Speaker 1: 0:00

Happy New Year. I wish you all the blessings, all the success, the favor, the greats, all the good things this year. Welcome to the Systemized Business Podcast. Welcome to the Systemized Business. Here we dive into strategic productivity to help you overcome entrepreneurial overwhelm. I am BK and I do not believe that you have to be a slave to your business. You can streamline both your business and your life with simple systems. So, whether you're a female entrepreneur navigating the fast-paced world of business, this podcast is your go-to resource for simplifying processes, optimizing efficiency and achieving more with less stress. Let's get started on building the systems that will take you from overwhelmed to in control. Hello there, friend.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Today we're going to be focusing on something really important, a really crucial aspect of achieving the momental success that we are looking for. However you define success personally, one thing we need to know is what do we need to let go of in order to reach our big goals in the year 2025. So, as we strive to meet our goals, it's not only the steps that we take that matter, but also the distractions we avoid. Every goal, every dream that we chase needs not just commitment and focus, but a deliberate disconnection from the noise that drowns out our progress from the noise that drowns out our progress. So today I want to share with you 15 things I simply don't have time for and if I am serious about achieving my goals this year, I need to get rid of these things. So, from unnecessary worry to digital distractions, from unnecessary worry to digital distractions, I'm going to go through each one and I'm going to share actionable strategies that can help us build systems so that we keep ourselves free from these things that waste our time. So, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you are a leader or anyone really aiming for high stakes, you want to keep listening, because we are going to clear the clutter and focus on what truly moves the needle in our business and in our lives.

Speaker 1: 2:42

So what are your new year goals? Do you have any new year resolutions? Have you kind of written them down somewhere? Solidified them? I mean, I personally am not keen on resolutions really, but for some people they work. But in any case, all of us come into the year with goals and milestones that we want to achieve.

Speaker 1: 3:11

But one thing I know for sure whether you're a resolution person, a goals person, whatever it is, if you are listening to this podcast, you probably have big goals, as do I, but I want to share with you just 15 things that I've seen that over time I need to let go of because they do not serve me. They don't serve the goals that I want and they do not serve. First of all, they don't serve me currently and they don't serve the future me, so we need to let these go. Big goals need us to be committed and focused. We all know this right and, with the energy of a fresh new year, we feel that anything is possible and of course, it is if we are willing to do the hard and different things. Think about the successful people that you know. Do they do things like everybody else does them? Probably not. They do things differently and really they are the 1% because they don't do what the 99% does. They don't have time for things that people with mediocre results spend their time on. There are things they are willing to give up in order to level up. So my question to you is what are you willing to give up this year to make this year different? Willing to give up this year to make this year different? So I'm going to be sharing with you what I'll be giving up in order to have laser focus on my goals this year. Okay, here we go. First one I'm going to stop worrying about things I cannot control. Ask yourself this what are you accomplishing really by worrying about things that you have zero control over? You'll find that worrying, and you probably know this already. Worrying never solves anything. Second thing I'm going to do I'm going to give up worrying about the opinion of others. You know what I found? That people think about you less than you imagine, and when you're trying to accomplish something challenging, you just don't have time to worry about what others think. So I am going to commit to regularly assess whose feedback truly matters to my goals, and then I'm going to set a feedback loop only with these key individuals, just to streamline my input and reduce the noise around me.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Number three wasting time in general. You know, when I look at my goals list, I realize that these are going to require time. These are going to require consistency, and that means I leave no room for, simply, you know, wasting time on trivial things. So I encourage you, if this is part of what's on your list, keep a record of how you spend your time on any given day. You might find, if you've ever done a time audit. It's kind of eye-opening that what you think you're spending your time on is probably not what you really are spending your time on. So things like a time audit really help to track how you spend your day and when you can see your day on paper not what you wanted to do, but what you really did then you can identify where your time gets sunk, where it just you know is completely wasted, and then you can take those times and schedule high priority tasks using something like time blocking, for example. So that's the third thing that I'm going to be mindful of giving up this year wasting time. It's amazing how much time I waste.

