So, what do you do? It's a question that a lot of solopreneurs probably struggle with, and it's certainly something that I have struggled with over the last couple of years. When I made websites, it was very easy to explain what I did. When I helped people launch their podcasts, it was very easy to explain what I did. But when I talk about how you can save 25 hours per month by building systems and workflows, that is really unclear to a lot of people.
I am selling the intangible. I'm selling the feeling. And this is something that is a little bit uncomfortable for me as somebody with a software engineering background, but I'm trying to be better at it. And one of the ways that has really helped me is the development of my signature framework called the Streamlined Solopreneur System.
My friend Charlie Crowther came on the show a couple— about a year ago, a little over a year ago. And talked about her system for creating signature frameworks and why they're so important. And I was convinced after that conversation to hire her.
And so over the last year, we have been developing my signature framework. Today, I want to walk you through the Streamline Solopreneur System and how you can apply these steps to creating more freedom in your business and saving 25 hours per month in the work you do so that you can have the freedom that you deserve.
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Streamlined Solopreneur. I'm your host, Joe Casabona, and today we are going to walk through my Streamlined Solopreneur System Framework.
Now, this is a visual framework, and so if you are not watching on YouTube, I will make sure to include the slide deck below, right? This is everything I'm going through so that you can kind of see the visuals I'll be referencing. I'll try not to lean too heavily on it, but it's a visual framework. And so you should see what we're looking at.
So first of all, we've got 5 pillars to this framework. The ultimate thesis of this framework is that being a solopreneur does not mean doing it all yourself. And the way that I help people with that is by replacing manual tasks and a sense of chaos with a reliable and calm system so that you can save time and make progress where it counts, so you can take time off worry-free, right? Because that's also not freedom.
Taking time out of your business and then just worrying about your business, going to see a movie and checking your email the whole time, taking your kids to the playground and then answering messages in Slack. That is not true freedom. That's just a longer chain that's still essentially at your desk.
So that's the whole idea behind this system. There are 5 pillars to it. Goals, where we identify your goals and the systems you design support achieving them, right? So we identify your goals so that the system you design supports achieving them.
Then we move on to mindset. Setting your goals before moving on to mindset is important because without your goals, you're not really changing your mindset for anything. Without your goals, you don't have something in mind as we go through reflecting on those limiting beliefs and the mindset for this, the stories that you've told yourself that nobody can do it as good as me, that if I want it done right, I have to do it myself, that I always have to be available.
These are limiting beliefs. They are stories we've told ourselves, but without the goals, it doesn't matter what kind of mindset work we do. Once we have our goals and our mindset down, then we actually get into building the system, organizing our business, systematizing what can be systematized. And when you're ready, scaling through automation and delegation. So goals, mindset, organize, systematize, scale. That is the whole framework.
Let's dig in a little bit deeper into each of these pillars really quick. So number one is goals. What are your goals in life and business? We— it's important to do both. Right. As a solopreneur, you have started your business to be free, right? Because honestly, if you just wanted a paycheck, get a full-time job, right?
Or start a company and take venture capital and hire employees and acquire other companies. If you're just trying to make as much money as possible, fine. This isn't for you. If you think it's a badge of honor to be on your laptop while you're on vacation, this isn't for you. But for the people I'm trying to help, the people who have families whose hearts break when they have to miss a drama club or a choir or a game that their kids are participating in, that's who I am here to help. Which is why the framework covers life goals and business goals. Setting both is important.
My goal when I left my last full-time job nearly 10 years ago was to spend as much time with my— my parting words to the company was, I'm not going to miss my kids' first step because I was working late for you. That is my life goal, to spend as much time with my children while they still want to spend time with me as possible.
My business goals support that because understanding my business goals means I'm going to do a certain type of work and take on a certain type of client, right? I'm not going to build the e-commerce site that might go down at 2 in the morning on a Sunday. I'm not going to take on the super demanding client who needs me at their beck and call at every moment.
And I'm going to take on the type of projects that solopreneurs can then start supporting themselves while also having a close group of friends and business partners who might be able to help me when I do take time off and something comes up. But my goals for life and business are those.
It is important for you to define yours. So ask yourself, what are my life and business goals? And then think about this year, next year, the next 3 years. I personally think that if you're not willing to do something for 3 years, it might not be worth doing.
A lot of stuff can change in 5 years, right? And we had 2 kids during the pandemic. Right? So like life changes a lot, but think about this year, next year, and the next 3 years for both life and business. And again, these are goals. They could change. Life situations change, but you want to have a target in mind. That's why the icon for goals is a target. You want to have a target in mind that you are working towards. That's what the goal pillar is about.
Next up is mindset. So mindset is about how you can get out of your own way. I said this in the beginning, right? There are a lot of limiting beliefs. I believe them too. If I want this done right, I have to do it myself. No one will do this as well as me. Every decision has to run through me.
Those sort of limiting beliefs are what led me to have a panic attack in November of 2020. The fact that I didn't delegate anything or I didn't automate as much as I could meant that while my wife was working at the hospital and I had 2 small kids at home, my business was shriveling up and the pressure got to me. And that's when I decided to start making those changes.
