Life Systems for Solopreneurs Drowning in Mental Load | 122

(Note: This is a formatted and slightly edited, AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through. Please excuse any spelling, grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

 If your business systems keep falling apart and you can’t figure out why, it’s probably not your business. It’s everything else you’re carrying, the mental load, the family logistics, who’s bringing what to school on Friday. That stuff doesn’t just live at home. It follows you to your desk, to your work every single day. And until we talk about it, no business system is going to stick. So let’s get into it.

Hey, hey. Welcome back to the Cheers to Better Systems podcast. The last few episodes have really been laying the foundation. So we have talked about the different types of systems that we’re going to be kind of picking out and anchoring throughout the rest of our time here on the podcast.

We also reframed what productivity actually means. We talked about my definition of it, and it’s so, so important. So if you haven’t heard those two episodes, please go back and listen to them. They are key and crucial to everything else that we’re going to be talking about. And today, we’re going to just jump in and start talking about life systems. So these are some things that I haven’t really touched on much in the old version of the podcast.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, then go back and listen to the rebrand episode. But today, we’re gonna talk about the ones that are running underneath your business that actually make or break everything else that you’re trying to build in your life. So this episode is going to be for the solopreneur that is carrying the mental load at home, running a business, and wondering why your systems just keep falling apart.

And what life systems actually are with some very real examples and how to figure out where to start without overhauling your entire life. So let me first start off with sharing a moment, like a somewhat recent moment from my own life, that really hits on exactly what we’re gonna talk about today.

So I am not a meal planning person. I don’t like to cook. Yes, I do it. I feed my family. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy it. I’m also the home manager, right? So I’m the one that’s taking care of all of the things for the family, and that is the case with many mompreneurs out there. So I had reached this breaking point, I believe a few months ago, sometime last year, where I was just so overwhelmed with all of the things, and I started to break down.

I started to break down because it was just, it was too much. There was so much more going on in my life, in my business, in my kids’ lives, in my husband’s life. It was coming out of a time when my sister had recently moved out of the house with my niece, and so there was just a lot going on. And it wasn’t that I didn’t have personal systems, because I have my Trello boards locked in for everything in my business for things that are just about me.

But it was the mental load of running everything else for everyone else, so the kids’ schedules, the meal planning, the chores, the calendars, who needs what and when. I was the one assigning all of the things to everybody. And so yes, everyone supports, everyone does their part. This is absolutely not a complaint on my family.

Everyone helps and supports, but they can’t support the things that are in my head, right? And all of it lived in my head until I had a place to get it out. So there was a moment when I had, like, a real honest conversation with my husband, and we brainstormed. We were like, “Okay, what can we do? Because clearly you’re getting stressed.

You’re getting overwhelmed. We don’t know how to help you because it’s all living in your head.” So we invested in one tool. We invested into a centralized family calendar. So that way, the mental load was no longer just living in my head. It was kind of delegated off and loaded onto this new calendar tool that made a huge difference.

Because now even things like every single day being asked, “Hey, Mom, what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?” I would just be like, “Go check the calendar, because I don’t even know.” So before they would ask me, and then I’m scanning my brain, “Wait, what are we eating today?” Or I’m trying to keep the meal planning in my head, right?

What did I say? And now it’s all loaded off. And in the beginning it took some getting used to, and now they don’t even ask. They just go. They just check the calendar. And that in itself has changed this entire… the way I manage things at home. And not to say that it’s the only thing that we need at home, right?

And I could honestly just do an entire episode on this one tool, and I probably will. But the point of me sharing this story today is just mentioning that this was not just a problem that I was having at home, because this overwhelm, this stress, it was starting to bleed into my business too. I was not able to focus.

I was losing patience with myself and the things I was able to get done. It was affecting my own ability to show up well-rested, well- put together whenever I came to my desk. So I was missing a life system, and it was affecting everything else, which is what we’re gonna talk about today. But before we dive in, if you are not in my free community yet, that is where these conversations keep going after the episode ends.

