A few years ago, I was helping a friend and client, Jeff, rebuild an automation. He was having a problem with getting information from his intake form to his CRM and his project management system, and he needed some help. And so we're doing a screen share and I'm going through and I'm checking things and I'm adding things. And at one point he says, so you just think like this? And it dawned on me at that moment that not everyone's brain defaults to systems. Couple that with the fact that I managed to get my master's in software engineering without ever taking calculus, something that my brother's engineering friends think is like a genius-level move. I learned that I think a different way, but that doesn't mean that I was born with it. I learned how to think in systems, and that's what I want to talk about today.
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Streamlined Solopreneur, where I help overwhelmed coaches, consultants, and service providers build systems so their business doesn't depend on them. Each week I share one practical idea to help you beat overwhelm, get your time back, and run your business without sacrificing the rest of your life or your health. I'm Joe Casabona, and today I want to talk about how to learn how to think in systems.
You know, I think that as I talk to more people about this, solopreneurs, solo operators, they say things like, some people are just wired for this and I'm not. It's something I'm missing. It's a willpower fail. Oh, well, I just don't have the willpower to build systems and follow them. My brain doesn't work that way. But the truth is that the idea of systems is so vast that you can take the way you think and apply it to systems thinking.
Here's an example. I binge eat more or less at night. I like watching the game, the Yankee game, the Giants game, or whatever, with food, with a snack. And it's really easy. I noticed that on the days I work, I snack less because I am in my office most of the time and I only go up for meals. But on the weekends, especially like when I'm watching my kids, we're at home, it's raining or it's snowing, or it's annoying to go out, every time I walk through the kitchen, I'll just grab a little snack. And so I decided to try this.
My wife is taller than me. She can reach the top shelf in the cabinet and I cannot without great effort. And so I told her to put my favorite snacks up on the top shelf, right? Which means if I want to get one of my favorite snacks, I need to get the stepladder or find a grabber or ask my wife. And so that system helped me snack less. So I came to this conclusion after thinking about the problem for a while and talking to other people. My therapist actually helped me with this one.
But the idea here is that systems thinking is a learnable skill. It's not a gift. It comes easier to some people, just like baseball comes easier to some people, just like going to the gym comes easier to some people. But finding the most efficient path to a task or thinking about an easier way to perform the task is something that you can train, that you can get reps in for. And this is true.
I want to share a story with a coaching client. I had a coaching call with a guy named John, and there were a few things going on with John. First of all, he likes to try tools. And so he was telling me this wild chain of tools that were connected because he was trying a bunch of things. And at one point I said to him, it's not that you lack discipline, right? Because he said, like, I try all these things and I move on. I'm not disciplined enough. And I said, it's not that you lack discipline. It's that your system requires too much discipline, right? Just like if we kept a sleeve of oreos on the island that I walk by every time I'm upstairs, because my office goes into the kitchen, right? So I can't leave my office without walking by the island in the kitchen. Or it's a central part of our house, right? So if I'm walking from room to room, it's very likely I'm going to walk through the kitchen. If I keep the sleeve of Oreos on the island, it's very easy for me to reach out and grab one, right? And so that requires too much discipline. We're putting the Oreos on the top shelf. It requires less discipline because there's a barrier there, right?
And so John wanted better overall thinking about— his exact quote, I'm going to read his exact quote here— wants a better overall thinking around how I should be thinking about systems. Right. And what he meant was he wants to stop trying things and actually stick with something.
And so during our coaching call, I said, what's the annoyance in your current tool? Right? What is the thing that's creating the friction for you and your team? Because he had a team of contractors. We talked through that and I said, okay, let's remove that friction and then stick with this tool until there is some unavoidable friction, right? So he likes to switch platforms and tools and connect platforms and tools. And we found the simplest path forward for him.
So going back to my original thought, right, that thinking in systems is a skill, not a gift. We, I was teaching John to not think in complicated systems. The system is to make your job easier. Yeah. And so when you start thinking of it that way, you can start building the system yourself. Another way to put it is like, we see these like complicated Zapier, Zaps Rube Goldberg systems with massive decision trees. And we think, oh, that's cool. That's not cool though. That's like, that's complicated and maybe it's necessary, but it's usually not.
So here's what I want you to do. I want you this week to take one recurring annoyance. What is something in your business that creates a lot of friction? And ask yourself, what's the most efficient path to the requirement? And what is the quickest way to get to that goal? Start doing that and you will start thinking in systems.
And if you're not sure where to start, if you don't know what's possible, check out the Solopreneur System Starter Kit. It's got the 4 systems every solopreneur needs. As well as the simplest version of those systems and lots of other templates. It's a very valuable free resource and you can get it for free over at streamlined.fm/kit.
But that's it for this episode of The Streamlined Solopreneur. Get your reps in, start thinking, how can I make my work easier? And you will start thinking in systems. I hope you enjoyed this. Remember to get the kit over at streamlined.fm/kit.
And until next time, I hope you find some space in your week. Bye.