Those limiting beliefs had an impact on my physical and mental health. And so if you started your business for freedom, then it shouldn't affect you like this, right? I could have stayed at the University of Scranton. It was a pretty easy job. I would get there at 7 AM, I would leave at 3. We had lots of holidays and benefits, but I wanted something more. I wanted to grow, and I wanted to have even more freedom. I didn't want somebody telling me I couldn't take a vacation when I wanted to because there wasn't enough coverage. But if I wanted just like a stress-free life that just gave me a steady paycheck and enough vacation to get by, I could have stayed at that job.
But you want something more, right? And so you need to turn those limiting beliefs into an empowering mindset. And so you want to think about how you can get out of your own way? What limiting belief is holding you back, and what empowering mindsets could free up your time to help you achieve your goals?
It's turning the phrase, I need to do everything myself into I need to do my most impactful work. It's turning the phrase, if I want it done right, I've got to do it myself, into other people can do most of the work I do. Once you let go of those limiting beliefs and that mindset, you are ready to start freeing up time in your business, which is why we get to the organize phase.
If you've listened to this show before, you are going to know this phase pretty well. We ask the question: What are the places that make my business feel complicated and chaotic? It's looking at how you spend your time, what tasks you do, and the tools you are using. We look at all of these things, and we optimize for your time first. We figure out when you work best, and we protect those hours. We figure out when you're a little sluggish, and maybe we stack the meetings for those times, right? Because for me, I have trouble working around 2:00 PM. I put meetings at those times because it is forcing me to be present and do work. I don't need to find the motivation. So I am filling my least productive time with something that is productive. Meetings can be productive, right?
But we also wanna protect our time 'cause not all meetings are productive. So we want to put in a system to help us block our calendar so that we are prioritizing our own time because this is something that a lot of solopreneurs do. They prioritize other people's time and tasks over their own. And when you do that, it means that you are not making the time and space for the stuff that you need to do.
And it took me a long time to figure this out. It took until my kids made me realize that their time is more important than everybody else's. Why am I putting some stranger's time or some client's time above my own children's time? So we want to organize your schedule and optimize for— And believe me, most people are flexible. Right? If you say, hey, I can only meet between these times, they'll either say, okay, I found this time, or that doesn't work. Maybe we can meet asynchronously. I love meeting asynchronously. It works super well in a lot of cases. Sure, a quick 20 minutes is probably faster, but if you can't find the time, then you do what works best for both of you. So that's time.
Tasks: we look at what you're doing, what you need to be doing, and what other people can do. If you're doing everything in your business, you don't need to be doing like 80% of that. You need to be doing the stuff that requires your brain or your voice. Everything else can be taught and delegated or automated.
And then we look at the tools, right? The tools are purposefully last because the tools do not matter as much as everything else in this system. The tools do not matter as much as how you spend your time and the tasks you're doing. But once you have that squared away, we'll find the tools that help you do your work best or help you do the work that's best for you.
Maybe that doesn't mean Notion. Right? Maybe that means Obsidian, or maybe that means Google Docs, but you want to think about the tools after you've thought about the stuff you have to do and when you are doing it.
So again, if you want to go through this yourself, what are the places that make my business feel complicated and chaotic? Chaotic for time: where am I spending my time, energy, and attention? For tasks, what tasks am I doing? And subsequently, what tasks do I not need to be doing? And tools, what software and hardware am I using? Do that audit and then eliminate the things you don't need. This is going to save you time.
I had a client; she did 5 months of coaching with me, and she said that I saved her more money than she spent because she had all of these tools, all of this hardware, all of this stuff that she didn't need. And we simplified her system, and now she is able to spend more time with her grandkids and have soup with her mom like this. I'll link this episode in the description, but I interviewed her after we worked together as kind of a case study.
And that's something she mentioned, right? Her mom's getting advanced in age, and she wants to spend as much time with her mom as possible. And so the systems we put in place allow her to have lunch with her mom every day instead of scarfing down lunch at her desk while she's trying to squeeze in a little extra work. That's what it's about, right? This is why we— if you were listening to this, it's why you started your business- because you know there is more to life than working.
So organizing is the first step. On the way to freeing up more time. Once we organize, we systematize. So we look at everything from the previous step, how you're spending your time, what you've done with your tasks, what tasks you should and should not be doing, and your tools. And we analyze it. We look at all of it. We decide what we are going to throw out, what we are going to keep, and what we are going to do with the steps in between.
Then we are going to document the process and the system. Maybe you have stuff in Jira, and I don't know why I said Jira, ClickUp, Notion, and Apple Notes, and everything is- you don't know where it all is. Let's consolidate and put a system in place to make sure that no matter where you put something, it makes its way to the one place you check most often, whether it's Apple Notes or Notion or whatever. Right?
So we document how that's done, and then we implement it. So we build the system for you. This is gonna be different for everybody, right? 'Cause it's gonna be based on how you work and what tools you like and the kind of work you do.
