How to Simplify Systems to get the Most Done in Your Business

Juggling starting a business and a family is a job itself.

But there are ways that you can simplify how things get done so that you get more done while enjoying your family.

You deserve to be able to pursue your dreams and be an awesome mom.

I’ve got an expert to help with this.

This is a conversation that you want to hear if you are just starting out your business or you are seasoned in your business.

Check out the post below or listen to the complete podcast above to find out how you can get more done in your business and side hustle.

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About Kerryn

Kerry mom of two little ones and lives in New Zealand. She started her business when her daughter was 6 months old as a productivity and system strategist.

Now she helps mompreneurs to organize their businesses so that they can work part-time hours, do the nap time hustle and earn a really great income for the family now.

Which is also going to support their big dreams going forward.

Kerryn shares some strategies to keep mom life and the business running at the same time.

How can moms that are just getting started with their business, make the most out of their time with imperfect systems?

I totally get it.

You have a 9-5 or you’re staying at home with littles that require all of your time and attention and there’s no time to get your business off the ground.

You’re barely able to find pockets of time during the day, but there’s so much to do with the limited time.

My big tip is to get clear on the tasks that are getting you your results and practice prioritizing.

Kerryn explains that we are good at prioritizing things as moms.

We now just need to extend that into our business.

There’s always going to be more things that need to get done than we actually have time for. So focus on the task that will get you results.

This will get you motivated to do more and help you get closer to your goals.

And when we talk about getting results, we are talking about sales here. When it comes to business, we want the sales. We want that income. We want to be contributing to our family and our lifestyles.

This may mean not focusing on growing your social media following or not buying the fancy business cards.

So sometimes when you’re starting out, that looks like not creating a website right away. Not starting a blog right away.
It looks more like having coffee chats with people on video calls. Or joining a membership site that’s going to open you up to a whole lot of content and connections and community so that you can build those relationships.”

So practice prioritizing in your business and do the things that are going to drive sales first.

If you have a long to-do list, like me, and having a hard time prioritization what to do next, Kerryn suggests picking the next thing.

We have the long list and we have to try. One way that I like to think about it is to just pick the next thing. I’m sitting down. What is the next most important thing for me to do? Is it following up with someone? Is it doing some client work?”

This helps to take a lot of the pressure of the long to-do list and trying to get everything done.

How prioritization can impact mom life

This method of prioritization can be carried into mom life as well.

In Kate Northrup’s book, Do Less, she talks about doing the things that are important to us that give us the most fulfillment and the most impact.

This could be spending time cooking nutritious meals or planning fun birthday parties.

Whatever a good mom looks like to you are the things that you should focus on.

So like when it comes back to us as mums, like what is the one thing we need to make sure that we’re doing to be the most present and available and fun that we can?
And there’s usually like one or two things in different areas of our lives where it just all comes down to one or two things.
And if we can refocus our energy on those instead of trying to spread ourselves too thin, we can really have the quality of relationships that we want to.

One way to prep for growth in your business

Many of the clients that Kerryn works with are seeing success in their business and are really busy.

They want to hire help because they are doing so much and spreading themselves so thin.

But because there is so much going on, it’s hard to stop and think about the systems that are being used in the business.

So what does Kerryn suggest?

The tip is really to not keep it all in your own head. Stop running your business from memory.

Instead of relying on your memory, write down every system step by step.

It could be as simple as a checklist of everything that needs to be done on a piece of paper.

For instance, before uploading a blog post there are several steps that I need to take before publishing and sharing with the world. I need to:

Check my title on CoSchedule
Include tags and categories
Make a featured image and Pinterest image
Write a meta description, Pinterest description, and Twitter description
And get Rank Math SEO as close to the green as possible

Even though I am pretty good about remembering everything, there are times that I forget something.

Make a checklist for each of the tasks that you do on a regular basis.

Like onboarding new clients or posting on social media.

It’s easy for us to just forget a step or miss something out. And whether we remember we do it or we have to go back and fix it. That’s all taking up time. We don’t need.