Speaker 1: 7:40

Another huge time waster is doom scrolling. Another huge time waster is doom scrolling. You know it is crazy how much time flies by when you are. You're like oh, let me open up Facebook for a second, let me open up Instagram for a second. Next thing two hours has passed and you know it. Know you've just filled your time with funny videos and memes and God knows what. So I know that and I've set this up partially.

Speaker 1: 8:17

I think I'm going to refine this process, too to really maximize the focus modes on my phone and set limits on apps. I already have a social media limiting app and this is automated. It's called OneSec and it automates my limits on social media. So when I open up Instagram, this is how it works. I open up Instagram and immediately it takes me to the one second app where it, you know, tells me to take a deep breath and to set the intention for my opening the app, and then it gives me a 15 minute limit on the app. At the end of 15 minutes, it'll tell me that, okay, you've had 15 minutes. Let's get back to your life, let's get back to reality, let's get back to the goals, let's get back to work, so that I don't end up spending two hours endlessly and mindlessly scrolling. So this is a huge. This has actually reduced my time on Instagram and Facebook because of that intentional automation that I set up, and now it just happens automatically. So I love it. All right.

Speaker 1: 9:50

Number five One thing I realized you know I've read many books and I've heard and listened to many interviews. You know what highly successful people don't do. They don't sit in front of the television for hours. Some of them don't even own a TV. I own a TV, but I'm not going to let this waste my time, just like with social media. I think it has been helpful to me and I'm going to continue this practice to designate specific times for watching TV, and particularly if I found that if I attach this as a reward for meeting a daily or a weekly goal, then this doesn't interfere with my productivity. In fact, it makes me work harder because I'm like, okay, I need to get this deadline, I need to meet this deadline. I need to get this done because at the end of this, I'm going to watch two episodes of I don't know lost or whatever, on Netflix. So, yeah, no more just sitting there, especially on weekends. Yeah, okay, number six things that I'm giving up in 2025.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Playing on my smartphone Okay, I'm going to try and this is kind of difficult, especially when you have an online business and most of your work is on your devices, but I'm going to spend one day without looking at my phone, unless somebody calls me. It's astounding, really, if your phone has this feature and you'd look at the data on screen, your screen time data and it'll even break that up for you in. You know, according to apps, it'll tell you that okay, you spent nine hours playing this game and that's just mind boggling to me At the time. Of course, you don't realize how much time you're spending on, you know, playing games on your phone or just scrolling around and messing around on your phone, scrolling around and messing around on your phone. But that report is really eye-opening because you see exactly how much time you've spent and where you've spent it.

Speaker 1: 12:38

And so I'm going to challenge myself, and I encourage you to challenge yourself too, to phone free hours during the day where you focus solely on tasks without digital interruptions, and there are apps that can help you do that. I know, anyway, I just know how ironic it sounds that manage your phone usage with an app. But there are apps that can help you. I mean, just like the focus mode on your phone. You can set your phone up for it, to set you up for success. So there are apps like Forest, which encourage you to stay off your phone, and they've gamified it, and so they make it actually a pleasant experience. And as you go through all, you know the focus, as you stay focused, it measures that, and you know it'll start with a tree and then it'll start with another tree and then, next thing, you have a forest, and so you have the sense of accomplishment. This is, you know, apps like this, this is what they do to help you kind of stay focused by gamifying the whole process.

