Are Your Work Systems Working?
- Victoria Hogg
- Apr 18
- 3 min read
Usually, being ambitious is good: making changes, pushing for bigger things and reaching for the stars. The trouble with that is that we can end up tripping and landing in a puddle.
So maybe, this week, have a little look at your systems. Do they need tweaking? A proper overhaul? At what stage will you say “Enough!” and stop using a system that’s not serving you? It’s as brave as pushing through.
Something I watched…
Don’t judge but I (Vic) am a massive fan of the BBC show Stacy Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out. This Titian-haired goddess and her intrepid team declutter people’s homes every week, culling 50 percent (!) of a family’s belongings in just seven (!) days. It’s a home improvement show. What do I love about it?
“You do not rise to the level of your goals: you fall to the level of your systems” James Clear, Atomic Habits
Each episode’s declutterees are, without fail, wildly much happier. Not a bit more relaxed or a slightly more productive; they are transformed: Every. Single. Time. As a result, I’m learning (all over again) to let go. What I’ve found is that when I’m trying to juggle too much or holding onto too much or packing too much in, life gets messy. I can’t keep up with the demands that I’m placing on myself.
Reaching capacity is no joke. Plates tend to fall and break when you spin too many. Systems fail. Process-wise, you can’t beat a ‘slow build’ to give you a solid footing. Don’t let chipped china into your life.
Something about context…
Context is everything and improv is the great leveller. We all fancy ourselves to be a bit brainy and witty but it doesn’t take much on an improv comedy stage - just as in life - to create confusion.
Say you’re confecting some super-smart joke about US Republicans during in the Bush administration. If your scene partner has never heard of Dick Cheney, it ain’t gonna land. You’ll have to offer a history lesson in real time. It’s doable but it’s more work. “Keep it simple, stoopid!” as we say in improv.
Similarly, if your work can’t be described in a single simple sentence, maybe you need to dial things back a bit. If you find you’re struggling to articulate the specifics of your appeal or the complexity of your business offer, maybe you need to cut back, cut down, make everything less complex.
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough” Albert Einstein, scientist
Something we learned…
We all want to please clients, right? Clients are there to be made happy. If a client says, “Could you just…” [fill in ‘extra mile’ or classic opportunity for scope creep] we want to say “Yes! Yes, I know how to do that and can help!”
Resist the urge to please everyone all the time. The clarity you gain from sticking to one job and one job only - or at the least, creating really visible increments - is liberating, empowering, and it makes you more shiny to your prospects.
You know the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none”? Did you know that’s only half of the saying? The complete adage is: “Jack of all trades, master of none - but better by far than a master of one”. I love it! So liberating, to be allowed to be a jack of all trades. But perhaps we’ve all embraced the ‘can do’ attitude and portfolio career a little too tightly. And it’s not necessarily liberating - it can be restrictive, to be honest.
When you say yes to everything and your systems are overloaded, you can harm your business. As counterintuitive as it might feel, try being a bit more exclusive. It might be a relief.
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