I also really struggle to explain what I like and don’t like to designers for some reason. 🤷‍♀️ For years that meant I either settled for something almost-right, or spending hours in Canva and still not loving the result.

So, when Anthropic dropped Claude Design back in April, I immediately got to work figuring out what it was and how it could help me and others like me.

(Hat tip to Ben AI. This video helped a lot.)

The tl;dr is that Claude Design is absolutely life-changing… when it’s set up properly.

I’m going to teach you step-by-step to get it set up so that you can make any branded asset you need in your business in minutes.

We’ll cover:

• What Claude Design is

• A love note to designers

• What a “design system” is

• A quick tour of Claude Design

• The step-by-step guide to build your own design system

Let’s get into it.

First, a love note to designers

Design has changed. Making a good visual image used to take time, money, or skill, and usually all three. That’s not true anymore.

AI can now make almost any image you can describe, which means you type out what you want in plain words and it creates it on the spot.

For my last newsletter I needed a picture of a unicorn playing badminton. The sky is the limit on weird shit you can make.

So the making part is now basically free and instant.

But, being able to generate an image is not the same thing as having a brand.

AI can make a picture of almost anything you ask for, but it can’t decide the meaning behind the look and feel of your business.

Even with how far AI has come, I’m not worried about designers. Just like I’m not worried about writers.

Great writing and great design are great thinking and AI can’t think.

A good designer takes the vague thing in your head, the part you can’t quite put into words, adds their human magic and turns it into something tangible.

Skilled designers take your whole business and work out what it’s about, who it’s for, and what makes it different from everyone else, and then they turn all of that into a look and feel that fits together and means something on a human level.

Designers use strategy, taste and judgment that AI has not been able to replace.

So here’s how I think about design now.

We non-designers can own the making part now.

Once you know what your brand is, you can make almost anything you need yourself, quickly and for very little.

The thinking, the concept and the strategy underneath a brand, is still worth paying an excellent designer for, when you’re able to.

But once that foundation exists, whether a designer built it for you or you put a version of it together yourself, you can use AI to make the assets you need day-to-day.

Claude Design makes that easier than ever.

What is Claude Design?

Claude Design is a tool inside Claude.

You describe what you want, and it designs it: slide decks, social media images, carousels, infographics, one-pagers, landing pages, thumbnails. You can edit what it makes by clicking on things and changing them directly.

You can access it at claude.ai by going to the design tab or by going to claude.ai/design directly.

What is a design system?

A design system is a collection of everything that makes your brand look the way it looks, your colors, fonts, logo, and the general style you want your work to have, all kept in one place in Claude Design.

Once it’s set up, Claude Design knows what your brand looks like, and it can apply that to anything you ask it to make for you.

With a design system in place, you’re not describing your brand from scratch every single time you want to make something. You don’t need to give examples or prompt it.

Whatever you make, whether it’s a thumbnail, a carousel, or a one-page PDF, comes out on-brand.

A quick tour of Claude Design

Before we get started

Before we build, one reminder: you’re setting things up so your design is decided before you prompt, so a single prompt lands at 90%. It’s going to save you hours and hours in the future.

Also, this works whether or not you already have a brand.

If you do, we’ll take what you’ve already got, your colors, fonts, and logo, and get it set up in Claude Design.

If you don’t have a brand yet, and you’re not working with a designer, we’ll create one together in Claude Design, so you’ve got a real starting point to work from.

You can do this over an afternoon, or spread it across a few sessions.

I personally find this to be a pretty fun project and VERY useful so enjoy the process. I give you a Skill to support your process and I’ll walk through each part step-by-step with screenshots and videos to make it easy as possible.

FAQs

What do I need before I start?

1. A paid Claude plan. The two Claude tools we use, Claude Design and Cowork, are on Claude’s paid plans. The cheapest one that includes them is Pro, which is $20 a month, or $17 a month if you pay for the year. Max works too if you’re already on it. If you already pay for Claude, you’re all set.

2. The Claude desktop app. This one’s free to download. You need it because the “skill” I give you works with files on your computer, and the app can do that where the browser can’t.

And if you’ve never used Cowork, don’t worry, I got you.

Do I need to be technical?

No. If you can install an app and follow step-by-step instructions, you can do this. My goal is to make this easy for my non-techie people.

Does this work on Windows, or just Mac?

Both. The Claude desktop app comes in a Mac version and a Windows version.

Is the skill an extra cost?

No, the skill is included with the install.

Read more

If the goals you set in January just flashed before your eyes, and the math on where you thought you’d be by July isn’t mathin, this is for you.

There are two things happening that make the realization that it’s mid 2026 a little jarring:

1. How our memory measures time
2. How we measure our progress

How our memory measures time

For some reason time passes so reliably yet it’s so easy to be completely shocked by the passing of time.

That shocked feeling comes from how memory measures time. Looking back, your brain doesn't count hours, it counts distinct memories.

Novelty is distinct, routine isn’t.

So six months of full, repetitive weeks gets compressed into what feels like six weeks, and when the calendar says July, the gap between felt time and actual time can feel a little like… 😳

Think about the holiday paradox: a week-long trip flies by while you're on it but takes up so much space in memory. That’s because it was dense with new moments.

But, just because your brain compressed the time, doesn’t mean that the past six months wasn’t FULL of incredible moments of building, learning, growing, and living.

Six months of morning coffees, of walks, of dinners that seemed not-so-special but were actually incredibly special, of the regular days that were filled with running errands and client calls and moments with your family.

Let’s do a decompression exercise:

Open the photo album on your phone and scroll back to January. Go month by month and find your favourite memories from each one, and favorite the photos that remind you of moments you loved.

Twenty minutes of decompressing your memory and you’ll be reminded that you’ve lived half a year of your precious life since January.

How we measure our progress

The feeling of behind is caused by one thing… a perceived gap between where you are and where you think you should be.

It is nothing more than thinking the plan is more accurate and true than the actual unfolding of events in your life.

January-you chose those goals and timelines with the least information she’d have all year. What you knew in January when you set them is a fraction of what you know now.

Judging July-you with January-you’s plan means discounting your actual experience because of a guess you made in January.

When there’s a gap between the plan and where you are, the gap is nothing more than information about the guess.

Sometimes it’s telling you the goal takes longer than the guess. You’ve been doing the work and the results are coming. If that’s you, keep going.

And sometimes it’s telling you that the plan itself wasn’t quite right. That for whatever reason, it didn’t work for you. A plan can be rewritten this afternoon.

But, being “behind” is impossible.

July-you is the most qualified person who has ever existed to reach your goals precisely because of the last six months.

The only question to ask, are you making progress on the things that matter most to you?

If yes, keep going.

If no, time for a new plan?

Maybe you’ve heard…

Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5 on Tuesday. It performs close to their top-tier models, and it’s much better at multi-step work.

If you’ve been using Opus 4.8, you can swap to Sonnet 5 as your default to save on usage without noticing a big difference on the output for most tasks.

And Fable 5, Anthropic’s newest top-tier model for the public, is back. It launched June 9, disappeared three days later under a US export-control order, and came back Wednesday after the restrictions were lifted.

Pro and Max plans can use it at no extra cost through July 7.

If you have a team and you use Slack, Claude Tag is new: a shared Claude in your team’s channels that anyone can tag with a task, and it works right in the thread.

Coming next week: the Epic Guide to Claude Design. Anthropic's design tool got a major upgrade this week and it’s so good. Next week's guide walks you through setting it up with your design system.

Where to make images with AI right now

If you want an image for your business (a post graphic, a hero image, a product mockup), ChatGPT and Gemini are both great, easy options.

Describe what you want in plain language, wait a few seconds, download the file.

Gemini made some interesting design choices here:

I personally enjoy the shoes and jersey.

Google’s image model, Nano Banana (I freaking love that name), released a faster version on Tuesday. It’s what runs image generation in the Gemini app, and if your graphics include words, the Pro tier renders text properly.

And ChatGPT’s images got their big upgrade this spring: it keeps faces and details consistent while you edit, so you can ask for the same image with one thing changed and it won’t redraw everything from scratch.

What’s new from Hey Systems

Amy x

PS: “The dogs were good again this week.”

In that guide, I talk in depth about the difference between a plan that helps you rise to the occasion and a plan that gets forgotten and becomes an underlying source of pressure.

There is one more thing I want to add to the system for those moments when you know your North Star, your goals, your plan but:

• The week is busy or hard

• You’re not feeling your best

• You’re overwhelmed

Sometimes we need support to laser in on the most important actions at the most important time.

Today, you’re getting a tool that does exactly that.

The first time I built something like this was a custom GPT I named Ophelia.

She was one of the most-used tools in the Hey Systems membership: an ADHD-trained productivity coach who helps you refocus on your priorities and figure out what's realistic for the day.

This is the same idea, built for you to install and make your own, with the option to include context from your goals, life and business.

It’s designed to give you instant relief when you feel overwhelmed.

What your productivity coach does:

This is a conversational AI assistant you open at the start of a work session. It helps you figure out what to focus on and where to start.

Built on ADHD-informed principles, it’s designed to:

• Ask one question at a time and wait for your answer before moving on

• Help you figure out what’s realistic today based on your energy and time

• Break projects into small, ordered steps when something feels too big to start

• Check back on tasks without making you feel behind

• Celebrate what got done

Next: the full instructions, how to set it up in Claude or ChatGPT, and how to customize it for your business.

Read more

You sit down for the planning session, set the goals, map out the plan and get really freaking excited to take big, bold action.

You’re ready. You know you can do it. This is IT.

Three months later, you realize you’ve barely looked at the plan.

Some of it happened anyway.

Some of it you completely forgot about.

And no less than 300 things changed in life and business making some of the plan redundant or obsolete.

This is the reality of planning in solo operator businesses.

And I really wouldn’t have a problem with it IF mapping the plan feels good and helps you feel organized and then you get to work.

BUT, here’s where I take massive issue:

When smart, capable, highly intelligent business owners make not following the plan mean something is wrong or bad about them.

You decide you’re undisciplined, or inconsistent, or bad at follow-through. You decide you just have to try harder or do more.

This is solving for entirely the wrong thing.

If a plant is not thriving in a particular environment, you change the environment. You don’t blame the plant.

What does it need to grow and thrive?

More light? Less water? A bigger pot?

You solve for what the plant really needs not for what it should need.

If you’ve created best-laid plans in your business and have a hard time following through, I promise you, you are not the problem… the plan is.

Planning is a tool, it’s a support. Its job is to make taking the right action easier.

If your plan is putting you in a box, feels like pressure or is creating too much resistance, it’s not the right plan.

The first principles of planning

These are the three principles I come back to before I build any plan.

1. Choose what you choose

I know it sounds simple, but the power of deciding is highly underrated. When you decide, when you truly choose a direction, choose a goal, choose a strategy, choose an action plan, it changes the way you act.

If you make a plan that sounds good, but you haven’t really decided, then the first shiny object that comes along can sweep you away.

2. Less is more

One of the fastest ways I know to feel behind is to plan too much. The goal of a plan is to help you take the right action at the right time.

A plan should make it easier for you to sit down at your desk, get to work, and move forward on the things that matter most to you and your goals.

That means choosing fewer things to work on and getting them done instead of moving a lot of things forward a little bit.

3. Plan for your worst days

A plan that requires you to be operating at your best in order to be successful is a very painful way to operate day-to-day.

Of course we want to create the conditions to feel our best every day, but there are inevitable ups and downs in life, in energy, in circumstances.

It is much better to plan for those ups and downs than to expect that we operate at our best and beat ourselves up for “failing” when we don’t.

