Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Systems for Your Business

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Table of Contents

Podcast Description

If you’re tired of being disorganized when managing your online business, creating systems can seem a bit overwhelming due to your hot mess. However, we know how critical these are to streamlining your processes and helping you get tasks done with ease.

But here’s the thing. Not all systems are strategic and there’s a few common mistakes I see when business owners try to figure it out themselves.

In this episode, we’re covering the four common mistakes and how you can avoid making these when setting up your own business systems.

Links Referenced in Episode:

▶ Learn more about the Systems Savvy Society

▶ Podcast Ep. 56: The Minimum 4-Bucket System

▶ Podcast Ep. 11: Using Strategic Systems to Reduce Your Overwhelm

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Website | Instagram

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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 Intro

But here’s the thing, not all systems are strategic and there’s a few common mistakes I see when business owners try to figure it out themselves. In this episode, we’re covering the four common mistakes and how you can avoid making these when setting up your own business systems. 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 that like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelmed 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.

Hey, Hey, welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast. We have been talking so much about systems these past few weeks. In last week’s episode, I shared the minimum four bucket system, which is my organizational strategy that I teach members inside of the System Savvy Society to help them organize their different systems because you need a lot more than one.

4 Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Systems

This is why sometimes trying to stick to one paper planner doesn’t always work because you as a business owner have so much going on. So in this episode, I’m going to cover some of the common mistakes people make when creating their project management systems for their online business so that way you don’t make them too. So let’s go ahead and dive in!

Mistake #1: Overcomplicating the system.

The first mistake that I see so much is people try to overcomplicate the system. Now these project management tools come with so many features that you honestly don’t need as a solopreneur, as a business owner who has a very small team and you’re still trying to use all of these different features.

Now, here’s a little fact that you might not know: If you go to these project management tools’ main websites, a lot of them cater to big enterprises. They are working with big companies with a large number of employees. These tools weren’t necessarily all created for small business owners like you and I.

It doesn’t mean that they don’t work for us, but it does mean that you don’t have to use every single little feature that it includes. We want to keep them simple because making them too complex will make them overwhelming and difficult to use or maintain.

So you really want to just focus on keeping your systems simple, and simple is a good thing. You don’t need all of the bells and whistles that Trello has to offer, or that Asana has to offer. You don’t need to use everything in order for it to be a good working system for you. So, that’s the first mistake often.

Mistake #2: Making the systems too rigid.

The second mistake I see often is that people make them too rigid. So in episode 32, I talk about this being one of the myths about planning and creating systems is that some people will try to make their systems rigid, but in fact it should be the opposite.

Plans and projects change all the time and so your system needs to be able to adapt to these changes, flawlessly seamlessly, with ease. So you really want to create your systems in a way that allows room for flexibility and this is another perk of using project management tools because they make it so easy.

They make it easy for you to be flexible, unless you make them to be rigid. But a lot of them come with this cool feature, which is like drag and drop, where you can move tasks around whether you’re using it as a weekly planner, where you’re moving a task from day to day, whether you’re moving it from completed to uncompleted or from the opposite, like in progress to completed.

There’s so many ways that you can make these systems flexible because life happens. We talk about that all the time on this podcast. So much happens in your life. And so you really need to keep those systems flexible instead of rigid.

Mistake #3: Not taking advantage of the automations feature.

Now the third mistake that I see is so many people are not taking advantage of the automations. So one of the key and most powerful differences of using a project management tool versus something like a paper planner is the fact that you can build in automations directly into that project management tool.

In episode 27, I go into all of the reasons why you should automate your business. But something that a lot of people don’t know is that project management tools are another way that you can automate certain things. Even if it’s a tiny, tiny task, you can automate it in Trello.

I have set up so many different automations where I don’t have to replace a label when something happens. It happens automatically, but only because I set up the automation for it to happen.

So it’s taken away some of that brain power from remembering, oh, I need to remove this label or I need to add this team member to the card, or I need to mark this as complete because I already completed everything in the checklist. You can set up automations for it to do all of that for you, without you even having to think about it, you can just keep moving along your to-do list.

And so, even setting up some very, very few basic automations can save you time that will add up over time. And it will save you a lot of brainpower too. So like I said, it doesn’t have to be complex. It can be simple, basic automations, and even that would be so incredibly helpful in your time and mentality.

Mistake #4: Not maintaining or updating your systems.

The fourth mistake that I see often is not maintaining or updating your system. So as your business evolves, so should your strategic systems, these are not a set it and forget it type of thing.

Systems are something that you’re working inside of every single day, no matter the task, no matter the project, no matter what’s on your planner for today, you should be working in a system so that way you can experience all of those magical benefits that come with it.

We talk about it in episode 11, which is all about why you should have strategic systems in your business. But if you’re not keeping them up to date and you’re not reviewing them or updating them as you see that they need to be updated, then it’s going to result in outdated processes that are no longer serving their purpose effectively.

So you’re not going to get that time back. You’re not going to get tasks done with ease. You’re not going to have less overwhelm because you haven’t kept up with your system and making sure that it’s at the most updated that it can be.

For example, if you have started using a new tool in your blog post episode, I was working on that blog post earlier. So if you’re doing a blog post, and you recently started using a new AI tool, then that might not be part of your current process, but now that you started using it and you learned how you’re going to incorporate AI into your blog post writing, then you need to update your system to account for that update.

Otherwise you might get started on your blog posts and it’s not part of your system, it’s not part of your workflow and you might forget that you have now figured out how to use this AI tool. That’s going to make writing your blog posts a lot faster. And it’s not till you’re midway through writing and struggling. And you’re like, “oh yeah, I forgot. I had this new tool. Let me go use it real quick.” And then you don’t update your system for it.

And then there’s this constant cycle. I don’t know if that was the best example to give, but we’re going with it. So you really want to make sure that you’re maintaining and updating your systems.

Episode Wrap-Up

And inside the System Savvy Society, we’re helping you avoid all of these mistakes when creating systems for your business. You’re going to learn how to make simple, strategic, and flexible systems that grow with your business, which time-saving automations to create, how to maintain and optimize your new and current systems and so much more.

If you haven’t joined the society and you want to learn more about becoming a System Savvy member head to www.cheerstoproductivity.com/sss to learn more and remember, don’t make these mistakes.

Don’t over-complicate your system. Don’t make it too rigid. Do set up some basic automations and remember to keep them up to date. If you want or need help with any of this then the System Savvy society is for you. Alright friend, until next time.

Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast with me, Lucy Reyes. To view the complete show notes and all the links mentioned in today’s episode, visit www.cheerstoproductivity.com/57. And before you go, make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening. So you know once the next productive chat is released! Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success.