I share little tidbits like this in there as they come to me, and honestly, I’ll probably share more about that home calendar system in the community before it makes it to the podcast. So if you’re curious on that or just want to come hang out, the link is in the show notes.

Now, in the rebrand episode, I broke down the bigger reason why we’re starting to cover life systems here on the podcast, and honestly, you might be happy. Like, this all came from the things that I heard from you, and now we’re all realizing like, “Yes,” raising our hands, “Yes, Lucy, this is exactly what I need, and I’m so happy that you’re doing this.”

But what I have been seeing lately is solopreneurs are trying to build a business on top of a life that’s already taking over them, and kind of putting the blame solely on business. “Oh, it’s because of my business systems. Oh, I don’t have business systems. Oh, I don’t have time to work on my business. Oh…”

And it seems like the problem is the business itself, and that if, you know, if the business didn’t exist, everything else would kind of online, which is not true because you have mental load at home that is actually dripping into your actual workload, your actual workday. And so this is where the real issue really stems from.

So business systems are amazing. They’re great. I love them. I teach them. I have them. But they are not everything, and they are so hard to manage and create and build and stick to when everything else in your life has no structure to lean on. Because you can’t just show up focused at your desk when your brain is still having 47 tabs open about what you’re making for dinner, if you put the laundry on, the doctor appointments you need to schedule, filling out that school field trip form.

Like, if you have all of these things just on your head, yeah, it’s gonna be really hard to focus on your business when it’s, quote-unquote, “business time,” right? So these life systems that we’re gonna talk about are not optional. They’re really the foundation that everything else is built on. So let’s talk about what these life systems are, and a few examples.

So life systems are the routines, rhythms, and structures that hold your life together outside of work. So these are the things that handle the mental load so your brain has room to actually focus when it is time to work on your business. So we are really gonna break this down into two categories.

So we have our home and household systems, which include things for meal planning and grocery rhythms, laundry, cleaning, family logistics, the household admin, so bills, mail, appointments, other paperwork, kids stuff if you’re a parent, so school forms, extracurricular activities, managing the schedules, caretaking logistics of your pets, your parents, anyone else that you’re caring for besides your kids.

So these are all part of the home and household systems. Personal systems are things like things that are going to help you on a daily and weekly basis. Rest and recovery is part of taking care of yourself. Your own health, right? So appointments and nutrition for yourself. Your own faith practices, so your own time to pray, to journal, to talk with God.

Your relationships, so your marriage, your partnership, your friendship, your time with your kids and your family and your parents, all of those relationships. And self-care. So these are all of the things that life systems encompass, and I know that this list in itself, this is not the full list, but even just hearing these few examples, you might be like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That is already a lot, and I don’t even know that I have all of that.” So let’s pump the brakes here because I know how it goes. You hear a list like this, and then your brain immediately jumps to thinking the worst. You’re like, “I don’t have these. What do you mean that I need to have these life sytems, like, this is a lot, Lucy.”

So let’s back up because the truth is that you already have some life systems in place. You already do, whether you recognize them or not. And yeah, some of them might not be the best. Some of them could definitely be improved, and some of them could definitely be better, but also some of them are working great.

Like, some of them are a system. Like, you already have a system nailed down. You just never saw it as a system. And then, yeah, there’s gonna be some areas where you have no system at all. So all of this is normal, okay? This is everyone’s life. There is no one who has the perfect amount of systems for absolutely everything.

No. We are not meant and required to be perfect, and that includes our systems for everything. So I am not saying that you need every single one of these systems that I just mentioned. I’m not saying that everything needs to be perfect or, you know, Pinterest worthy, pretty, whatever. There’s different things that bother different people differently, and that matters.

