What Creates Business and Personal Systems

“You don’t build a business, you build people, then people build the business.” -Zig Ziglar

“Spend time upfront to invest in systems and processes to make long-term growth sustainable.” -Jeff Platt

 “You are managing your energy, not so much of your time.” – Di Downie

 

I discuss with you two aspects of a system. These aspects are concerning personal and business systems. As an entrepreneurial woman, I had to learn systematic thinking for personal reasons as a mother and a business owner. For the first part, I would like to talk about my personal system. In the second part, I will give the distinctions on what is in a business system.  Additional information is found in my blog post What is a System?

My Personal System, has four parts to it or a quadrant. I believe that if we are able to create a system for ourselves, personally, for entrepreneurial women, like for mothers and their families, then they will be able to live their lives much clearer, much more confidently and much easier.

In a nutshell, the first part of the quadrant are the time agreements that you have with yourself? What are the time agreements you have with yourself and with other people? These agreements form your personal boundaries.

Your Personal Ethics and Rules make up the second quadrant? What are your ethics? What are the morals that you live by? Are you really clear about them? Do you really know what is important to you?

Experimentation is the third quadrant? Do you have activities that you are experimenting with?  Ask yourself if you experiment with new tools, processes, modalities that suit you, your lifestyle, and your body shape. This experimentation mind helps to figure out what type of meditation is best for you, or what type of food is good for you at certain times of the day. On how you move your body, you may experiment with running, walking, and yoga modality.  This may seem basic, however it is surprising how many people do exercises, meditations, eat food that is trendy rather than what suits their body from experimenting.  You need an experimentation mind, even a self observation mind. Do you know your strengths and weaknesses? What are the tools that you use to enable yourself and help yourself to be consistent, clear and authentic?

Organizational time is an important quadrant.  Being able to daily, weekly, monthly and yearly fully engage in your routines and rituals so that you are empowering yourself to benefit from three other aspects, is the key? Busy entrepreneurs, mothers who have a young family, or a teenage family, kids who are parents absolutely must have a personal system that they can rely on for their personal foundation to be strong?

Watch my video where I speak to you personally:

Business systems. We are really talking about creativity, and how systems have an effect on creativity. And how we can make that easier for women entrepreneurs to be more productive in their business, especially in these busy times.

A top viral Facebook video of mine is about doing what you love to do, and another really popular video talks about systems. Doing what you love to do sounds really expansive, but systems sound more controlled. In any working environment, there’s always administration, marketing, management and operations. If you think of these four areas and the type of activities done within them, you will become aware of the energy you use and be able to see how to conserve your energy for creativity rather than running around often like a crazy person depleting your energy.

This systematic thinking and planning helps you to manage your time, it also helps you to manage your energy. This is because, if you were able to plan what role you are going into and what task you are going to do, and to know when your energy is good or more quiet and subdued, you will know what to do.

Let me give you an example. For me, it works better, that in the morning I do more administrative tasks, because I’m coming out of my own personal quiet routines, like yoga, walking, meditations.  Generally in the afternoon and late mornings I will have meetings and be involved more in the operations of my businesses.

Is admin a quieter energy? And the answer is,  absolutely. Administration work can be  quieter and require more thinking and analyzing. It can be more grounded. The area of Business Management can also be quieter than the operational area. When you are thinking of where you want to go, what is working, what is not working, compared to delivering a product.

The Operational area of the business often takes more energy when delivering a service or a product to the customer.  It is often more physically engaging or energy engaging. Marketing may be brainstorming and it might be delivering a concept.  The key is to plan where to spend your energy when you have the opportunity to do so.  As we all know if we are business owners we often do not have the choice when our business runs us, however if we do have the opportunity to plan when we have meetings or when we carry out administrative skills or when we are to do deliveries this awareness and planning can be a great benefit to our health and our personal clarity.

 You are managing your energy not so much of your time. 

The concept of batching is common and often linked to time management. I think it is part of time management, but it is more about energy management.

To conclude:

• Systematic thinking is a must in this chaotic time for our business and for us personally.
• The personal system involves the four parts or a quadrant which is about how to live with clarity, be on purpose much more confidently and easier.
• For a successful business think of these compartments; administration, marketing, management and operations.
• Being aware of these areas and then putting activities and time management to these areas creating more than clarity, it enables creativity, empathy and passionate work places.

I hope this was really helpful for you, whether you are a solopreneur or work with contractors, or if you are scaling your business or growing a team. If you are a mother with small children, teenagers or have kids who now have children of their own it is always a good time to create systematic thinking.

With the knowledge of what personal and business systems are, will you now be able to go with each day easily as you want to?

I’d love to hear your comments below.

 

Sending you love and big hugs,

Di