Why You’re Feeling Unproductive (Hint: It’s Your Season of Life) | 124

(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)

  Today’s excuses all have one thing in common: you are waiting. You’re waiting until you need systems more, you’re waiting until you know which ones to build, waiting until you find the right tool, waiting until you can set them up perfectly. However, waiting is the very thing keeping you stuck. So let’s name the four sneaky excuses I hear the most from solopreneurs  wanting to build their systems but haven’t yet.

Are you tired of competing priorities, a messy task list, and constantly feeling behind? Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, and I help overwhelmed solopreneurs embrace faith-led productivity through simple systems for life, home, and business. So if you’re ready to clarify your priorities, honor your energy, and feel accomplished every single day, welcome to the Cheers to Better Systems podcast.

Hey, hey. If you caught part one last week, we went through the top three obvious excuses, the ones you’ve probably said to yourself more than once. Be honest. And the ones that don’t really feel like they’re excuses because they sound so reasonable. So if you haven’t listened to that yet, go back and start there. Today is part two. We’re talking about the sneakier ones. The excuses that don’t even sound like excuses because they feel responsible and smart, and like you’re actually being thorough and genuinely thoughtful about how you manage your life and business. 

But what you don’t realize is that they’re also the ones that are keeping you exactly where you have been. So today we’re gonna talk about those four sneaky excuses that don’t sound like excuses, the hidden patterns underneath each one, perfectionism, waiting, and decision avoidance, and then where to start when you’re ready to stop waiting. 

All right, so let’s continue on with excuse number four: “I don’t need systems yet.” Ooh, now this one was, like, a three-parter, so I know I’m gonna be able to come back and record a full episode for this one, but let’s talk about it because this one, this one shows up in a few different ways. So sometimes “I don’t need systems yet” is a money thing, so you don’t really want to invest in tools. Sometimes it’s a milestone thing, so you feel like you haven’t hit a certain level of success or revenue yet to need or deserve systems. And then sometimes it feels like things are pretty manageable right now, you know, you don’t have that much going on in your business, so why bother? Why bother? 

Maybe you are so focused on just trying to make more money in your business, or you’re so focused on doing that that anything on the back end of your business feels like it doesn’t matter And for this one specifically, this excuse typically tends to show up in a business context aspect, but I want to remind you that you also need life systems regardless of where you are in business. Systems are not just for business, so, “I don’t need systems yet.” Yeah. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. 

Now, if you are saying this, if you are saying you don’t feel like you need systems yet, sometimes this actually means that you’re waiting for things to become unmanageable, which means that you’re waiting for the chaos to happen and hit a certain level of chaotic before you decide to fix it. And maybe you don’t actually realize that’s what you’re doing, but it is. On the money side, not every tool is paid. There are so many free tools. So if you are waiting or if you do feel like you don’t need systems yet and you’re saying that because you don’t actually want to pay or invest in a tool, that’s not really a good reason to wait because there are so many free plans, free tools out there that can help. 

And then lastly, you don’t need to be at a certain level or have hit a certain milestone to need systems. Systems are actually part of how you get to that next level. So if you are feeling like you’re too beginner or too new or you’re so focused on making more money, systems, taking time to set up those systems are actually what’s going to help you make more money faster. I’m pretty sure I have an episode in the archive somewhere about this, but again, I will probably dive deeper into all of this in a future episode. But for right now, let’s go ahead and just talk about these key points, okay?

Because when you feel like you want to wait until things are unmanageable, I am gonna tell you it becomes so much harder to do this, to slow down and to build systems then because now there’s a lot of chaos. You don’t really control the amount of chaos, and sometimes you don’t even realize it until you start living in it and it’s already gone too far. So instead of building your one clean system in advance, now you’re trying to set up multiple systems while you’re already drowning in the very thing that the system was supposed to fix. So this means that you end up working in chaos for even longer when the easy route would’ve just been to build the system in advance while things are still manageable. That way you never have to work through the worst of the disorganized chaos in the first place. 

So please, don’t wait until you feel like you need systems. Everyone needs systems no matter where you are in life and business. You do need them. Do not wait until things become unmanageable, until things become chaotic. It’s gonna be so much harder to set up systems once you’re there, and even when you get there, I’m still gonna say you need systems. But it’s gonna be so much easier when the chaos is minimal. All right, now excuse number five: “I don’t know which systems I need.” 

Now, this one is very closely related to excuse number two from part one where we said, “I don’t know where to start.” So they’re very, very similar. The big difference is that this one is actually a question. It’s a question that you could get an answer to, but instead of going to look for the answer, you have chosen to stay in the not knowing. And so sometimes this feels like you, you know you need a lot of systems, but you don’t know which ones you specifically need. And because you know you already have or already need a lot of systems, you’re overwhelmed in advance before you actually know the facts of which systems you need. 