Why I plan in 90-day chunks

I’ve never once planned an entire year successfully.

Unless we have predictable cycles in our business, so much can change between now and eight months from now that makes proper planning impossible.

We can set our direction, goals, milestones, and map loose timelines but my experience as a solo operator has been that detailed planning for more than three months from now is a waste of time.

The lessons I learn from the strategies I implement now inform the strategies that I implement later.

In other words, I don’t know in Q2 where the best place is for me to focus my time and attention in Q4.

Ninety days is a different story. I know roughly what the next three months look like: what’s on the calendar, what my capacity is, and what’s coming up.

It’s long enough to make progress on something that matters and close enough that I can make plans with (some) confidence.

You get to simply ask:

What do you want to be true 90 days from now?

And then worry about what needs to happen after that, after that.

Before you plan a single thing

A lot of planning starts with the same question:

What do I want to accomplish?

And that can be helpful, especially if I’m in a season of life and business where I’m fired up, excited, and ready to rock.

But, I learned it’s much better for me to NOT start there.

Instead, I ask two questions:

1. What does my business need?

2. What do I need?

In solo operator businesses, these two things are inextricably linked, but we often don’t even consider what we might need.

I don’t know about you, but I’m here to play the long game. Sustainability has to be a factor in my decision-making.

Yes there are seasons of overworking but, if overworking is required 24-7 for my business to run, I don’t want it.

So before I choose a single goal, I open my calendar and look at what’s already there: trips, events, appointments, commitments, things I’m excited about, and things that will take time, energy, or attention.

Once I’ve looked at the calendar, I check in with my capacity.

How much energy do I have to put towards something new?

I then decide what “seasons” are best for me and my business in the next 90 days.

The four business seasons:

• Building — focused time to create infrastructure: new offers, systems, workflows.

• Maintaining — steady-state operations: delivering, supporting, admin, recurring tasks.

• Growing — increasing visibility, scaling efforts, launching, momentum-building.

• Resting — recovery after a sprint, a pause between chapters, or a low-capacity season.

Choosing a season is really about making sure I take a step back and plan intentionally, rather than defaulting into old patterns of not checking my actual capacity or my life obligations.

So, it’s a quick check-in.

What season have I been in?

What season would support me now?

You don’t need one label for the whole quarter. You might spend a month focused on building and two months focused on growth.

Sometimes you need a whole 90 days in one season.

There are no rules, you get to make them up as you go.

BUT.. when you start planning from a place that takes your calendar and capacity into account alongside your goals and projects…

… you’ll be amazed at not only how much more you accomplish but how much more you enjoy the process.

The four levels of planning

I’ve been an Asana Certified Pro/ Asana Services Partner since they started the program. I’ve helped over 1,000 people manage their task list through my courses, programs, and client work.

And this is a concept I’ve repeated no less than 100 times.

The quality of your planning dictates how your day-to-day feels.

Tasks are downstream from projects…

That are downstream from strategies…

That are downstream from goals…

That are downstream from your North Star.

They are connected.

What I see over and over again is ideas getting immediately turned into to-dos without being vetted through the lens of goals and strategies.

You might see a post about how someone is crushing it on Pinterest and then pop “create a Pinterest account” on your to-do list.

Now this becomes a thing you “need” to do that makes you feel behind every day that you don’t get it done. It’s madness.

Think of your planning process like a club bouncer. Its job is to vet each idea, strategy, project and make sure that it belongs there.

Your task list is more than a collection of everything you need to do.

Your task list is a collection of the things you’ve decided are important enough to spend the precious moments of your life on.

I know it’s a little dramatic, but I love seeing people be more discerning, more exclusive, and more snobby about what gets to take up space on their task list.

If planning has never worked for you

If you find yourself making the same goals, the same plans, on repeat and losing track a couple of weeks into each quarter… Girl, same.

I honestly thought something was fundamentally wrong with me.

I love my work. I care so much. I work really hard. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just stick to a freaking plan.

But it turns out, starting with goals and rushing straight to a long list of tasks didn’t work for me.

I needed a plan that was clear and flexible, that kept the most important things front and center, and made it easy for me to keep moving towards my North Star.

This process does that.

Your quarterly planning process

Now we’re going to build your plan.

We’ll go through each step:

1. Look at your quarter — calendar, capacity, season

2. Reconnect or identify your North Star

3. Choose your 1–3 goals

4. Pick your strategies and projects

5. Identify your milestones

6. Set the level of task detail that works for you

If you aren’t ready to do your planning right now then block an hour in your calendar and set aside some time in a vibey corner of your house or a cafe in the next few days.

If you are ready, we’re about to go through it step-by-step.

You can do this with a pen and paper as you read.

Or, if you want the guided version, you can install the Quarterly Planning Skill and let it walk you through the same process step by step. 😎

Read more

It seemed like everything around me was moving at hyper speed, and there was more pressure than ever to do more, more, more.

After 10 years of always focusing on the next thing I had to do to grow my business, I realized I needed to take a minute. So I did.

But now all the lessons have settled. All the naps and weekends off have started to catch up, and I’m starting to feel that fire and excitement to build and grow.

In the planning process I teach, I talk about the four seasons business owners need to recognize and how identifying which season you’re in can be a life-changing planning hack.

The four business seasons:

• Building — focused time to create infrastructure: new offers, systems, workflows.

• Maintaining — steady-state operations: delivering, supporting, admin, recurring tasks.

• Growing — increasing visibility, scaling efforts, launching, momentum-building.

• Resting — recovery after a sprint, a pause between chapters, or a low-capacity season.

When left to my own devices, I tend to push myself relentlessly to keep building and growing, without taking time to rest or maintain.

But we’re simply not designed to operate that way.

A season of rest can be as short as a week if that’s all you need. The key is to proactively identify which season you’re in, and make sure you’re cycling through all of them.

Next week I’m sharing my Epic Guide on quarterly planning for solopreneurs — a step-by-step process to go through before July 1st to:

• Get crazy clear on your North Star

• Identify the top one to three strategies that will get you there

• Create an action plan that feels effortless to get done (ok, not effortless but it’s clear and easy to take action)

Q3 for me is definitely going to be a growing season. Next week, I’ll take myself through the planning process to get super clear on the exact outcomes, milestones, and actions I’m going to focus on for the next three months.

And of course, I’ll share the process with you in the Epic Guide, in case you’d like to do the same.

Maybe you’ve heard…

The week’s highlights in AI, systems, and business.

👾 Claude Design got an upgrade.

Claude Design first launched April 17, 2026 and, honestly, it fell a little flat when it first came out because people didn’t really know how to use it. If you go to Claude Design and ask it to help you design your brand without specific instructions, it does an okay job.

With specific instructions, though? It’s one of the most helpful tools for solopreneurs. Once your design system is set up you can design any asset you need for your business in about 10 seconds.

And it now lets you edit directly on the canvas, syncs with Claude Code, and exports to PDF/PowerPoint and tools like Canva.

🤖 AI scheduling is getting really good

For a long time, AI only did anything when you sat down and asked it.

Now Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can all run tasks on a schedule, on their own. You describe a job once — pull together a Monday summary, draft my weekly email, check these numbers every Friday — and it does it, on time, without you.

I’ve gotten a little obsessed with it. I built out my whole system inside Cowork to take the repeating parts of my week off my hands and I am blown away.

This is the video that got me inspired: My Simple Claude Cowork System (for normal people).

And of course I’ll share how I did it soon.

What’s New From Hey Systems

• Coming up: the quarterly planning epic guide

Happy to answer questions as always!

In the meantime, have an amazing weekend.

Amy x

PS. Meet Holly. One of my fav dogs on the internet.

I’ve written for local magazines, for travel blogs, I’ve been a ghostwriter for lists of 50,000+ subscribers.

I’ve written weekly emails to my own email list for over eight years with very few breaks.

All that is true AND I love using AI to support my writing process.

I provide the ideas, takeaways, structure, and details about the reader and how I want them to feel.

It helps me draft something quickly that I can then edit.

I use it as a thinking partner and then a drafting partner before I finalize things.

The problem is that AI consistently takes out the very things that help my writing feel like me and connect with the people I want to connect with.

I’ve spent hours dissecting AI drafts, asking why a sentence doesn’t work and what about it fell off. Figuring out the constructions that make writing sound flat and robot-esque.

I wanted to get to the bottom of why it consistently removes meaning from my words.

Why does it do that?

There are thousands of lists now telling you how to spot AI writing.

The em-dash.

Three adjectives in a row.

“Here’s the thing…”

“It’s not just a X, it’s a Y.”

“Once you can see it, you can’t unsee it.”

It’s true that people tend to recognize those patterns as AI.

They show up in AI writing partly because they’ve been used so much by humans, and AI was trained on data that contained those patterns in human writing.

And while those AI tells are easy to spot, there’s a bigger factor at play and AI writing’s #1 offender:

Compression.

Editing vs compression

Editing is good. Being concise is good. Cutting is most of what good writing is. You write the long version, then take things out until only what’s necessary and compelling is left.

Editing is where you take a sentence, a paragraph, an article, and distill it down to its core sentiment without losing important meaning.

But AI often doesn’t edit the way a skilled human editor does.

It compresses.

It often reduces specificity, which feels like meaning loss.

Think about what happens to a photo when you compress it into a smaller file.

At a glance it looks the same.

Zoom in, and the edges are mushy, the fine detail is gone, and there are little smudges where information used to be.

The file is smaller and faster to send. But it also loses nuance and precision.

AI does something similar to writing.

It gives you a smaller, faster version that looks right at a glance but, on a closer look, has replaced details with generic AI-isms.

That’s why so much AI writing feels like it says very little.

It often sounds like a complete thought without complete thinking.

It’s very good at copying what a real point sounds like even when it’s not actually making the point.

A lot of AI writing follows the structure of insight:

• Setup.

• Contrast.

• Resolution.

• Takeaway.

The structure itself is fine. Good writing often uses exactly the same pattern. But, the problem is that sometimes there is no underlying observation.

You get the resemblance of an insight without the insight itself.

Why “it’s not X, it’s Y” shows up everywhere

Of all the patterns AI uses, contrast is one of the most common (and infuriating).

“It’s not about the tools, it’s about the system.”

“This isn’t productivity, it’s clarity.”

This is where you say what something isn’t in order to define what it is.

Sometimes it’s inane:

❌ a system that works with your brain, not against it

✅ a system that works with your brain

Sometimes it’s helpful:

✅ This isn’t a time management problem. It’s a prioritization problem.

AI doesn’t reliably distinguish between useful contrast and unnecessary contrast.

For contrast to be helpful, it has to introduce real informational separation between two ideas. It has to change what the reader understands or what they would do next.

AI didn’t invent this pattern.

Contrast is common in persuasive writing because it creates the feeling of clarity. It gives people simple categories to organize ideas into and makes a statement sound more decisive than it might actually be.

That’s one reason AI uses it so much.

The sneaky thing about it is that it often introduces an opposite that wasn’t necessary in the first place.

And what has me rage typing (or ironically raising my voice via Wispr Flow):

Unnecessary, unsolicited contrast introduces an opposite that was never there to begin with and can bring doubt and negativity with it.

“You’re not broken, you’re learning.”

For some people, maybe that feels reassuring.

For others it’s more like:

“Well thank you very much Claudia, I didn’t even consider I was broken but now you’ve introduced that fun thought into the conversation. 🙄”

You raise a negative the reader was never even thinking about.

AI uses contrast constantly, and every time it does, it can override what you meant with random constrast.

The disconnect between you and your reader

Your reader might not be able to put her finger on any of this. She isn’t counting em-dashes or adjectives. But she reads AI all day now whether she knows it or not, and her brain has learned the patterns.