But if you wanna try this yourself, how can you systematize what I do so it's more predictable? That's the main question. What are the biggest bottlenecks to this phase- to systematizing- that free up your time and are aligned with your goals and yield a good ROI?
Maybe you feel like you're supposed to be posting on LinkedIn every day, but it's taking up too much of your time, and it's not leading to ROI. Is there a way where you can write 5 posts and then have someone else schedule them, or have something else schedule them? I'm gonna have my VA, as I record this, I am newly back on Instagram, and I hate social media. And so one of the things I'm gonna have her do is go into a Notion database with all of my shorts and all of my posts and have her post them. And I'm going to have her review the comments if I get any comments. And she's going to tell me which ones I need, you know, this post, there are some comments worth responding to. I went in and I hid the annoying ones, so you should only see the not annoying ones and respond to them, right?
That's the sort of thing that is a bottleneck for me. It's an experiment right now. I don't know if being on Instagram is worth it, but I do know that as I was speaking a lot, people wanted to tag me from my talk on Instagram. There was no way for them to do it. So at the very least, it'll just be a little reel, no pun intended, of my speaking gigs. But think about that for you. Right? What are the bottlenecks, and what should you be doing?
Then you document what the processes are that's repeatable and delegatable. That doesn't mean you have to delegate it now, but taking it out of your brain and putting it somewhere else where it's referenceable means that you don't have to spend the mental energy, right?
Maybe an example for me is when I sign a new sponsor, this is not a very automated process right now. It doesn't happen super often, right? I try to do long-term sponsorships, and so I send them the insertion order, which I need to fill in myself. Once they sign it, I send them an invoice. Once the invoice is paid, they get an email. I don't do this super often, so it is documented for me. That way I don't have to go, " Oh man, where do I go for this part? Oh, what is the thing in the invoice? What's the email I send them?” Right. So it takes me less time because it's documented. So just the act of documenting your systems is going to reduce the mental energy.
And then implementing. How do I implement the process simply and effectively? For me, there's probably something where I have an intake form for my sponsor, and then I use Zapier or Claude to fill in the insertion order. And then I still have to send it because it has to be signed, right, with Google's like e-signature feature. But then maybe once that's signed and it hits Google Drive, then the invoice is generated, right? Maybe there's something like that. Maybe I don't need to use QuickBooks to send invoices if I can generate a PDF with a few payment links, right?
So there's an instance where, when I look at this process, I use QuickBooks because my accountant uses QuickBooks, but my accountant also has access to my business account. So she knows when money hits the account.
So maybe I am handcuffing myself by using a notoriously bad automatable tool. And maybe I just generate the PDF myself. With my Wise link or my PayPal link or whatever, or my Stripe link, right? I still want to make it easy for people to pay me, but maybe that doesn't need to go through QuickBooks. Okay.
And finally, scale. Now, if you are looking at this graphic, whether in the video or you've brought it up to look at, you'll notice that there is a little dash between systematize and scale. If you are not ready to automate and delegate, you don't have to. We have now put a system in place that should already be saving you time. But when you are ready to save more time, then we automate and delegate.
How can I save more time? Are there repeatable tasks in your workflow with predictable inputs and outputs that could be automated? That's the important bit here. It has to be predictable inputs and outputs. If it's not predictable, what could be delegated? What requires thinking, but not your brain specifically? Right?
Tthis is where, so, you know, Claude can't tell me what comments are worth responding to. It could guess, guess, “do a statistical analysis” and determine based on the combination of words if this is worth me responding to. My VA actually has taste, and she will know what comment is worth responding to 'cause she can detect sarcasm where the machine can't. So that is scale.
That's the whole framework. Goals, mindset, organize, systematize, and scale. Follow these steps, and you will free up time in your business to spend time the way you want. And if I walk through this and you're like, Joe, this is great, but I'm just not quite sure where to start, this is where I come in. This is my framework. I will walk you through every step.
So if you are interested in having this sort of work done for you, where we will set your goals and your mindset, we'll look through everything you do and organize it. And I can even do the implementation for automation and delegation. I can help you with that part too. It all depends on your comfort level.
Grab a free strategy call over at streamlined.fm/strategy. The link is in the description. If you're watching the video, scan the QR code on screen. It is a free, no-strings-attached call where I'll ask you how you work and what's on your mind. And if I think I can help you, then I will make a proposal, and I'll let you know. And if not, I will give you some advice, maybe recommend some tools or one thing that you can do so that you can be on your way. So that's over at streamlined.fm/strategy.
But that's it for this episode of The Streamlined Solopreneur. I hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for the next episode where I talk to Charlotte, who created the framework for me. I would not have this framework without her, without the questions she asked me and the guidance she gave me.
And of course, she and my brand designer Holly came up with these incredible Visuals. The icons are hand-drawn. I love that. Really important to me, right? They didn't just use whatever Midjourney or ChatGPT to come up with. These are hand-drawn, and I love that. So that's next week's episode. You can subscribe over at streamlined.fm to make sure you don't miss a single episode.
But again, that's it for this episode of The Streamlined Solopreneur. I hope you enjoyed it. And until next time, I hope you find some space in your week.