Speaker 1: 13:58

All right, we're on number seven. Number seven, for me, is interacting with the noise of the world, and again, this goes back to worrying about things I cannot control and wasting time. You know there's so many things going on in the world right now. It is really crazy that you know there's some places where normal is madness and we can argue about world events, we can argue about who is right, who is wrong, but it's likely you're not going to change anybody's mind or no one is going to change yours. So I'm going to focus on keeping the majority of my attention and to direct the energy on the things that matter, the things that I have control over, and things like how I show up in my relationships, how I tackle each day to make it productive, yeah, and this is how I'm going to be working towards my big goals. So, yeah, keep the majority of your attention and direct energy on things that you have control over that matter in your life and as you serve people, you are contributing to that, you're staying focused on that you are sticking to the task of making at least your sphere of influence a better place. Yeah, okay. Number eight you know what? I'm going to give up doing the easy thing. I'm going to give up doing the easy thing Because the easy thing is never the effective thing when you are after a big goal. What you need to be doing is the effective thing and that is the most critical, all right.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Number nine worrying about failure. You know, failure is a funny thing thing. We're guaranteed to fail in the short term. We're guaranteed to fail when we are learning. We are guaranteed to fail when we are not yet experts. And we can allow the failure to leave us crippled or to make us give up, or we can learn from it, use it as a learning mechanism. I'm working on adjusting my approach to failure and allowing it to teach me rather than make me quit. So one thing or one habit that I'm building is a reflection routine where I review failures so that I can extract lessons from there. So, whether it's a daily reflection and I go through my day and I assess and look at, okay, what have I planned for the day, what did I accomplish, what targets did I meet, which ones did I miss and what can I learn from that? And you know, you can do this for a week. You can do this weekly or monthly, even quarterly. And this is so important because we need to, I think, just reorient ourselves around failure, just looking at it from a different perspective and, rather than ruminating on the fact that you have failed and rather than that becoming a narrative of you know you're a failure, use that and make that a springboard for learning. So, yeah, journaling and just going through how you could have done things differently. What did you know? What do you know now that you didn't know then, that contributed to you missing the mark. So, tracking and reflecting on these reflections, I think it's really important and I'm going to just switch my perspective and learn from my failures this year for sure. All right.

Speaker 1: 19:10

Number 10, valuing the opinions of those you wouldn't switch places with. Listen, if you want to be a successful business owner, wouldn't you think it would be the wisest thing to listen to the ideas of other successful business owners? So that probably doesn't include some of the people in our lives that we have allowed to speak. Limits on our lives. If we are reaching for the ceiling we are likely never going to reach for the stars, because there are people around us that aren't even reaching for the ceiling and they tell us how much it cannot be done. But if we are reaching for the stars because you see somebody who is, who is there, you might not get to where they are, but you will definitely get further than where you would have if you had just stayed around with those on a lower level. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 20:26

So the one thing I'm going to do this year is to seek advice, seek mentorship, look up to and listen to people who are where I aspire to be, because I'm effective. This is an effective filtering of those opinions I allow to listen to. The opinions that I allow impact my decisions. And you know the sayings about soaring with eagles you can't soar with eagles while playing with chickens, kind of thing. So, yeah, if you're not willing to trade places with this person, why are you listening to their opinions? If they speak wisdom and life and success, and they challenge you and they push you, these are the sort of people that you need to be listening to. But whoever is trying to just keep you down, keep you small, keep you back, yeah, we're not doing that this year. All right, number 11. We're going to give up trying to be liked by everyone. This is never going to happen. And again, this is avoiding worrying about things that you can't control. You could be the most perfect pianist in the world, but you know what? There are some people that hate the piano, and that's okay. It's okay to not be everybody's cup of tea. You have your people and you will find your people and your people will find you. Everybody else. Let them keep going. So it is really important, I think, this year for me to build those strong relationships with a core group of people that support my goals, rather than trying to please a broader, less relevant audience, because if you are talking to everyone, you're talking to no one friend, right? So, yeah, number 12. Oh, this one is a big one Procrastination, oh I, yeah, there is no time, there's no time, and we never get the time we have.

Speaker 1: 23:29

We never get that back. So putting things off and procrastinating, really, to me, it makes me wonder what is it that is causing that? What is the root cause of my procrastination? Is it fear? Is it uncertainty? Maybe it's lacking resources? Because I think, when you get to the root cause of what is causing this procrastination, then you can address those directly, this procrastination. Then you can address those directly. And this is something that, once you recognize that you're procrastinating on something, this can be something that you journal and ask yourself okay, why am I avoiding doing this thing, why am I avoiding contacting this person, contacting this person, why am I avoiding, why am I putting off, you know, starting this project and really get down to the essence of what it is that is going on? Because it's surprising, sometimes we can be avoiding the very success that we are chasing, and we need to know why. So this is one of the things that I'm going to be working on, because I can be a huge procrastinator, um, so that is definitely on my list.