Not necessarily enough to identify AI. But often enough to recognize when something feels generic.

So when her experience with your writing follows the same patterns she sees everywhere else, there is no distinction. She can’t tell your writing apart from everything else she scrolls past.

She feels a small step back, a little less trust, a little less of you in your words.

There are two ways to get around this while still using AI to write your stuff.

1. Say things other people are not saying.

If your content is differentiated by what you’re saying, you can get away with more AI-isms. When a piece is distinctly you because of the stance you’re taking or the story you’re telling, that will be what your reader trusts.

2. Train your AI to compress less.

You can teach it to not do the thing in the first place. Let me tell you how.

Train your AI to compress less

If you find your writing keeps getting flattened when you use AI, there’s a simple way to test what’s going on before you overhaul anything.

Start small. Drop this into the chat you’re working in:

Do not remove or generalise:
- examples or concrete instances
- conditions or qualifiers (time, frequency, probability, context)
- causal or explanatory links
- distinctions between ideas or scenarios

Do not convert specific statements into abstract summaries.

Do not replace multi-part explanations with single general claims.

Only use contrast (“X vs Y”, “not X but Y”) when each side introduces distinct information that changes interpretation or action. If both sides do not add new information, remove the contrast and rewrite as a single statement.

If a change reduces informational content, do not apply it.

This is usually enough to show you when the model is defaulting into that “compressed” version of your thinking.

If it helps, the next step is to make it more permanent.

Put it somewhere the model consistently reads it at the start of a conversation — Project Instructions, Custom Instructions, a Skill/GPT/Gem.

That’s what keeps it from resetting every time you start a new thread.

And when you notice it drifting, a small reminder usually works:
“You’re compressing again, check the rules.”

It’s surprisingly responsive to that kind of nudge.

Below is the full instruction set you can use for that system-level setup.

Let me know how it goes.

Amy x

## Objective

Preserve informational content, specificity, and relationships between ideas during transformation.

Avoid loss of meaning through abstraction, over-summarisation, or unnecessary generalisation.

---

## 1. Compression definition (operational)

Compression occurs when transformation:

* removes specific details without replacement
* replaces concrete elements with general categories
* deletes qualifiers (conditions, frequency, uncertainty, scope)
* collapses multi-step explanations into single abstract claims

Compression is defined by **loss of informational distinctions**, not by length.

---

## 2. Information preservation rule

Preserve informational distinctions present in the input.

Informational distinctions include:

* examples or instances
* constraints or conditions
* causal or explanatory links
* contrasts between ideas
* exceptions or edge cases
* temporal or probabilistic qualifiers

Do not merge distinct informational elements into a single general statement.

---

## 3. Anti-abstraction rule

Do not replace specific content with abstract summaries.

Invalid transformations:

* example → category
* scenario → principle without instance
* multi-step explanation → single general claim

If abstraction is used, it must retain at least one concrete reference.

---

## 4. Contrast rule

Use contrast only when both sides contribute distinct informational content.

A contrast is valid only if:

* each side adds non-overlapping information
* removing either side changes meaning or interpretation

Otherwise:

* remove contrast structure
* rewrite as a single statement preserving all information

---

## 5. Redundancy rule (primary optimisation rule)

You may remove content only when it does not change informational meaning.

Allowed removal:

* repeated meaning with no added specificity
* rephrasing that introduces no new constraint or distinction
* filler phrases with no informational role

Do not remove content that changes meaning, scope, or interpretation.

If uncertain, keep the more specific version.

---

## 6. Structure constraint

Avoid fixed rhetorical templates unless they reflect real informational progression.

Invalid default pattern:
setup → contrast → resolution → takeaway

Use only if each step adds new information rather than restating prior content in different form.

---

## 7. Output constraint

Prefer:

* explicit relationships over implied ones
* concrete statements over abstract summaries
* retention of qualifiers when they affect meaning

Do not simplify in a way that removes informational distinctions.

---

## 8. Validation check (single pass)

Before final output, check:

* Are any informational distinctions removed without replacement?
* Are any concrete elements replaced with abstractions?
* Are any contrasts used without informational gain?
* Has any multi-step logic been collapsed into a single claim without loss of structure?

If yes → revise only the affected parts.

---

## Priority hierarchy

Information preservation > correctness of relationships > concision > stylistic uniformity

Pulled in every direction, perpetually feeling behind, convinced that if I’d just been a little smarter or worked a little harder, I’d have it all figured out by now.

There’s always a new shiny object.

A new platform to learn, a funnel to build, a freebie to make, the tactic everyone swears by this month.

This is happening 10-fold with genuinely life-changing technology coming on the scene every week.

And the pull is no joke because every new thing shows up looking like the thing that’s finally going to work, the piece you’ve been missing.

You start the funnel, half-build the freebie, post for two weeks, and then the next shiny thing comes along and you’re off again. You look up six months later, you’ve been busy the whole time but what’s really changed?

Which is why focus is more of a superpower than ever.

If this is hitting close to home, I wrote an article for you this week. It’s linked below.

Maybe you’ve heard…

The week in AI and systems, filtered down to a few things that I think are genuinely helpful for people like us.

Claude got a big update

Anthropic released a new Claude model (Fable 5) that’s a lot better at holding a long, complex thread.

It’s noticeably better at:

• following long, multi-step instructions

• writing and summarizing long pieces

• staying consistent across a big, drawn-out task

What it means for you: a lot less copy/pasting, a lot less reminding, and one thread can handle more things end-to-end.

Creating graphics keeps getting easier

Google is expanding its AI image tools across Photos, Search, and Workspace.

You describe what you want, and it does the visual work.

• editing objects and backgrounds

• restyling a graphic for a different format

• making a marketing-style image from a simple prompt

And it’s not only Google. ChatGPT and Canva’s AI tools are at the same place now, where you describe it, get something good back, and tweak from there.

What it means for you: faster content, fewer design bottlenecks, and more of your time going to deciding what to publish than making it.

(Claude Design System epic guide coming soon too.)

Instagram will let you rearrange your grid

Instagram is rolling out a feature that lets you reorder the posts on your profile. Your pinned posts still hold the top, and the grid becomes something you arrange yourself, separate from the order you posted in.

What it means for you: your profile turns into a page you can curate based on what you want people to see first.

What’s new from Hey Systems

Just arrived?

Start with The complete guide to Asana’s “My tasks” — the two mini systems I use to keep me focused.

If your business lives in your head and seventeen browser tabs, start there.

Amy x

PS. I’m Plum in this situation.

I’m going to break down what it is, why it’s so great, and how I use it every day.

What is Wispr Flow?

Wispr Flow is a voice dictation app. You hold a specific key, talk, and it types what you said into whatever window you’re working in — email, a doc, Slack, the browser, Claude.

It works in any text field on your computer or phone.

But it’s so much better than the most native mic options in apps. It cleans up how you talk to convert it to writing.

I ramble, I backtrack, I say “um.” Wispr cuts any filler, adds the punctuation, uses bullet points, and formats it.

It also matches the tone of where you’re writing — a quick Slack message comes out casual, an email comes out more composed. It learns the names and jargon you use often through a personal dictionary, and it works in over 100 languages.

It runs on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.

Why I love Wispr Flow

1. It works everywhere. In every app. I dictate into email, into documents, into Claude, into the browser. I use one key for everything.

2. It keeps up with my brain. Wispr Flow says it’s 4x faster than typing. I can get things out quickly. This is especially helpful with quick emails, responding to posts online. I get so much more done.

3. It’s how I work with Claude. I run most of my business through Claude, and I’d rather talk to it than type. With Wispr Flow, I’m able to speak my prompts quickly, and Claude gets to work. I make quick refinements, and it gets back to work.

How to get started

1. Install it. Go to wisprflow.ai and download the Mac, Windows, or iPhone app.

2. Set your hot key. Pick the shortcut you hold to talk. Choose something easy to reach — you’ll use it constantly. (I use my “Option” button)

3. Start talking instead of typing and be amazed.

Check out Wispr Flow here.

Amy x

A new website. A better newsletter. A presence on YouTube. The reels everyone says you should be making. A freebie, a funnel, a better brand. The list never ends and it all feels like it should have been done, like, yesterday.

So, you’re always a little “behind” on something. You always feel like you need to do more.

Even on a good day, even when you’ve worked hard, you close your laptop with the sense that you should be doing more and that everyone else has figured out something you haven’t.

The problem is that it’s easy to mistake urgency for clarity.

Everything feels important, so everything feels like it should happen now.

I want to give you a way out of that feeling.

The check engine light

That feeling that you need to be doing more is a signal. It’s a clue. It’s a symptom.

The most common problems in a solopreneur business can feel like if you just had more time, if you just had capacity to do more, that would solve it.

Offer not quite working? Feels like “I need to do more.”

The right people not finding you? Feels like “I need to do more.”

Plenty of interest, but it isn’t turning into sales? Feels like “I need to do more.”

Lack of systems or processes? Feels like “I need to do more.”

Four completely different root issues feel like “I need more time,” “I’m so behind,” “I need to be doing more.”

Think of “I feel behind” as the check engine light of a solopreneur business.

Something does need attention.

But, it could be anything under the hood.

And the light can’t tell you what it is.

The people selling things on the internet can’t tell you what it is.

When your check engine light is on, it can be so easy to think you need X program or solution…

The funnel program, the 90-day LinkedIn method, the website designer, the rebrand. Because the job of the people selling things on the internet is to position their thing as the thing you’re missing.

Absolutely no shade because they’re probably selling the thing that solved their check engine light issue.

But, they can’t see under your hood.

Reading the warning light correctly, figuring out which problem is setting it off and addressing the root issue is a superpower in business.

When you focus your time and attention on solving one check engine issue at a time, you’ve officially cracked the code on the only "shortcut” in business I’ve ever found.

So let’s do it.

The four questions

When the check engine light comes on in a car, mechanics run a diagnostic. They check the systems that trigger the warning light, one at a time, until they find the one with the problem.

You can do the same thing in your business.

There are four core things your business does:

1. Solves a problem or creates an outcome people will pay for.

2. Has a way for people to find that offer.

3. Has a way for the right people to become clients.

4. Delivers a solution.

A proven offer. A way people find you. A way people buy. A way to deliver on your promise.

If you have a business, you’re already doing all four.

To get to the bottom of the check engine light, you can run a diagnostic on these four key functions.

1. Do you have a proven offer?

2. Are people reliably finding it?

3. Are the right people becoming clients?

4. Are you delivering the result sustainably?

These questions aren’t perfectly separate. In practice, they’re constantly influencing each other.

Marketing teaches you about your offer. Sales conversations improve your messaging. Delivering your work teaches you how to improve the offer itself.

The point of this diagnostic is to identify which area needs your attention most right now.

Sometimes the thing setting off the check engine light is outside your business. Markets shift. Platforms change. Life happens.

Even then, these four questions are still useful because they help you identify where the impact is and what needs your attention next.

To know exactly what to focus on in your business right now, you’re going to run these questions as a diagnostic.

You ask them in order and the first question that isn’t a YES is the #1 thing your business needs and becomes your #1 focus.

You can’t diagnose question two until question one is a yes. An unproven offer with no leads looks identical to a proven offer with no leads.

It’s the same empty calendar, same inbox with crickets, same “I need to do more,” same check engine light.

If you skip ahead and work on marketing while the offer is what needs attention, you can spend three months (or three years) pouring effort into the wrong thing.

The order of these diagnostic questions protects you from working hard on the wrong thing.

So let’s walk through each step of the diagnostic.

Question 1: Do you have a proven offer?

