Systems? What systems?

Way back, when I first flirted with the idea of quitting my dayjob, all of my business mentors + friends said things like,

“Make sure you have your systems in order, before you quit. Now's the time to work on that”

And I thought,

“Systems? What systems?”

Systems = the things that you do when X happens.

Building or having or fixing your systems is simply making those things-you-do make more sense for you. To make space for consistency and flow. It's about bringing consiousness to those systems, which lets you run a business and still live a life.

But WHAT systems?

What systems do I already have?
What systems need work?

Enough of this philosophy of systems stuff, it's time for the airing-of-the-systems.

Systems  I like

(I've worked on and have gotten mildly happy with them)

• Post-sale  (email inviting customer to my newsletter, note in the package)
• Shipping (weekly printing of labels, packaging everything (including note!))
• Inventory (keeping enough unddyed wool that I can always be dyeing, dyeing enough wool so that I can always be spinning)
• Bookkeeping (monthly downloading of Paypal info, organizing it into income + expenses)
• Analyzing the numbers (monthly checking it all out, making notes on what worked (and didn't!))
• Communicating with customers (regular newsletters, Yarn-Love Notes)

Systems that still need work:

• Production (keeping it all flowing, keeping a steady stream of new yarn coming out of my studio)
• Listing (photographing, writing descriptions)
• Other writing (articles, etc)
• Rest (remembering to stop)

What are the systems you're happy with?
What are the systems you need to work on?

Tell me in the comments!

(And if you want to start working on your systems today, join me at 3pm. Get the details here)