So again, this is why the exercise that I mentioned in the last episode is going to be so helpful. So if you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly, highly recommend that you pause this and go back and listen to it. So not knowing which systems you need feels kind of like, ” Hey, I’m just waiting for clarity. I am just waiting to see. When I know, I know.” But ignorance is bliss is actually still a decision. You have decided to continue to not know which systems you need, which means you don’t decide which ones to build, which means you don’t slow down to create them. 

So all of this is still a decision that you have made. It’s not that you just don’t know. It’s that you have decided to stay in the unknown. But here is what I want to tell you because sometimes this makes you feel like you have to set everything up at once once you know, and that is not true. You do not have to figure out every system you need all at once, okay? So it’s okay. It’s totally okay for you to figure out which systems you need and not need to set them all up at once. You prioritize. You figure out which one is going to help you the most, which one is going to give you the most time back. You don’t have to build them all at once either. Like, you can build one, take a break, you know, take a week, then build the next one, use it, go back, refine it. 

Like, you don’t need to set aside an entire month to create all your systems. You can even create them as you go. You can create them as you’re working on the projects that you’re working on. Yeah, it’ll slow you down for those first few times, but by the end, you’ll have a system. So your systems for your life and business will actually reveal themselves to you by things slipping through the cracks, by things that drain you, by doing the same thing over and over and over again. That is where you start. 

Those are the systems that you need. That is your list. You don’t need the full entire big list. But if you pay attention, you already know. You already know a few of the systems that you need, or if you haven’t been paying attention, start to pay attention, go back to the previous episode where we talk about what to do, and do that, and by the end of the week, you will know. All right, so now excuse number six: “I don’t want to set them up wrong.” 

This one is straight up perfectionism and a fear of wasted effort. You don’t want to spend time building something only to realize it’s not the right setup, and then you have to redo it, and honestly, I’ve been there. I do not like doing double work. So this one actually is one of mine because of perfectionism. I have to intentionally try to avoid staying stuck in perfectionism. But this one is also closely related to excuse number two from part one where you want to know the outcome before you even start. 

You want to know exactly how the system is supposed to look before you build it. But here’s the thing: yes, you might build a system that doesn’t work. That is part of the process. Yes, you might build a system that is messy, half-built, you made some mistakes. But honestly, I would argue that that is still better than having no system at all because at least things are living somewhere that is not your head. You’ll still have benefits that come out of that, even if it’s not the full benefits that you would hope for. 

So you also won’t actually know if you’ve built the right thing or wrong thing until you start using it. Every system gets refined over time, okay? Every single system gets refined over time. And the irony here is that you’re trying to avoid double work. However, you’re already doing double work without a system in place. Because every time you redo the same task from scratch, you’re hunting for that same file, you’re re-explaining the same thing to a client. 

All of that is already the double work that you’re scared of, except you’re doing it every single week and thinking like, “Ugh, no, but I can’t set up the system because now that’s gonna be double work.” But you’re already doing it in the first place. Ah. Like, ugh, y’all, I wish I could just really ingrain these into your heads and be like, “Come on.” Because the very thing that you’re afraid of, which is wasted effort, is the very thing that you’re staying stuck in, like, already doing because you don’t have the system in place. 

A quote, unquote “wrong system” that you can refine is going to be better than a perfect system you never start. I feel like I’m gonna have to record so many episodes after this. I need to go deeper into all of these. Lastly, excuse number seven: “I’m stuck on which tool to use.” This one is so closely related to this previous excuse that we just talked about. You don’t want to pick the wrong tool and waste your time, and there are so many tools out there. Trello, Notion, Asana, ClickUp, Airtable, Google Workspace. The list goes on and on.

So you stay stuck researching and comparing, watching tutorials, waiting until you know, you know for sure which one is going to be the tool for you before you actually commit to any of them. And listen, I get it. Different brains work with different tools, and that’s why there’s so many of them, and that’s why they’re all so popular and why they’re all being used by so many different creators. But the thing is that you likely will not know which is the right tool until you actually start to use it. And honestly, the tool is not even the system. The tool is just what holds the system. 

It’s how you use the tool that matters, the frame behind it. I’ve talked about this in episode 81, so go back to listen to that one if you don’t know what tool to use. But the tool isn’t really what’s keeping you stuck. It’s the decision-making. It’s trying to figure out which tool to use before even using it or trying it out. So let me tell you something that I recently just went through, because perfect story. I do my Bible study on paper. It’s in a notebook. I journal, I write my reflections and my interpretations on it, all of it. 