Two things make an offer proven:

• People have paid for it.

• The people who paid got the result they wanted, or the result you promised them.

When both of those are true, you have your yes. People paid, they got a tangible result, and you can move on to question two.

A note that proven isn’t always all-or-nothing.

• Sometimes an offer is proven with referrals but not strangers.

• Sometimes it’s proven at one price point but not another.

• Sometimes it works brilliantly for one type of client and falls flat for another.

You don’t need complete certainty to move on to question two. You just need enough evidence that the offer creates a result people are willing to pay for.

If reading that gave you a moment of doubt

Maybe people have paid you, possibly for years, and you’d have a hard time naming the specific result they walked away with, or different clients got very different results.

That usually tells me there’s a lot going on behind the scenes.

You’ve probably got a few different offers running, you’re thinking about your tiers and how they’re structured, you’ve got an ascension plan, you’re putting together different proposals for different ideal clients.

All of that is a lot of extra work.

If you could focus in on one specific offer, everything else downstream gets a lot easier.

The work

If you don’t have a proven offer, the number one focus of your business is understanding the tangible outcome your work provides.

You want to be able to describe it plainly: who it’s for, the problem itself, and the change or transformation someone gets from it.

It’s the thing people pay for: a clear problem solved, a result delivered. With that in place, the rest of your business has a clear direction.

Clarity is usually the result of doing the work, not the prerequisite for it.

You figure it out by trying things on.

You make the offer, you work with people, you watch what changes for them. You sell it, you deliver it, and the clarity and the proof get built along the way.

As opposed to changing the name, the price, the niche, the packaging, a new tier as a reaction to the feeling that it’s not working, you collect feedback and adjust strategically based on experience.

You cannot think your way to a proven offer, it’s born through strategic trial and error.

So.. until you have a proven offer, this is the number one focus of your business.

Question 2: Are people reliably finding it?

If your offer is proven, that’s a clear yes on question one. The next question is are people reliably finding it?

How does someone go from never having heard of your offer to knowing you and it exist?

And is that happening reliably in your business?

In other words, do you have a repeatable way for new people to discover your offer?

For example:

• A referrals program. A few past clients or partners reliably send people your way, and you stay in touch and make it easy for them to keep doing it.

• A channel you show up on consistently. A weekly newsletter, regular posts somewhere, a YouTube channel. New people find you through it on a predictable basis.

• Teaching inside other people’s audiences. Workshops, guest trainings, podcasts, collaborations. You get in front of an audience that already exists, and you do it regularly. This one was mine for years.

• Paid. You pay a predictable amount and get a predictable number of leads back.

• Search. A post or a page that keeps bringing the right people to you over time.

The work

If you don’t have a reliable lead system, building this is the highest leverage thing you can focus on.

A lead system is a repeatable way for new people to discover your offer, one you understand well enough that you can make more of it happen when you want to.

Start with what’s already working.

Think about the clients you’ve loved working with, and how each of them found you.

You’ll often see a pattern: the same few people sending referrals, a talk you gave, a post that keeps bringing people in.

That pattern is your lead system already running by accident.

The work then is to pick the one that’s already bringing people in and making it deliberate and consistent.

When leads are slow, it’s tempting to start something brand new: a new platform, a new tactic, the thing everyone says you should be doing.

The faster path is usually to take the channel already working for you and do more of it intentionally.

If you have a proven offer but not yet a reliable stream of leads, this is the number one focus of your business.

Question 3: Are the right people becoming clients?

If people are reliably finding you, that’s a clear yes on question two. The next question is whether the right people are becoming clients.

By the time you’re here, you have a proven offer and a reliable way for people to find it. So if sales feel slow, this isn’t a lead issue. You have leads.

The question now is what happens between someone finding you and someone paying you.

That space is your sales system.

Two things make this a clear yes:

• The right people who come to you are becoming clients.

• And the way sales happen works for you.

When both of those are true, you can move on to question four.

If not, maybe the right people are finding you, but the interest doesn’t turn into a yes.

Maybe they are becoming clients, but only because you’re on another sales call you didn’t want to be on. It works, and it works because you personally make it work every single time.

Or maybe people are saying yes, but not the right people. You take them on anyway, because you don’t have an easy way to tell who the offer is really for, or an easy way to say no when someone isn’t a fit.

That usually tells me your sales system either isn’t built yet, it’s running entirely on you, or it doesn’t have a way to filter for the right people.

The work

If the right people aren’t becoming clients, the work is making sales as easy as possible. Easy for the right person to say yes, and easy on you.

A sales system is a repeatable way for the right interested person to become a paying client.

For some businesses that’s a sales call.

For others it’s an application, a clear proposal, a sales page, a conversation over email.

There are lots of forms it can take, and you only need one that works for you and your people.

• If interest isn’t turning into a yes, the work is creating a way that reliably moves the right person from curious to client.

• If people are becoming clients but it’s all resting on you, the work is shifting to a process that asks less of you, so becoming a client doesn’t depend on your personal energy every time.

• If the wrong people are saying yes, the work is building the filter in: getting clear on who the offer is for and who it isn’t, and making the no part of the system so it doesn’t rest on you deciding in the moment, when saying no is hardest.

Sometimes making sales easier means bringing in help. For most solo businesses, a better system is the easier win.

When sales are slow, it’s tempting to go back and chase more leads. But if you’ve made it this far, more leads won’t change this. What needs your attention is the step between someone’s interest and their yes.

Until the right people are becoming clients in a way that works for you, creating a win-win sales system is the number one focus of your business.

Question 4: Can you deliver your offer sustainably?

If you have a proven offer, steady leads, and steady sales with the right people, that’s a clear yes on question three.

The last question is whether you can deliver your offer in a way that’s sustainable for you and still reach the revenue you’re aiming for.

Two things make this a clear yes:

• You can deliver your offer at a pace you can sustain.

• And the way it’s delivered lets you reach your revenue goals.

When both of those are true, you’ve got a clear yes on all four.

If not…

Maybe you’re delivering well, your clients are happy, but the numbers don’t add up to where you want to go. The offer is $97 and takes an hour every time, your goal is six figures, and no amount of working harder closes that gap. The math ain’t mathin.

Or maybe the money works, you’re hitting your goals, but delivering it is taking everything you have. The evenings, the weekends, the capacity you wanted this business to give you in the first place. You can hit the number, and you can’t keep hitting it like this.

That often tells me your offer and the way you deliver it haven’t caught up to the size of your goal yet, or that the delivery system needs some love.

The work

If you can’t deliver sustainably and hit your revenue goals, the work is changing how the offer gets delivered so that both your capacity and your numbers work.

This is where systems, processes, and sometimes hiring come in.

It can also mean changing the offer itself: the price, what’s included, whether it’s one-to-one or one-to-many, what gets productized so it doesn’t depend on your hours.

If the math is what’s not working, the work is on the model. You look at the price, the time each delivery takes, and how many you’d need, and you reshape the offer until the numbers support YOU.

If the delivery is what’s not working, the work is taking the parts that rest entirely on you and building them into systems, processes, or a team, so the business can deliver without using all of you.

Until you can deliver sustainably and hit your revenue goals, this is the number one focus of your business.

The focus

I’m convinced that all business is answering these four questions and then doing those same four things better, faster, with less of you over time.

The goal isn’t to make all four questions a yes at once.

The goal is to know which question needs your attention today.

Every stage of business has a constraint. Solve that problem and the next one reveals itself.

I use this framework over and over because business can be emotional.

It’s easy to feel behind. Easy to convince yourself the answer is a new website, a new platform, a new offer, a new strategy.

It’s easy to mistake urgency for clarity.

When I run into that feeling, I come back to the diagnostic.

I ask the questions in order.

I look for the first one that isn’t a clear yes.

And then I focus there.

Of course lots of other things matter and need to be done, but this points me to the thing that matters most right now.

Focusing on one check engine issue at a time has given me more peace of mind than any productivity system I’ve ever used.

Because once I know what really needs my attention, I can stop worrying about everything else I think I “should” be doing.

Amy x

The wild technology changes, the dramatic way in which our actual work is changing, and the impossible task of keeping up with changes as they unfold.

I had to take a beat to figure out what the f*ck is happening, reorient and recalibrate.

Maybe you feel like this too?

In that process, I realized that I am uniquely suited to translate the firehose of online noise, AI shifts, and business systems.

I can do what I’ve always done…

• Provide practical, implementable resources with the systems thinking built in.

• Help you figure out what to ignore and what’s worth your time.

• And draw your immediate attention to the systems, tools, and perspectives that can genuinely change the way you run your business for the better.

With that, I’m in the process of taking all my courses, programs, articles, templates, prompts, processes, and IP, updating them, and moving everything here, to Substack

Everything will exist as standalone articles, epic guides, and resources that are easy to navigate, reference, and implement.

It’s a new era in online business (and Hey Systems) and I am here for it. 😎

How the Hey Systems Substack works

I wanted to create a space that makes it very easy for you to find support, resources and tools to keep building and adapting your business, using all the cool tools and technology we now have available to us.

But more than that, I want to continue to do what I’ve been doing behind the scenes for the last decade, applying systems thinking with a human-centric lens to small business challenges and opportunities.

Everything here falls into four types, each with its own colour so you can spot them at a glance:

• Articles — thinking and strategy pieces.

• Epic guides — full, step-by-step systems you can install.

• Resources — quick, practical tools.

• Newsletter — this, every Friday.

At any point you can go to heysystems.co and navigate to any category you like.

A lot of it will be free.

There’s also a paid option, and the paid library is growing every week.

Right now, paid subscribers get two things I’m most excited about:

• Weekly check-ins on Mondays and Fridays, and the

• Paid subscriber chat, a direct line where you can ask questions and get support as you build and grow your business.

I’ll also include three sections in each Friday This Week, For Us newsletter.

• Maybe you’ve heard — what’s happening in AI, systems, and business and what matters to solo and small business owners like us.

• We’re in good company — good news for small and solo businesses.

• What’s new this week from Hey Systems — a roundup of any articles or resources that dropped.

While this inaugural issue is more of an announcement, there are a few things that went down recently that I think are worth paying attention to:

• 📘 The first Epic Guide — The complete guide to Asana’s “My tasks.” is here.

• 🤖 The big AI tools all leveled up. Claude's new Opus 4.8 is its smartest model yet, Gemini's fast model is now live for everyone, and ChatGPT remembers you better across chats (even on the free version).

• 🎥 Turning one video into a week of content keeps getting easier. Record a short clip on your phone and AI tools (Canva, Opus, Descript) will cut it into captioned, ready-to-post pieces for you. The "I don't have time to make content" barrier is getting a lot lower.

There is so much more to come and I’m so happy you’re here.

Amy x

I personally get more done in a day than most people do in a week. And people are absolutely shocked to find out I’m not a naturally organized person.

For the past 10+ years, Asana has been the single most important tool in my business for helping me organize, prioritize and get shit done.

And as an Asana Service Partner, I’ve helped hundreds of business owners implement and use it to do the same.

Asana is the one tool that helps me:

a) Trick everyone into thinking I am super organized 😉
b) Get more things done that move my business forward

It helps me hyper focus on the most important things and capture all the other things that I don’t want to lose but aren’t a priority right now.

This is possible because of two mini systems I use in Asana and I'm going to teach you both.

And this all works on the free Asana plan.

I’m going to show you the systems to use in Asana to make life and business much more manageable.

(If you’re brand new to Asana, watch this quick tour first, then come back.)

A common state of affairs

For most micro and solopreneur businesses, the business lives primarily in your head and the rest is scattered across your:

• Inbox

• Notes app

• Calendar

• Notebooks

• Random docs

You do deep, important work but it gets lost or forgotten as you get pulled in different directions.

