Ever since realizing that my obsession with systems and processes can actually help others on their entrepreneurial journey, I’ve been hooked on mass-sharing everything I know about them.

The #1 Struggle most entrepreneurs face when it comes to creating systems

Throughout that process I’ve seen and heard a lot of struggles from entrepreneurs around how to actually create systems in their business.

So I decided to take a step back and dissect that: what is the #1 struggle most entrepreneurs face when it comes to creating systems? Turns out…

Entrepreneurs face A LOT of struggles when it comes to creating systems in their business

Definitions aside (let’s just use systems and processes interchangeably for purposes of this post), after doing my research, I realized that entrepreneurs face A LOT of struggles when it comes to implementing systems in their business, and pretty high up on the list were things like:

• How to create systems that will remove you from the “day-to-day” of your business;

• Not knowing what the most common systems every business should have are;

• Figuring out how to hire a team to help (more specifically, how to delegate parts or the whole of a process to someone else);

• What the “checks and balances” should look like for systems (do you need to check up on your systems once they’re in place? The answer is YES); and

• How to go about identifying processes that aren’t working – and then actually changing them (and this is huge; if you ever set something up and feel like you’re working harder to accomplish it than before you had a process, then it’s broken).

Side note: each of the bullet points above will become a detailed post you can read here on EOFire and listen in to on Kate’s Take!

But of all these major struggles, I knew there HAD to be a more specific reason tied to the fact that those who were coming to me with these struggles didn’t already have systems set up in their business.

So I asked them: When (and how) are you going to actually start documenting the steps that it takes you to complete something so you can create a process around it?

This is what they said:

I’ll document the steps the next time I work on it

That was it!

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to, or weren’t onboard with creating systems – it was that they would tell themselves, “I’ll write out the steps for X the next time I do it, and then I’ll be able to create a system around it that will save me time.”

The actual struggle

The next time X came around, they were so wrapped up in actually doing X that they didn’t have time to stop and document everything they were doing.

And so the “next time” kept on coming, but nothing was being accomplished in terms of creating an actual system for the thing they were doing.

The solution

So here it goes: I’m going to give you the easiest solution to this struggle in the whole world (that will still net you the results you want): if you want to create a system around something in your business, then do not wait for the next time you do it in order to document the steps it takes to accomplish it.

Block off just 30 minutes, and then walk through the task as if you’re doing it. Just pretend!

I repeat: do not wait for the next time you do something in order to document the steps, because the next time you do that something, you’re going to be distracted, perhaps overwhelmed – maybe even a bit “caught up” in the task itself… Chances are you’re not going to have the time or mental bandwidth to record each step.

Creating your first system

You should already know that the first step in creating systems that create freedom is to take inventory.

Once you have a list of tasks or projects you’d like to create a system around, don’t wait until the next time you do it to start documenting the steps (the second step in creating systems that create freedom).

Just pretend! Walk through your task NOW (or at a specific time you schedule on your calendar to make it happen), and write out the steps it takes for you to accomplish that task.

Then, as a safeguard, the next time you actually do walk through that task, have your list of steps next to you so you can simply double check yourself as you do the task. That way, if you did happen to miss anything in your pretend walkthrough, you’ll be able to catch it before you start on step three: implement and determine efficiencies.