I’m offering a Spring discount on my 1-hour systems strategy sessions! Use code SPRINGSYSTEMS for $50 off!

Sometimes, I use a combination of tools in my systems toolkit and they just work.

When “it works,” I feel capable. I feel productive. I feel calm.

I feel like this:

Here’s what’s been working for me lately:

I start the day triaging all the inboxes I manage.

Meaning, I add my respond/to-do tags and archive anything that isn’t needed. Then I leave expeditiously. (Sometimes I listen to my Inbox Zero playlist while doing it)

Why it usually works for me:

• I remove the noise. When I log into my or a client’s inbox, I’m immediately overwhelmed by the shear volume of emails. In my brain, one email = one more task, which isn’t necessarily true. I’m able to remove the unnecessary and prioritize what needs action.

• I’m in and out pretty quickly. I manage five work inboxes, including my own, but can typically triage within 25 minutes before moving into the rest of my day.

• It’s a reminder to my nervous system that emails are not an emergency. This is one of my inbox rules/boundaries. Emails are not urgent. They can wait a few hours.

I take some time to plan out my week on Mondays.

I go into all of the project management systems across clients and add the week’s to-dos into my personal task management system, TickTick.

I also recently went back to my “buckets” system, assigning certain clients and projects to a day of the week, making it easier to assign due dates quickly/without much thought. Example: Client #1 is assigned to Tuesdays, so any tasks related to their projects get assigned a Tuesday due date (unless it needs to get done sooner).

Why it usually works for me:

• I get an overview of what’s actually going on this week so nothing creeps up on me. I usually work day-to-day, hour-by-hour, which can make me feel really anxious if I don’t get a bird’s eye view of what’s supposed to go down.

• It helps me gain perspective on what is actually important today. I usually schedule A LOT of tasks for Mondays; looking farther into the week helps me space things out, making my days more manageable.

I start with my “TIMELY” tagged tasks before anything else.

I have a “timely” tag in TickTick that helps me break through the sea of to-dos marked as ‘today’ if I’m feeling overwhelmed. It’s neon green so it immediately catches my eye. These are tasks that absolutely have to get done today.

Why it usually works for me:

• The only tasks left are ones that don’t actually need to get done today. This makes the rest of the day feel a lot less urgent/structured/pressured. When I feel less pressure around a task, it’s easier for me to get it done, so it feels natural for me to keep working once my timely tasks are done.

I hop into a FLOWN session.

I recently started using FLOWN as a virtual co-working option since leaving my physical co-working space. They have a Drop-In session you can join at any time; you just set an intention, set your timer, and get to work. It’s so satisfying!

Why it usually works for me:

• I honestly don’t entirely know. But I’m the kind of person who needs to Facetime someone to force myself to do the dishes, so I know that body doubling works for me.

What to do when something stops “working”

I often get people craving consistency when they sign up to work with me. They want to find a system that works for them and stick with it.

Well, I wish I could bottle up the “it works” energy and sell it to you. But the truth is, this combination of tools in my toolkit may work really well for me sometimes. I would love if it worked for me every day until I die, but there are so many things that could go wrong:

Maybe I don’t sleep well and it throws off the entire day.

Maybe an angry person writes an email I can’t ignore for three hours and it derails my original plans for the day.

Maybe I have more meetings than usual and that makes me feel scattered and drained.

Maybe I catch one single headline in the news and it makes me too depressed to work

I don’t say this to bum you out. To be honest, I got a little bummed out just writing them lol.

I say it to remind you that there is no perfect system. And that we are only human.

The goal is to have different systems for different seasons, a menu of options available for you to help when you’re feeling overwhelmed, scattered, or unmotivated.

So, here’s what you can do when things stop working:

1. Give yourself permission to grab something else from your toolkit. The methods I’ve been using lately aren’t new to my toolkit, or this newsletter, but sometimes I take a break from them. Coming back to something that used to work for me often adds a little bit of “newness” dopamine to the process.

2. Remind yourself that there’s always tomorrow. It’s perfectly normal to have an “all or nothing” mentality when it comes to systems. That didn’t work for me today/this week so I guess I should abandon it altogether. Just because it doesn’t work right now doesn’t mean it never will. Try it again some other time.

3. Try not to blame yourself, or over-analyze. Sometimes things don’t work because they just don’t. It doesn’t mean you’re lazy or irresponsible or not doing enough. It just means your needs, and support systems, require something else right now.

If you need help finding out what “works” for you right now, I’m offering a Spring discount on my 1-hour systems strategy sessions! Use code SPRINGSYSTEMS for $50 off. Code is valid through March 20th (you don’t have to have your session by the 20th, just book by then to get the discount).

Peace, love and workflows,

Andrea