You’re often working on what’s noisy or on fire.

But, there’s a constant low-level of anxiety and overwhelm that you’re forgetting something, that you should be doing more, that you’re behind.

It might feel like if you just sat down and thought hard enough, you’d finally figure this out and solve the overwhelm.

This system entirely solves this issue.

Everything I’m about to teach works in any tool — a notebook, a spreadsheet, Airtable, Asana. I use Asana because it’s easy and free.

But, first, the foundational productivity principles that make the systems work.

Capture open loops

Something that causes an incredible amount of stress, disorganization, cognitive strain, and balls dropping are open loops.

Open loops are where you keep thinking about something because it’s unfinished.

The follow-up email, the thing you promised a client, the idea you had in the shower, the bills you need to pay — as long as they live only in your head, your brain keeps them running so it won’t lose them.

The solution is to get every open loop out of your head and into a trusted place. If you give every open loop a home outside your head that your brain trusts, you stop the loop from running in the background.

No more to-dos on random post-its, in three notebooks, waking you up at 2am to remind you to get it done.

The key though is that they go in ONE place which brings me to the second productivity principle.

Centralize your to-dos

You want to capture all your open loops in one place.

Because if you have them in more than one place then you don’t know where to go to find things.

Half-systems don’t work.

If you capture some things, some of the time you don’t get the relief of knowing your system has your back.

When you put everything in one place it is MUCH easier to prioritize.

If you’re in your email, you’ll respond to your most important email.

When you’re in your notes app, you’ll handle the most important thing there.

Putting them all in one place means that you can prioritize the most important things. Period.

So, mini system #1 is: how to manage your tasks in Asana.

Let’s walk through how to set them up in Asana to capture open loops and have it automatically remind you when you need to do something.

Set up your tasks in Asana

So, now that it’s clear that your open loops need a home and that you want to keep all open loops in one place, let me show you how this works in Asana in 5 steps.

I’m going to show you how to automate your tasks based on due date using Asana’s built-in features.

Step #1. Meet “My tasks”

Navigate to the “My tasks” section on the sidebar on the left under “Work.”

You should see some default sections like this:

Any task in Asana that is assigned to you will show up in your “My tasks” view. If it isn’t assigned to you, it won’t show up here.

You’ll want to make sure every action item that you need to do is assigned to you with a due date so that you can manage all your tasks across projects here.

2. Capture every open loop

This is where we want to capture all the open loops you have in your business. We want to get everything out of your head and into this My tasks section (under “Recently assigned” works).

Go through your calendar, your notes app, your notebooks, and anywhere else you keep items you need to take care of.

Each action item is a task and should start with a verb so it is very clear what action to take.

You’ll end up with a list of action items as above.

3. Give each task a due date

Next, we want to make sure every task on your task list has a due date. The due date is what makes Asana’s built in task automation work.

If you have items that do not have a real deadline (no specific date they need to be done by), then set a due date based on the next time you want to be reminded about that action item.

If there is something due on a specific day, but you need to know about it a week ahead of time, set the due date as the DO date. The date you want to DO that thing or at very least be reminded about that thing.

Go through each item on your list and set a due date. There should be zero tasks on your task list that do not have a due date set.

4. Set up your auto-promotion

Asana has a built-in feature that automatically moves tasks on your task list based on due dates. This lets you prioritize tasks into different buckets and focus on what’s on your plate for today.

In order to get this in place, you need to set up two rules in your Asana task list, and this is available on the free plan.

Here’s a quick walk-through to set up the two rules you need:

5. Your daily habit

The most important thing about this system is to lean infully into it. For a short time, commit to putting everything into Asana until it becomes a habit.

This mini system helps you manage everything on your plate while Asana supports you in bringing forward the most important things on any given day.

It is deceptively simple and when you really lean into, this mini system alone can be life-changing.

Now, onto mini system #2 that takes this to a whole other level.

Ruthless prioritization is a superpower

There is an overwhelm epidemic and people often think that they just need more time.

But, overwhelm is a stress response.

It’s the stress that fires when your brain judges that the demands in front of you exceed your resources to handle them.

It comes from doing one thing and not feeling like you have the time or capacity to do all the other things.

You answer an email and worry about the proposal. You write the proposal and worry about the launch. Nothing gets your full attention, because everything feels urgent at once.

The way out is choosing one thing at a time and having a “queue” of what’s next.

Otherwise known as prioritization. 😅

But, I add the word ruthlessly in front of it because I recommend that you fully choose your top priority and detach from what you aren’t choosing right now.

Over and above the daily operations that keep my business running, I ruthlessly prioritize. I pick the one thing that matters most right now, and I give it everything. I hyper focus on one thing to get it done.

And I fully put down the things that are not the priority right now.

You can’t focus on one thing when you’re subconsciously (or consciously) stressed out about everything you’re not doing in that moment.

Which is why going through the process of prioritization is so powerful.

You choose the one thing but you create an order of operations for everything else so your brain can relax.

You know your focus right now, and you know that everything else will have its time. But, it waits — off your plate, out of your head (in Asana).

So, as opposed to having things on the back burner that you feel like you should be doing, things on the back burner are there because you CHOOSE to put them there.

You set things down on purpose and intentionally choose to focus on something more important.

It’s hard to convey how well this works.

The pressure of doing all the things right now and feeling behind is essentially gone in my world.

When I get to the end of a week and something didn’t happen, I don’t spiral. It’s clear — I chose something else.

There is no mystery about why a result isn’t showing up yet. I can see the trade I made. I chose it.

That’s ruthless prioritization.

Juggling less, doing more but better.

You make a habit of majoring in the majors (as opposed to the minors).

You say no to everything that isn’t required for day-to-day operations or the one problem or project you’re focused on right now.

And it’s a skill, which means you can build it.

So, mini system #2 is: your project queue.

You can do this with a simple list, with pen and paper.

I use Asana for this.

Upgrade to keep reading and build mini system two in Asana with me. 👇

Read more

I’m going to break down what it is, why it’s so great and how I’m using it to save me hours every week.

What is Granola?

Granola is a note taking and transcription app rolled into one.

It transcribes your meetings and turns any notes you take into a summary with the transcript. You get one summary that captures the word-for-word meeting AND any notes you took along the way.

It listens to the audio playing on your computer and turns it into text as the meeting happens. The audio itself isn't saved. What you keep is the transcript and your notes, not a video or audio recording.

And no bots join any of your calls to capture it.

Granola connects to your calendar and lives in your menu bar. You hit “Start meeting” when a call begins. It captures whatever audio is happening on your computer plus your mic — Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, in-person on speaker, phone calls.

At the end you get:

• A clean summary, which can be organized by a template you’ve customized (action items, decisions, follow-ups, or any sections you define)

• The full transcript, searchable

• Any scratch notes you typed during the meeting, merged in

• The ability to ask it questions about the meeting

This is what it looks like as it runs:

You can see at the bottom, the green bars.. it’s transcribing.

But, you can also take notes on the note pad at the same time.

Once the meeting is done, you get a meeting note summary with any action items and it includes the notes you took.

And if you click the sound bars afterwards, you have the whole transcript that you can save:

How it compares to other notetakers

I know there are a lot of AI note taking tools.

But, Fathom, Otter, Fireflies all join the call as a visible participant. You see “Fathom Notetaker” pop into Zoom.

They also only work on the platforms they integrate with — not phone calls, not in-person coffee meetings, not Slack huddles.

Granola sits on your computer and transcribes whatever’s playing.

You can also ask the transcript questions… "what did we agree on?", "list my follow-ups," "what did she say about x?" and it answers from what was actually said.

Why I love Granola

Three reasons, in the order they matter to me.

1. It captures every meeting type. Zoom, in-person, phone on speaker. It doesn’t care what platform I’m on. A coffee meeting with a client gets captured the same way as a Zoom call. One tool, every format.

2. No bot in the meeting. Clients and members see nothing. I don’t have to explain a third-party service to anyone.

3. There are no files to manage. The transcript can stay in your Granola account. If you use the paid account, you can just keep them there. I have each transcript pulled from Granola and added to my Claude Cowork workspace so the context from all meetings is available in any work I’m doing in Claude. (And I do most of my work in Claude.)

How to get started

1. Install it. Go to Granola and download the Mac, Windows, web, or iPhone app.

2. Set up one template. Open Settings → Templates. Build one template for the meeting type you run most often. A four-section structure works: Context, What we covered, Decisions, Follow-ups. Add more later.

3. Run it on your next meeting. Hit “Start meeting” in the menu bar when the call begins. Hit “Stop” when it ends. Don’t take notes by hand. Let it do the work.

The first meeting will feel almost too easy. By the third, you’ll wonder how you lived without it.

Check out Granola here.

Amy x

I was moving apartments, celebrating my birthday in Italy with friends, starting a new contract I was excited about, delivering workshops I wanted to do justice to.

I made a smart call to press pause on a few things to make space for all the great new things on my plate.

I thought creating that space would be enough.

It helped. But it wasn’t the full solution.

As the last few months unfolded, it became very clear that playing Tetris with my calendar and obligations was not it.

This was more than a time puzzle, it was a capacity issue.

What hitting the wall looked like

I was running a boutique support membership, teaching people about sustainable systems while offering consistent coaching availability, working on multiple client projects and deliverables every week, creating courses, hosting workshops, being there for hot seats, answering questions in the community daily.

All good work. Work I genuinely love.

And then one day I couldn’t.

Not “didn’t want to” or “needed a break.” Couldn’t.

My body said no before my awareness caught up.

At first it looked like diminished capacity for daily things. Cooking felt impossible. Grocery shopping, taking care of myself—all of it required energy I didn’t have.

Then I got sick. Really sick, through my first few days in Italy. Then came inflammation, auto-immune issues. Then depression.

I didn’t have headspace for anything other than work. I was surviving. Meeting my work obligations but literally nothing else.

At no point did I think that I need to start canceling things and being ok with disappointing people to take care of myself, I just kept pushing myself to do the things I said I would do.

Those close to me, I think, saw it unraveling and offered well-meaning advice to eat better, to exercise more, to get more sleep.

But, it all felt impossible… it was a struggle some days just to take a shower.

And I didn’t really tell anyone how bad it had gotten. I think I only see how bad it had gotten in retrospect.

That’s what hitting the wall looked like for me.

I teach systems. I help businesses build capacity. And I still ended up here.

The irony isn’t lost on me. But it’s also not surprising. I was doing everything for the “right reasons”... meaningful work I care about, people I want to serve well, opportunities that feel right.

Except I was operating from exhaustion and depletion.

My cup was empty.

What is capacity?

This was the confusing part for me.

I had time. Objectively there were enough hours in the day for me to accomplish the things I had committed to and wanted to accomplish.

What I didn’t really grasp until recently is that you can have a perfectly organized calendar with enough time for everything. But, that has nothing to do with whether or not you have the capacity to do it.

Capacity is your real ability to handle, manage, and follow through on the responsibilities, inputs, and emotional load of your life and business without tipping into overwhelm or collapse.

And capacity changes.

I think of it like an everchanging cup. How much can I carry right now? What expands my capacity? What drains it?

When demands consistently exceed your capacity, over time, you can burnout.

And, in my experience, caring deeply about the work makes you more likely to keep giving past your capacity. The work matters, the people matter, the impact matters, so you keep going.

Meaningful work can deplete you just as quickly as work you hate—sometimes faster, because you’re less likely to protect your boundaries when you believe in what you’re doing.

So, the simplest way to put it:

Capacity is the space you have — internally and externally — to carry what you’re carrying.