Having a checklist or workflow is actually a tremendous help when you are ready to grow your team or hire a VA.

The steps are already written down. All you would need to do is a screen recording of you completing the task and then you’d be ready to hand off the task.

Time blocking to get the most done in your business

Kerryn could talk to us about getting the most done in our business without talking about time blocking.

If you are not familiar with time blocking, time blocking is a popular time management method to help you be more productive and less distracted by multitasking.

Time blocking is being intentional with a certain amount of time to focus on a task or similar tasks.

For instance, you can block out one hour to make follow up phone calls.

Instead of making phone calls, check email, paying bills and placing orders, you only focus on making phone calls until the list of phone calls is complete or time is up.

Multitasking seems like it allows you to get more done.

But in actuality, you can take longer to complete a task because you are constantly switching your focus.

Everything time that you switch task your brain needs time to catch up.

Plus, you’re more likely to make mistakes when you’re multitasking, which means you will have to spend more time redoing the task to correct the mistake.

Time batching will actually help you get more done in a shorter period of time because you are focused and more productive.

One of the things I’m really about though is using a tool or technique like this, seeing how it works for you and then adjusting it for it for each of us.

Don’t be afraid to make changes or modifications to time blocking to make it suit your needs and flow.

When you are looking at your week or calendar, you don’t have to necessarily block off a certain time every week.

It could be the first nap of the day, then the second nap of the day.

Then look at your time and see how you want to spend your time so that you are intentional about the tasks that need to be completed.

Look at your time and see how you want to spend your time so that you are intentional about your business goals and dreams.

When you are able to look at how you are spending your time you are able to access and understand why you either feel like you are always behind or you have an abundance of time.

Then you can shift and make changes as needed.

Different groups of activities all make sense depending on the type of business you have.
But even just thinking about it like that can really start to hold some boundaries for us and also expectations so that we feel accomplished.
Because once you’ve prioritized that list, it still takes time to do it and it has to go into these time blocks.”

Kerryn’s practical tip that you can implement today

First, Kerryn wants you to cut yourself some slack.

There’s so much you want to do in your business or side hustle, but you already have a million things going on in your life.

Most importantly, stay connected to your why.

Stay connected to that reason why you’re starting your business, to have that impact on your family and your lifestyle.
Because it is really easy to get caught up in our businesses and want to spend more time on it to get more results.
When you stay connected with your why, it will be so much easier for you to say no to things because you are not just taking action this week or this month. You are building and creating this lifestyle for your family.

Kerryn’s final parting words

“So imagine driving at night. You’ve got this destination.

You can’t see it, but you can get there by only seeing a meter or two in front of you where your headlights are showing you.

So everything else can be dark and you can just drive the highway, the road, wherever, just going the next couple of yards and you will get to a destination.

So that’s really kind of that visual analogy of just take the next step and then the next one and then the next one and you can get there.”

This can be applied to business and motherhood.

Just take the next step.

Kerryn shared one inspiration piece on motherhood. It is from Jordanna Levin, who talks about moon cycles, how our energy aligns with that and influences us.

It is a guided meditation from Jordanna Levin where she guides to drawback out the energy into yourself from wherever you have given it all during the week.

For most moms, most of our energy goes to our kids.

Kerryn admitted that she had a tough time with this because she gives so much of her energy to her kids.

I didn’t feel like I could bring it back through the circle and all of the activities we were doing. It made me realize that my energy can go out and into them. They are taking it and transforming it into something else and then it comes back out into the world.

Our kids take that energy and use it to play and bounce around the house or however they choose to use it.

Kerryn explains that you can take some of that energy back to help with filling your cup.

So don’t forget to take care of yourself.

To connect with Kerryn check out her website and say hello to her on Instagram.

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Links mentioned in this episode:

Key takeaways from this episode:

Make the most of your time by prioritizing tasks.
Take the next step. Then the next step.
Use time blocking to be intentional with your time.
Stay connected with the reason you started your business or side hustle.