Speaker 1: 24:59

All right, number 13. Oh, I'm going to stop allowing my emotions to guide me when logic should prevail. And one thing and this, of course, has to do with business too because I want to look at the data, I want to be guided by data instead of like, oh, I like, I think we should go this direction. It kind of feels good, but what do the numbers say? We tend to make choices that serve to decrease our comfort, our discomfort, but we often make these decisions in the heat of the moment, so I want to use my knowledge and experience to make choices that support me and my goals, and this means developing a decision-making framework using data. If the numbers are saying one thing, then my decisions should be based on those numbers, right? I mean, this is like business 101, you know so but sometimes we get caught up in the hype and the emotion, or even the attachment.

Speaker 1: 26:27

I think of, um, let's say, creative businesses. You like a particular product, but that product is not doing really well. But you have it, are emotionally attached to it and you keep pouring you know resource into it, but it's not bringing in any revenue, it's not helping the business at all. In fact, it's hurting the business. So the decision there would be to let go of the emotional attachment and make the decision based on the data. And so, yes, that is what we're doing this year 14, almost to the last one, repeating mistakes, and this kind of ties in to the last few that I was talking about.

Speaker 1: 27:26

You know, have you ever tried to open a door you found that is locked and instead of looking for a key, you try again and again to open it? That won't work. Let's not do that anymore. This goes back to the reviewing the day, the week, the month. Think of this as your lessons learned, right, your lessons learned review every day, every week, every month. Document what worked, what didn't work, how did you win, how did you miss it, so that where we went wrong, we can identify those mistakes and we can avoid similar mistakes in the future. And having that process or having that system of reviewing and writing down and really identifying how the mistake happened, what the mistake was, makes us recognize it and remember when we encounter it in the future, then we won't repeat them same mistakes that we've been doing.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Number 15, seeking pleasure over progress. Oh, this is a big one. Seeking pleasure doesn't lead to a good place in the long term. We know this. We know this right Tends to make us overweight if it's food, lazy if it's the couch and the remote, and definitely broke if it's business, not to mention just lost in life, because it's easier to not do anything than it is to do something, and it is easier to sit and procrastinate and put off working towards your goals than it is to actually get up, do the deep work, do the hard thing, meet the deadline and put something out in the world.

Speaker 1: 29:50

It is insanely difficult to push through your default mode and to do things that even you feel uncomfortable doing, whether it is, you know, applying for that tender or looking out for that, or you know, applying for new business or reaching out to potential clients. It is so much simpler to sit and not do those things or not put yourself out there than it is to take that brave step, put yourself out there, put yourself maybe in a vulnerable position in order to meet your long-term goals and I think you've experienced this where you have done the hard thing, come out the other side and felt how good good that feels, and I know that you'll agree with me. It is infinitely better than the pleasure you felt having done nothing right. So this balance of short-term pleasures with long-term goals, setting up reward systems that align with reaching your milestones, delaying that gratification pushing through until you can celebrate and be like I did it. So those are the 15 things that I am going to be giving up in 2025. I will keep you posted on how it's going Because, like I said at the beginning of the year, anything is possible. Like I said at the beginning of the year. Anything is possible, but we get to the middle of some month and it feels like you're trudging through mud with lead boots, right? So I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

Speaker 1: 32:19

I'm always reminding myself that success is as much about what you choose not to do as it is about what you do do. So feel free to steal these, add them to your own list, implement the strategies that we talked about today, about today, or even add your own twist to them, so that you can build strong systems that protect your time and your focus. We don't have time for unsupportive behaviors when we are aiming high in 2025. So, dear friend, if you found this episode helpful, go ahead and share it with a friend. Just click, share and send it to them with a friend or a colleague who you might think would benefit from learning how to streamline their life, how to, you know, get rid of some things in order to meet their life goals and business goals.

Speaker 1: 33:25

Can I ask you one thing before we part right now? Please take a few seconds to subscribe to the podcast it really helps the show and please leave a review, if you can, leave a five-star review If you can, if you can take those few more seconds to do so. That would really really be helpful in sharing this content and just making it accessible and reaching more people. Thank you so much for spending the time with me. I wish you a great rest of your day and I'll talk to you again soon. Bye for now.