When capacity is low, even small things feel heavy.
When capacity expands, the same tasks feel effortless.

Capacity shows up in different parts of your life and business.

• Operational capacity—how much you can realistically do in a day based on your time, energy, focus, and the friction in your systems.

• Emotional capacity—your ability to stay steady through uncertainty, conflict, and stress.

• Financial capacity—what you can invest or risk without destabilizing everything.

• Relational capacity—how much you can give to clients, family, and friends without it draining you.

• Strategic capacity—your ability to keep the big picture in view and make grounded decisions.

What depletes capacity

Capacity isn’t a fixed state. It changes based on all the factors in life and business.

For me, several things were depleting my capacity simultaneously:

Life circumstances - Issues with my apartment meant daily living took more energy than usual. Simple things that should have been automatic required extra mental and emotional bandwidth.

Physical changes - Perimenopause was (and is) affecting my sleep, my energy levels, my cognitive function. My baseline capacity had shifted, but I hadn’t adjusted for it.

Business structure - I’d built a model that required my constant presence. The products rely more on my availability than the systems and resources I’d created.

Old patterns - I kept treating rest as something I’d get to eventually. Once the launch was done, once the course was finished, once the quarter wrapped up.

The problem wasn’t any single thing.

It was trying to operate my business at my previous top level of capacity while my underlying capacity had fundamentally changed.

My business required me to operate at full capacity to deliver value.

And when my capacity diminished (which it naturally does during life transitions, health changes, environmental stress, and growth) the whole thing started to crack.

That’s not a sustainable model. Not for me. Not for anyone.

Once I saw the mismatch between my real capacity and what the business required of me, the path forward became obvious.

Systems without capacity awareness just help you burn out more efficiently

Having great systems doesn’t solve burnout if the underlying business model requires you to operate beyond your capacity.

I can optimize my calendar. Automate my workflows. Streamline my operations. Build better systems for every part of my business.

But if the business model fundamentally requires more capacity than I have, none of it matters.

Capacity has to come first. Not as something I’ll address once I get everything else handled. Not as the reward for pushing through this season.

First.

Before the strategy. Before the optimization. Before the next offer or the next opportunity or the next version of the business.

The shift

So I’m doing something I’ve never really done: taking a season of deep rest from my business.

An actual season where I step back to rebuild my capacity.

This means one client contract for the foreseeable future to focus my attention and relieve the cognitive effort of juggling multiple projects.

No marketing campaigns or initiatives. No new offers or projects. No additional client work. No weekly content obligations.

If you’ve been running on empty

Maybe this sounds familiar. Maybe you’ve also been trying to optimize your way out of exhaustion.

Better time blocking. More efficient systems. Smarter productivity hacks.

All useful tools. None of them solve the fundamental problem if your business model requires you to operate beyond your capacity.

The answer might mean pausing things that look good on paper. Letting go of commitments you thought you had to keep. Disappointing people who expected you to stay the same. Choosing rest over everything, if even for a season.

It definitely means getting honest about what expands vs. depletes your cup.

And then making hard choices based on that information, even when those choices don’t look like what you thought success would require.

For now, I’m practicing what I preach.

Amy x

This couldn't be further from the truth.

I've always resisted structure in favor of freedom. I've been known to rebel against routine and get frustrated with rules.

But over the past few years, I've realized something really, really important:

Structure is not at odds with freedom, it’s a requirement.

In other words, structure creates freedom.

It precedes it.

It allows it.

I know this is not a new concept but it is new to me in the way I fully get it now and the way it applies in business.

The riverbank principle

Think of a river and a riverbank.

Without the riverbanks to guide the flow, the water would just be diluted and dispersed everywhere with no momentum. The riverbanks direct the flow of water while simultaneously making it more powerful.

In business, I see structure, strategy, and systems as the riverbanks.

Structure can direct our efforts and energy to make them more powerful and effective.

The art is creating the right amount of structure for you.

Too much structure can be like a dam, restricting the flow.

Not enough structure leaves us floundering and stagnant.

Over-engineering is a real thing

It turns out that it is possible to over-engineer a system and when you do, it requires more work and maintenance than the actual work it’s supposed to support.

It can look like elaborate project management setups that you abandon within weeks. Color-coded filing systems that become chaotic as soon as real work started flowing through them.

Templates so detailed they take longer to customize than starting from scratch.

The more unnecessarily sophisticated the system, the more it’ll get in your way and feel like work.

And when it doesn’t stick, it might feel like you just need better discipline. More willpower. A different tool.

But the real issue isn’t your lack of commitment to systems… It’s building systems that don’t support what you and your business need.

Often people try to shoehorn themselves into systems that ignore their natural way of operating.

Not everything needs the same level of structure

Some parts of your business should be highly controlled, mapped, and repeatable. For example, client onboarding should run like clockwork. There are non-negotiable steps that need to happen for every client, and the more you can automate or standardize those, the better.

But not everything benefits from that level of rigidity.

Your personal task management or time-blocking system, for instance, might need more breathing room. Life happens. Energy fluctuates. You can have a well-designed schedule, but following through often works better with looser structures that keep you moving forward without making you feel “behind” or like you’re failing.

Rigid systems aim to eliminate variability and are perfect for business functions where you can follow the same steps every time and you'll get predictable results.

Some structure needs to create space for the work to happen. It holds the boundaries so you can focus on what matters. It's flexible, responsive, and actually makes the work feel easier.

Use rigidity where you know the exact steps to get a particular outcome. Use flexibility where variability is required.

The more operational and utilitarian a system is, the more rigidity it needs. Systems tied to creativity and human rhythms work better with flexibility.

Right-sized structure: finding your sweet spot

After working with hundreds of business owners, I've learned that the sweet spot for creation isn't more structure or less structure, it's right-sized structure.

Right-sized structure gives your ideas and efforts just enough container to flow powerfully toward your goals without constraining the creative process that makes your work valuable.

Too little structure looks like:

• Constantly reinventing the wheel

• Making the same decisions over and over

• Feeling scattered and overwhelmed because nothing has a clear place or process

• Missing opportunities because important tasks fall through the cracks

Too much structure looks like:

• Systems that require more energy to maintain than they save

• Processes so rigid they break when anything changes

• Spending more time organizing work than doing work

• Feeling constrained and unable to respond to opportunities

Right-sized structure looks like:

• Clear frameworks that support your natural workflow

• Simple systems that make decisions easier

• Structure that adapts with you as your business grows and changes

• Processes that feel lighter and easier to maintain because they're actually making your life easier

And I’ll repeat that because I think this is the key way to tell if you’ve got the right structure and system for you: the process feels LIGHTER and is easy to stick to because it’s making your life easier.

What your business needs

You may think you need elaborate systems when what you actually need is to get clear on a few fundamental things first.

What problem am I actually trying to solve here?

This one saves me so much time. Sometimes what feels like a systems problem is actually a business model problem, a clarity problem, or a capacity problem. I've seen people try to organize their way out of unclear offers or unsustainable workloads.

How do I naturally like to work?

Your systems should work with your brain. If you’re a visual person who works in bursts of energy, your systems need to support that. If you're someone who thinks better on paper, don't force yourself into a digital system.

What's the simplest version that would actually work?

I start with the minimum viable system that solves the problem. You can always add complexity later if you need it.

The goal is to create the right structure to support the flow of your most important work.

A few helpful questions

When I'm working with someone on their business systems, I don't start with tools or processes. I start with these questions:

• What work do you love to do?

• What work drains your energy?

• What decisions do you find yourself making over and over?

• Where do you feel scattered or overwhelmed?

• What would happen if this process broke tomorrow?

• Where are you spending time on work that doesn't move your business forward?

The answers to these questions tell me exactly what kind of structure would serve them best.

Sometimes that structure looks like a simple morning routine that creates space for creative thinking before hopping into reactive work.

Sometimes it's a basic client onboarding process that eliminates confusion and back-and-forth emails.

Sometimes it's just a clear way to prioritize daily tasks.

The right structure for your business is the structure that makes your most important work easier.

What structure do you need right now to support you?

If you're feeling lost, start here

If you're reading this and thinking "This all makes sense, but I don't even know where to begin," start with time tracking for one week.

So many business owners are making decisions about their systems without knowing where their time actually goes. They guess how long things take and assume they're spending enough time on the right things, but they're operating from what they think is happening, not what's actually happening.

Track your time in 30-60 minute blocks for a week and notice both what you're doing and how you're feeling—energized, drained, or neutral. You're not trying to fix anything, just observe.

It’s simple and mildly annoying but it works.

Once you can see how your time is being used, you gain the power to make clear decisions about what systems you actually need.

As a general rule, no more than 50% of your time should go to client delivery, and at least 25% should be allocated to marketing and sales. If you're spending 80% of your time on delivery, you can see how difficult it is to get to lead generation or sales.

The clearer you are about how your time and energy really work, the easier it becomes to build systems that give you both structure and the freedom to do your best work.

Amy x

It doesn’t always show the version of ourselves we wish it would… polished, intentional, effortless. But it does reflect what we value, what we practice, and what we’re learning.

Recently I heard someone say that your brand is your reputation. Not your colors, not your website, not your feed but the way people experience you and your work.

And I couldn’t help but connect that back to identity. Because your business in its current form is always telling the world something about you.

Mirrors don’t lie, but they also don’t judge. They simply reflect.

And when we understand our business as this kind of neutral reflection, we can get curious about what we see.

What your business reflects

Your business mirrors things you may not even realize you’re showing:

• How you keep your commitments.

• How you care for the people who trust you.

• How you balance space for your own growth alongside client work.

• How you handle uncertainty and mistakes.

• The stories you tell yourself about what’s possible.

• Whether you trust yourself to solve problems as they arise.

• How you respond when things don’t go according to plan.

They are patterns. And your patterns become your reputation.

The mirror shows not just your strengths, but your growing edges. The places where you’re still figuring it out. And surprisingly, people often trust you more when they can see you working through challenges with integrity rather than pretending everything is perfect.

That’s good news. Because when you notice the reflection, you get the chance to change it.

Intention and reflection

There’s often a gap between who we think we’re being and what our business is actually reflecting.

You might value connection, but your systems create distance.

You might prioritize quality, but your rushed communication suggests otherwise.

You might believe in abundance, but your pricing and boundaries whisper scarcity.

This gap is information that shows you where your inner work and your business work intersect. Where the identity you’re growing into hasn’t yet found its full expression in how you operate.

I’ve noticed this in my own work: the weeks when I feel scattered personally are the same weeks when my client communication gets less clear, my project timelines get fuzzy, my follow-through gets inconsistent.

The mirror reflects it all.

But the opposite is also true. When I’m grounded in my own personal power, when I’m clear on my priorities, when I’m tending to my own needs — that comes through too.

In cleaner processes, clearer offers, more confident decision-making.

Reputation is built in small moments

We often imagine “brand” as something created in big moves: launches, campaigns, aesthetics. But reputation is built in small moments over time.

It’s in the follow-up email that lands when you said it would.

It’s in the offer that’s explained simply instead of overcomplicated.

It’s in the consistent weekly post that builds trust, even if the audience is small.

It’s in how you handle the invoice that needs correcting, the client question that comes at 9 PM, the project scope that starts to creep.

It’s in whether you say yes when you mean maybe, and no when you mean no.

It’s in the space between promising something and delivering it and what people experience in that space.

These moments add up. They create the reflection others see. And they’re all within reach, even when your business still feels like a work in progress.

But here’s what’s interesting: these small moments aren’t just building your external reputation. They’re also building your internal one. The story you tell yourself about what kind of business owner you are. Whether you can be trusted to follow through on your own commitments to yourself.