But I knew that I needed to make it digital somehow so that I could easily search and find things whenever I needed them. I was starting to get to the point where I would want to write something around faith or reference a specific Bible verse or a passage that I had read, and I’m running to my bedroom, grabbing my notebook, flipping through the pages, and that’s not efficient. So I knew that I needed to do something to make them digital to make that process easier and faster. 

Now, if you’ve been following me for some time, you know I’m a Trello girly. I love Trello. Trello is my go-to, but I have also said before that I’m not an all-in-one tool girly. I’ve tried other tools. I don’t like them, and that’s fine. And also, I know that Trello isn’t the best for everything, so I did try it though. That’s my go-to. That’s the one that I try first. So I tried it. I set up my Bible study journal, journaling inside of Trello. I uploaded about a month’s worth of entries, and then I tested it, and it didn’t work quite the way I wanted. 

I probably should have done less, like a week’s worth, but it is what it is, right? So yeah, I was bummed. It did feel like a waste of time and effort, but I now had information that I didn’t have before. I didn’t know that Trello wasn’t going to be the right tool for the system, but now I did because I tried it, and it didn’t work. So then I moved everything to Airtable, set up the exact same process, and it works there exactly how I need it to, and that’s great. But I wouldn’t have known that unless I just started with one tool. So this is not about Trello versus Airtable. 

Again, I use them both for different reasons. The point that I’m trying to make with this story is that I had to start with one tool, and yes, it took some time to set it up and to… You know, it did suck going from Trello to Airtable. Like, would it have been great if it had fit in Trello or had first decided to do Airtable? Of course, but it’s a one-time process. The system is now set up, it’s done, and I can start using it. So you have to start with at least trying a tool. Inside of Taskflow Magic, that’s actually what I encourage them to do. 

If students haven’t picked a tool yet, I say, “Pick two tools and start building the same project in both, so that way you can see how they work.” Try using them, not even for a long time, just for a few days, a few times, and you’ll start to notice what works most for your brain or best for your brain. So thinking, just thinking and researching and watching the tutorials, those are not gonna give you an answer because different tools work for different people. 

What’s going to give you the answer of which tool to use is going to be actually using it. Whew. Yeah, I’m definitely gonna come back at some point and probably give each one of these a full episode on their own. So these are the four sneaky excuses, the ones that don’t even sound like excuses because they feel so responsible. So between these four and the last three in the previous episode part one, these are the seven excuses keeping you from making systems and setting them up. But let’s quickly recap these four that we talked about today. 

The first one is, “I don’t need systems yet.” Listen, you don’t have to be at a certain level to need systems. Waiting until things become unmanageable just means that you’re going to be working in chaos longer. The second one, “I don’t know which systems I need.” Not knowing is a decision too. Choosing to not know which systems you need is a choice. And honestly, the systems are going to reveal themselves anyways through those moments that feel harder than they should. The third excuse is, “I don’t want to set them up wrong.” You’re already doing more than double the work without a system. 

A system you can refine beats a perfect system you never start. And lastly, “I’m stuck on which tool to use.” The tool is not the system, it’s how you use the tool, and you won’t know which one works for you until you actually start using it. So these are the four thinking ones because they feel or they sound like you’re being thoughtful, but thoughtfulness without action is just another form of waiting. So before we wrap up, if you haven’t listened to part one, go back and listen to that one. You’ll get the full picture of all seven excuses, not just the ones we covered here. 

And from there, the best place to start with systems is your to-do list. Your to-do list is what’s ultimately running your day, whether it’s written down or in your head, and almost every single excuse covered in part one and part two comes back to your to-do list in some way. So if you want a real starting point, get your to-do list out of your head and onto something you can actually work with. Once you can see everything you’re holding inside of your brain, the systems you need become much more obvious. And this is exactly what my free workshop is about, Three Steps to Say Goodbye to Task Overload. 

It’s a 60-minute on-demand workshop where I guide you through clearing the mental clutter, understanding why your to-do list keeps growing, and spotting what’s actually a project versus a simple task. By the end, you’ll have an organized snapshot of everything on your plate and clarity on exactly what systems would help things click. It’s free, it’s on demand, and it’s the perfect next step if any of these seven excuses hit. So the link is in the show notes. I hope this was helpful, and  I will talk to you in the next episode. 

 If this episode inspired you, challenged you, or gave you a fresh perspective, I want to encourage you to take one small action today. And if you want to go deeper and connect with other solopreneurs on a similar journey, come hang out with us inside of our free community. It’s where we keep the conversation going. And be sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss what’s next. Talk soon, and cheers to more peace, faithful steps, and steady progress, one system at a time.