I’ve talked about the importance of habits and routines this week, and there’s one that has really had a significant impact on my life and career (especially regarding my energy level and fluidity in my progress).
It really helps you earn more by working less!
What’s more, you’ll see that it’s a kind of “habitception”!
Having a lot of responsibilities, as a multi-potential entrepreneur, and having a natural tendency to take on a lot of headaches and tire myself out, I quickly realized that I wouldn’t last long, as the mental load could be such a drain on my energy.
There were several things that took up my energy:
- Decision making (the daily grind of responsibilities)
- Tasks (the burden of projects and commitments)
- Ruminations (I’ve had a tendency to get in my head since I was a child)
- Too many social exchanges (being an introvert, I have a limit between meetings, networks and calls)
- Creativity: having to create regularly
- All this can quickly drain our energy levels, over several days or weeks.
Here’s the habit that helped me get out of it:
Thinking about decisions, tasks, directions, plans, discussions, commitments clutters the mind, so you have to get it out of your mind…
That’s where I made the connection with a basic business concept:
Hard work isn’t enough, you have to leverage it!
When I changed my business model to develop income that was dissociated from my time in 2012 (the famous passive income), it was precisely to gain more freedom!
How can you transpose this into your own organization?
Create systems !
Let me explain:
With all the decisions I have to make, it’s important not only to take the burden of decision-making off my shoulders, but also to make it easier. Especially since, depending on the state, the moment and the time I have available, I can lose lucidity on certain important decisions.
By having a decision-making system, I am a process that facilitates this decision, for myself or my team for that matter.
Similarly, most of my tasks are recurrent. By creating systems and processes instead, it becomes easier for me to handle, optimize and delegate them by following already established and validated steps.
Rather than wasting time in meetings or calls that lead to pointless discussions, following a plan or a script makes these exchanges more efficient for everyone. There’s always time for the trivial afterwards!
Creativity is also facilitated by systems: scripts for content formats and styles (to structure or generate ideas quickly), recycling what may have already worked, following tried-and-tested models/structures…
Powerful stuff:
Work once, then leverage, repeat, optimize, recycle, automate, delegate…
Systems have 3 vocations, to gain in :
- Speed: following a protocol or process is naturally faster, you don’t have to reinvent it every time.
- Efficiency: Leverage and repeat more quickly (you work once).
- Lightness: all systems and processes must be kept simple (no more complicated to use than to do without), yet available to take the load off the mind
Work once, prepare efficiently, then surf!
That’s why I was talking about “habitception”. My habit has been to create systems and models for everything, and to use them regularly to make my work easier.
That doesn’t prevent me from breaking out of them, creating new ones, breaking codes… But it does give me a common thread that takes my mind off things!
It’s a bit like delegating to your own brain that you’ve outsourced! (yes, it’s weird when you put it like that).
Systems are to efficiency and productivity what habits are to personal growth!
In personal life, career and business: Create systems!
I have lots of systems now, in the form of mindmaps, frameworks, processes and so on.
I work once, then create a system if it’s repeatable!
At least, that’s what I’ve been helping my customers do for years, while giving them the benefit of my own systems, frameworks, templates etc.
Want more ? Want to get my systems and frameworks ?