The mirror shows your relationship with growth

One thing the mirror reveals is how you relate to your own learning and evolution.

Some businesses reflect an owner who’s trying to appear finished, expert, beyond reproach. Others reflect someone who’s learning out loud, iterating, comfortable with being imperfect while still being professional.

Neither is right or wrong, but they create very different experiences for the people you serve. And they require different things from you.

The “finished expert” reflection demands that you have all the answers, that you rarely change course, that you maintain a certain distance. The “evolving expert” reflection asks you to be transparent about your process, comfortable with course-corrections, willing to say “I don’t know, let me find out.”

What does your business reflect about how you handle your own growth? Are you someone who learns privately and then presents the polished result? Or someone who brings people along on the journey?

There’s room for both approaches (and everything in between), but the mirror will show which one feels more true to who you actually are.

Choosing the reflection consciously

So the question becomes: what do you want your business to reflect to you?

Do you want to be known for clarity? For reliability? For generosity? Do you want to be trusted as someone who makes space for both growth and humanity?

Do you want to be seen as someone who does what they say they’ll do? Or someone who honors what they need even if it disappoints people? Someone who creates experiences that feel spacious rather than rushed? Someone who can carry both high standards and deep compassion?

None of these require being further ahead. They require matching your daily choices to the identity you’re growing into.

There is no fixing required.

It’s about practicing into the identity you want your business to mirror back and letting systems support that identity.

The practice of conscious reflection

When you accept that your business is a mirror, you have to look regularly, but gently.

• What would someone learn about my priorities by watching how I spend my time this week?

• What would they learn about my values by experiencing my communication style?

• What would they learn about my relationship with money by observing my pricing and payment processes?

• What would they learn about how I handle stress by seeing how I respond when things don’t go as planned?

These are curiosity questions. Information-gathering questions.

Because once you see what the mirror is showing, you can decide what you want to adjust.

Systems as character practice

When you understand your business as a mirror, systems become something different than efficiency tools. They become character practice.

Systems are a way of embedding your values into your operations so consistently that they become your reputation.

The system that ensures you follow up when you say you will? That’s practicing reliability. The boundary that protects your creative time? That’s practicing self-respect. The process that makes it easy for clients to get clear answers? That’s practicing consideration.

Your systems become the infrastructure that supports the identity you want your business to reflect. They remove the daily decision fatigue of trying to be someone you want to be through willpower alone.

The reputation you grow into

If your business is a mirror, then every system you build, every offer you clarify, every boundary you keep… it’s all shaping not just your results, but your reputation.

And reputation compounds. Not in a way that pressures you to get it “right” immediately. But in the sense that small choices, repeated with care, become the story people tell about you.

The story they tell themselves about what it’s like to work with you, buy from you, be in relationship with your work.

The story you tell yourself about what kind of business owner you are, what you’re capable of, how much trust you can place in your own follow-through.

That’s what your business is reflecting. That’s who you’re becoming.

The mirror shows not just who you are today, but who you’re becoming. Every time you choose coherence over convenience, integrity over expedience, your own voice over what you think people want to hear — you’re shaping the reflection.

The person you see in that mirror six months from now is being created by the small choices you make today. In your 10 AM email. In how you handle that difficult conversation. In whether you keep the boundary you set or let it slide “just this once.”

Your business is always reflecting.

The question is whether you’re paying attention to what it’s showing you and whether you like what you see.

Amy x

I used to wake up every morning with my clients' businesses on my mind before anything else.

Before I'd even gotten out of bed, I'd be mentally running through all the things I needed to do for them. Anxious to get started, I'd grab my first cup of coffee and dive straight into client work without even a moment to think about my own business priorities (never mind my personal priorities).

I’ve worked with so many highly talented business owners who do the exact same thing.

They tell me things like:

"I'm just the kind of person who has to finish things for other people first. I need to get all my client work done before I can relax and focus on my own stuff properly."

(That’s a direct quote from an actual client)

But what if that’s not the kind of person you are?

What if it’s a learned pattern that can be changed and your clients would be better supported if you did change it?

If every time you sit down to work on your business:

• Someone needs something "urgent."

• An email comes in that feels like it needs an immediate response.

• A project gets moved up with a tight deadline that's not yours to own.

Likely, your entire day is organized around other people's priorities while your business sits waiting.

What happens when you put your business last

Trust me, boy do I get it.

You care deeply about doing good work for the people who trust you with their businesses. You want to be responsive, reliable, the person they can count on.

But when you constantly prioritize other people's urgency over your own important work, something shifts—often so gradually you don't notice until you're completely burned out.

Your best energy gets poured into someone else's vision.

By the time you sit down to work on your own business, you're running on fumes. You show up tired, scattered, trying to create something meaningful with whatever energy is left over after you've given your best to everyone else.

You lose the thread of your own momentum.

Building a business isn't just about finding time, it's about sustaining focus over weeks and months. When you're constantly interrupted by fires that feel urgent but aren't actually yours to put out, you never get the mental space to think strategically about what actually moves your business forward.

Resentment starts creeping in, even though you're the one saying yes to everything.

You begin to feel frustrated that everyone else's needs always seem to take priority, forgetting that you're the one who taught them this was okay. It's confusing and painful to resent people you genuinely want to help.

You accidentally train everyone around you to expect the unsustainable.

When you respond to everything immediately, you're not just being helpful… you're setting an expectation that this level of availability is normal and sustainable. Which it isn't.

The psychology behind the pattern

Most of the time, this pattern isn't about time management or being disorganized.

It runs much deeper than that.

Many of us learned early on that success relies on how helpful and available we are.

We got praise for being reliable, responsive, always willing to help. Love and acceptance were tied to being "good" which meant meeting everyone else's needs first.

This creates three core beliefs that keep us stuck:

"I am what I produce for others." Your worth is determined by how well you serve others, not by what you create for yourself.

"Other people's urgency is more valid than my importance." If someone else needs something now, it automatically becomes more critical than your long-term goals.

"I don't deserve success until I've earned it through sacrifice." Success that comes from focusing on yourself feels somehow less legitimate than success that comes from serving others.

There's also what is called the anxiety avoidance cycle.

Client work feels safer because:

• The parameters are clear

• The outcome is more predictable

• Someone else is ultimately responsible for success

• You feel needed and indispensable

But working on your own business requires you to face uncertainty, confront your limitations, take responsibility for outcomes, and deal with the vulnerability of putting yourself out there.

So you use client work as sophisticated procrastination.

The conditioning piece

Here's something I wish I'd understood years ago: what looks like "bad boundaries" is often a deeply ingrained habit that served us well at some point.

When someone's request sits unanswered in your inbox, that heavy, uncomfortable feeling is real. We've trained ourselves to treat every client request as equally urgent.

The discomfort of letting someone wait while you focus on your own work can feel genuinely intense. We've conditioned ourselves to believe that someone being slightly annoyed carries the same weight as a genuine business emergency.

Once I understood this, everything changed because I realized these were learned patterns that no longer served me.

Small doses of discomfort, practiced gradually, can retrain your habits so you become comfortable letting people wait while you focus on what matters most to you.

The financial fear factor

I want to acknowledge the very real financial anxiety that may also be wrapped up in the prioritization cycle.

The thoughts that run through your head sound something like: "If I don't respond immediately, I might lose them" Or "I can't afford to upset anyone right now." Or "This client work pays the bills."

When you have real financial responsibilities—rent, mortgage, kids, debt—client work represents safety. It's guaranteed income, immediate payment, proof that someone values what you do enough to pay for it.

Your own business projects feel uncertain and risky by comparison.

And if you're currently relying on client income to meet your basic needs, you might not have the luxury of saying no or setting boundaries the way someone more financially secure could.

But many of us stay in this reactive pattern long after it's financially necessary. I know I did.

We get so used to operating from that place of financial fear that we keep behaving as if we're one lost client away from disaster, even when our circumstances have improved.

The very behavior that once protected our financial security can become the thing that prevents us from building the business growth that would create real, lasting stability.

When you're always available, always reactive, always prioritizing urgent over important, you stay trapped in a cycle where you'll always need to put your clients first to feel safe.

How to start putting your business first

Breaking free from this pattern requires both practical changes and internal work. Start small and be patient with yourself… you're rewiring years of conditioning.

Set actual boundaries. Try something like: "I've carved out these hours for your business. If you'd like me to carve out more hours, I'm happy to discuss what that would look like."

Question the urgency. Many 'urgent' requests can wait longer than you think. Before responding immediately, ask yourself: what would actually happen if I addressed this in a few hours instead?

Learn to tolerate discomfort. Practice letting requests sit while you focus on your priorities. Start ridiculously small—maybe 30 minutes before responding instead of immediately. Work your way up as the discomfort becomes more manageable.

Separate your identity from your service. This is the hardest one, and it's literal identity work. Your worth exists independent of how useful you are to other people. You are valuable because you exist, not because of what you produce.

Put boundaries in place gradually. You don't need to have a big conversation or make any announcements. Just start making small adjustments. Sometimes we create invisible expectations that clients never actually asked for.

It’s possible to get comfortable with letting people wait.

You can build your tolerance for the discomfort of not immediately responding to every request, every fire, every "urgent" need.

This isn't easy. It might feel physically uncomfortable at first. That's normal.

But every time you choose your business priorities over someone else's perceived urgency, you're practicing a new identity.

The business case for self-priority

Here's what's ironic: clients actually benefit more from a business owner who prioritizes their business growth.

A thriving business provides better service, more innovation, greater stability, and more opportunities for the client relationship to grow.

When you constantly sacrifice your business growth for immediate client needs, you:

• Limit your ability to serve at a higher level

• Create resentment that affects service quality

• Build an unsustainable business model

The goal isn't to stop caring about your clients. It's to expand your definition of care to include the long-term health and growth of your business.

Because when you build something sustainable, when you create systems that work, when you protect your energy and boundaries, that's when you can serve at the highest level.

Then everyone wins.

Amy x

The contradictory advice in the online business space is bananas.

“Pick one thing and go all in.”

“Focus is everything.”

OR

“Diversify your revenue streams.”

“Multiple income streams create security.”

If you’re building a business right now, you’ve probably felt torn between these two camps, wondering which is right and flip-flopping between the two.

Here’s what I’ve learned from working behind the scenes with small businesses at every level: both are right for different businesses or different businesses at different times.

It’s not either/or

The “pick one thing” crowd makes it sound so simple.

Choose your lane. Double down. Build systems around that one offer until it’s dialed in and profitable.

And they’re not wrong. Focus creates clarity. When you’re not scattered across fifteen different offerings, you can actually get good at selling one thing. You can build real systems. You can become known for something specific.

But here’s the catch, sometimes you don’t know what “the one thing” should be until you’ve tried a bunch of things.

The “multiple streams” crowd has a point too. Diversification feels safer. What if your one thing stops working? What if the market shifts? What if you get bored?

Plus, if you’re neurodivergent, the idea of picking just one thing forever might feel like putting yourself in a box that doesn’t fit how your brain works.

Maybe your curiosity and ability to see connections across different areas is actually a strength, not something to fix.

But they don’t tell you that managing multiple offers is exponentially harder than it looks. Each offer needs its own marketing, its own sales process, its own delivery system.

Suddenly you’re running five different businesses instead of one focused one.

The messy reality of getting offers right

Here’s what I’ve observed: most successful businesses go through phases.

Phase 1: Experimentation. You try different things. You test what resonates with you AND what people will pay for. You figure out what you’re good at delivering and what feels sustainable.

