over to cheerstoproductivity.com/waitlist to be notified as soon as doors are open.

And in the meantime, take a screenshot of you listening to this episode, tag me on Instagram @cheerstoblogging and share your biggest takeaway with me. I would absolutely love to know.

Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast with me, Lucy Reyes. To view the complete show notes and all of the links mentioned in today’s episode, visit, cheerstoproductivity.com/11. And before you go, make sure you subscribe wherever you’re listening so you know, once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success!