So for example, You… I don’t know what anyone thinks, but maybe you think like, “Oh, because I am so organized in my business, that I got my stuff together at home.” Well, let me tell you, that is not the case. Yeah, we have systems. Yeah, I told you just last year is when I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t… This is too much mental load for my home.”

Like, things can be good and great and nonexistent all at the same time, okay? But one of… Another recent one for me is that there’s several systems that don’t have to be in place, and that’s where I wanna live here for a little bit because I want to take away the feeling that you might be thinking of like, “Oh, my gosh, like, are you telling me I need to have a super clean home all of the time?”

Like, no. For me, I used to be the person that really wanted to make sure that everything was great and perfect and cleaned up whenever we had visitors, particularly my parents, and we’re not gonna get into that but  over time, it was this thing that changed in me that was like, you know what? This is my home where my kids live and destroy on a regular basis.

And I am wasting so much time and energy trying to make them like, pick up every single thing every single day just to make everything perfect. For what? For what? For nothing. Instead of me just actually spending time with them, or me playing with them, or me choosing to let those toys live in the living room while I go read my daughter a book.

And that was a big realization for me. So you look at my living room right now, and there is toys everywhere. Everywhere. And that doesn’t bother me anymore. It used to. It used to, but that is not something that bothers me present day, and so therefore, I will focus the systems that I need to create in my life in the areas that actually do bother me.

For example, for me, it’s the kitchen. The kitchen does bother me. So we have set up routines and systems between the family as a whole to ensure that the kitchen always stays neat and tidy, because that does bother me. And so for someone else, there might be different things, right? For you, it’s going to be…

It might be the same, it might be completely different. For you, it might be laundry. There’s just so many things, right? So many things. So you have to decide what is ultimately a priority for you, and what is really the thing that bothers you the most, okay? So this is where I want you to kind of think about and ponder on.

I want you to go back and listen to this list, and notice the areas that are really causing friction for you, the ones that are really bothering you, the ones that are always living in your head, and focus on those. Again, for me, last year it was the mental load of having to remember all of the details for everything, so we got a system in place for that.

That was the one that I needed to focus on. And this, and I guess years ago, was when I decided not caring about the toys in the living room anymore. Of course, my daughter will pick them up, and we kind of do, like, a reset on the weekends. Not every weekend, but the reset is usually on the weekends,and that’s fine. That is our system. 

Again, remember I said some- you kind of might have a system. It might not be the best system, but if it works for you, it works for you. So focus on the ones that are really, truly bothering you. Those are gonna be the ones that you want to focus on, and ignore the rest, okay?

We’re not trying to be perfect. We’re just trying to focus on the ones that are actually bothering you, the ones that are actually leaking into other areas of your life and business first. So take, you know, take a look at the list. I’m gonna have a blog post version of this podcast. If it’s not up already, then it will be soon.

And you’re just gonna go through the list and notice, where do you already have systems that are working? Where could things be improved? And where is there nothing in place at all? Again, you’re not fixing everything. You’re just noticing. And then let’s talk about it. Let’s have a conversation about it, because you are not the only one.

So hop into the free community and share what came up for you, whether it’s a win, a question, or a thought. It might be something where you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t even realize that I had this grocery unloading process.” That is the conversation that we’re having literally right now as I’m recording this episode in the community.

It’s like, hey, one of the life systems that I didn’t even realize I had, but my husband pointed out to me, was that I have a specific grocery unloading system, and now we’re all talking about that. So these are the kinds of conversations that the community is built for. So come and join us inside. The link is in the show notes.

Now, let’s quickly recap. Life systems, they are the routines and the rhythms outside of your business that really, truly are the foundation and hold everything else together. You already have some, but they may not be the best version yet, and that’s okay. Just notice where you can improve, notice what is bothering you the most, and then come share it in the community.

All right? I am so excited that you have been here with me throughout launch week. I’m so excited. Stay tuned for more episodes, and cheers to better systems, less overwhelm, and more peace. See you in the next one.