Phase 2: Optimization. You take the thing that’s working and you double down. You build real systems around it. You get your lead generation, your conversations, and your delivery dialed in.

Phase 3: Strategic Expansion. Once you have one thing humming, you thoughtfully add complementary offers that serve the same audience or solve adjacent problems.

The problem is that Phase 1 is messy and uncertain and requires a kind of strategic experimentation that doesn’t fit neatly into either camp’s advice.

What this looks like in real life

I’ve watched so many smart business owners torture themselves trying to follow advice that doesn’t match where they actually are.

They have three different offers but feel guilty because they “should” pick one thing. So they abandon two things that might have worked with more testing and attention.

Or they force themselves to stick with one offer that clearly isn’t resonating because they’ve been told focus is everything. Meanwhile, they have ideas for other things that might actually solve problems people want to pay for.

The guilt goes both directions. “Why can’t I just focus like everyone says?” or “Why am I so afraid to diversify when everyone else has multiple streams?”

But, it’s not: “Should I focus on one thing or have many?”

Instead it’s: “What phase am I in, and what does that phase require?”

If you’re in Phase 1

If you’re still figuring out what works, you need permission to experiment intelligently. Not randomly throwing spaghetti at the wall, but thoughtfully testing different approaches to see what sticks.

This might mean:

• Testing different types of offers with the same audience

• Trying the same solution with different audiences

• Experimenting with different delivery formats until you find what delivers the best results

The key is giving each experiment enough time and attention to actually learn something, not pivoting after one week because it feels uncomfortable.

And here’s where this connects to something practical you can do right now. Before you create something entirely new, look at what you already have.

Most people in Phase 1 have already created some offers. Maybe a few different services, a mini-course, a workshop you ran once. But instead of maximizing what exists, they keep creating new things.

What if, instead of building something new, you took one of your existing offers and ran a strategic campaign to see how much interest you can actually generate?

Test whether the problem is the offer itself or just that people haven’t had a compelling reason to act on it right now.

This gives you real data about what’s working without the time and energy cost of building something from scratch.

The permission

Here’s what I want to give you permission to do:

If you’re naturally curious and have multiple interests: You don’t have to force yourself into a box that doesn’t fit your brain. You can experiment with different things while being strategic about it.

If you’re someone who gets overwhelmed by too many options: You can choose to focus deeply on one thing without feeling like you’re missing out on opportunities.

If you’re still figuring out what works: You can test and iterate without feeling like you’re being flaky or unfocused.

What comes next

Your business will evolve. What you need in Phase 1 is different from what you need in Phase 2. The approach that feels impossible right now might feel natural in six months.

But right now, before you create that new offer, ask yourself:

What do I already have that people might want?

What would happen if I put the same energy I’d spend building something new into strategically promoting something that already exists?

What can I learn about what actually works before I build the next thing?

Amy x

You could be updating your website, redesigning your logo, organizing your Google Drive, setting up project management systems, perfecting your email templates, researching new software, planning your content calendar, or optimizing your LinkedIn profile.

And all of those things are valid tasks. They all feel productive. They seem like business building.

But as a small business owner, how you allocate your time and resources is your biggest leverage point.

You can’t do everything and you definitely can’t do it all well.

While big companies have teams dedicated to brand design, operational efficiency, and process optimization, you have you. And maybe a few extra hours a week if you’re lucky.

That means you have to put blinders on and hyper focus on what actually makes your business work.

And there are only three things that really matter in the early stages: leads, sales, and happy customers.

Everything else… the perfect website, the cohesive brand colors, the organized file system are simply not a priority until you get those three things consistently working.

I see business owners spending weeks perfecting their Instagram feed while they have no idea how many leads they got last month. Or obsessing over their project management setup while their clients aren’t actually getting results.

It’s a superpower to be okay with other things not looking like a multimillion-dollar company while you get the foundations right.

Your website can look basic. Your systems can be messy. Your processes can be manual. But you absolutely must know if people are finding you, if they’re buying from you, and if you’re actually helping them.

Every successful business I’ve worked with - from $10K to $2M+ - runs on the same 3 core systems:

• Get leads (how people find you)

• Convert leads (how they become clients)

• Deliver value (how you serve them)

I’ve been thinking a lot about tracking and measuring lately.

It’s so common to work hard on everything except these core systems.

And I get it - when you’re in the thick of things, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s actually moving you toward your goals.

But there are three questions that get to the heart of the matter very quickly.

These 3 questions directly connect to those core business systems, and together they give you a complete picture of your business health in just a few minutes.

1. “How many new leads came into my business this week?”

This measures your leads system.

This shows if people can actually find you and if your marketing efforts are working. New email subscribers, people filling out contact forms, new social media followers who engage - however leads show up in your business.

Watch for: Relying only on referrals with no new lead flow, or you have no idea how to answer this question.

Good sign: You have consistent new people discovering your work every week.

2. “What were my sales this week?”

This tracks your sales system.

It tells you if your pricing, payment process, and closing systems are actually working. Not how many discovery calls you had or how many proposals you sent - but actual money that hit your account.

Watch for: Consistent weeks with zero sales, or you can’t answer this question quickly.

Good sign: You know this number immediately and have steady, predictable revenue flow.

3. “What results did my clients achieve this week?”

This tracks your delivery system.

This measures if you’re actually solving problems and creating transformation. Specific wins, progress toward goals, positive feedback - evidence that your work is making a difference.

Watch for: You can’t name specific client wins or you’re not sure if your clients are getting results.

Good sign: You have clear evidence of the value you’re creating and can easily share client success stories.

Why this works

These 3 questions take about 5 minutes to answer, but they give you immediate insight into what’s working and what needs attention.

When you track leads but have no sales, you know your conversion process needs work.

When you have sales but no new leads, you know your marketing needs focus.

When you can’t name client results, you know your delivery system needs refinement.

When you’re working 60 hours a week but only 2 of them are on business development, you know why growth feels so difficult.

The businesses that grow consistently aren’t necessarily working harder, but they’re working on the right things. And the only way to know what the right things are is to measure what’s actually happening.

Start this Friday.

Ask yourself these 3 questions and write down the answers. Do it again next Friday. And the Friday after that.

You’ll be amazed how quickly patterns become clear when you start paying attention to these 3 questions.

Amy x

However, there is a common loop pattern that I see service-based businesses get stuck in.

It goes like this:

You launch something new. A fresh offer, a different approach, a pivot in direction. You're excited, energized, ready to make it work.

But when results come slower than expected or your confidence starts to wobble, doubt creeps in:

Maybe your audience isn't quite right.

Maybe the pricing needs adjusting.

Maybe the whole offer needs to change.

So you come up with a new plan. You start fresh with a new direction.

It feels like momentum. It feels like progress.

But, is it?

What if what you're experiencing isn't actually progress? What if it's relief?

Starting over gives you permission to stop wrestling with the uncomfortable questions your current path is asking you to answer.

You no longer have to figure out why your messaging isn't landing, or push through awkward sales conversations, or sit with the vulnerability of not knowing if what you've built will work.

A fresh start feels like hope but sometimes it's actually an escape hatch.

Every time you choose relief over refinement, you reset the clock. You're back to month one, learning the same lessons, facing the same fears, working through the same patterns dressed up in new language or aimed at a different audience.

The cycle looks like this:

Start something → it gets uncomfortable → pivot to something new → feel relief (disguised as excitement) → start over.

You're doing a lot. You're working hard. But you're not actually moving forward.

This is how you can end up living the same six months on repeat.

I know this pattern intimately because I've lived it.

I've pivoted when things got hard. I've abandoned strategies before they had time to work. My entrepreneurial path has been longer than it needed to be because I kept resetting the clock whenever I got uncomfortable.

Being stuck in this cycle can FEEL like:

I’m not good enough.

I just need the right strategy.

I just need systems.

I’m not cut out for this.

I just need to work harder.

And I completely understand why it might feel like that and why it might even seem like you have evidence for that.

But it’s simply not true.

If you’re in this cycle, it’s probably not because you’re unfocused or not cut out for this.

It’s possibly because you’re protecting yourself from very specific work that feels vulnerable and uncertain.

The hard work is getting ridiculously clear on four deceptively simple questions:

• What problem do I solve?

• Who do I solve it for?

• How do I solve it?

• How do I sell it?

These questions feel simple until you try to answer them with real specificity and test them in the real world.

This is the work.

And it's uncomfortable because it requires making decisions, getting clear, and testing things publicly with real humans who might say no.

When you don't know the answers to these questions, everything feels uncertain. So when discomfort shows up, it's easier to start over with a fresh direction than to dig deeper into what you're actually building.

It’s so much more comfortable to think in theory than to test and apply.

All the productivity hacks and growth strategies in the world won't help if you're not willing to move through the discomfort of getting clear on these four things in the real world first.

Staying in the heat (in a good way)

So what does it look like to do that work instead of starting over?

To be clear, strategic pivots based on real market feedback are different from reactive pivots based on discomfort.

The key is knowing which one you're making.

"Staying in the heat" doesn't mean pushing forward no matter what. It's not about suffering or being stubborn.

Staying in the heat means choosing to refine what you're building instead of abandoning it the moment it gets uncomfortable.

Here's a perfect example:

Your 1:1 offer isn't selling, so you think "maybe I need a course instead." You get excited about the new format—the scalability, the passive income potential, the freedom from sales calls.

But here's what's actually happening: you're changing the container without doing the hard work of understanding the heart of what it does.

Staying in the heat means getting to the heart of the result and transformation you create first.

Once you're crystal clear on that, you can sell it as a 1:1 offer, a course, a group program, a membership... the format does not matter.

Results first, format second.

This same principle applies everywhere:

When your offer isn't selling, instead of scrapping the whole thing, you get curious about which piece isn't working. Maybe the problem you're solving is right, but your messaging isn't clear. Maybe your audience is spot on, but your price point is off.

When sales calls feel hard, you do the hard work of figuring out how to sell. You practice your messaging. You refine how you qualify people.

Often sales calls don't work and people think they need a sales page instead. But a sales page needs to do the exact same job that you would do on a sales call—and it's actually harder to do that on a page. So if you're not sure how to sell on calls, a sales page can't save you.

When engagement is low, instead of pivoting to a different audience, you dig deeper into understanding the one you have.

This even applies to systems.

You get excited about a new tool when the real work is figuring out what the actual system should be. Have you ever swapped tools and got excited about the new possibilities instead of doing the hard work of designing the process that goes into the tool?

Staying in the heat is intelligent iteration.

Stubborn persistence keeps doing the exact same thing expecting different results. It ignores feedback, dismisses data, and pushes through without learning.

Intelligent iteration stays committed to the core direction while continuously improving the execution. It treats every "failure" as data and every setback as feedback.

When to adjust vs. when to stay the course

Adjust when:

• You have specific data about what's not working (low conversion at a particular step, clear feedback about pricing, consistent objections in sales calls)

• You're getting results but they're inefficient (you're making sales but it takes 10 touch points when it could take 3)

• You've tested long enough to identify patterns (not just one bad week, but consistent trends over months)

Stay the course when:

• You're just uncomfortable or uncertain (normal growing pains)

• You haven't given it enough time to work (less than 3-6 months of consistent effort)

• You're tempted to change because you saw someone else's success with a different approach

• The urge to pivot comes right after a single disappointment or setback

The key is learning to separate your emotional response from the actual data. Discomfort isn't data. But consistent patterns over time are.

Questions that stop the loop

When you feel the familiar urge to start over, pause and ask yourself these questions:

1. What specifically isn't working?

   • "It's not working" is too vague. Is it lead generation? Conversion? Delivery? Pricing? Get specific.

2. How long have I been testing this?

   • If it's less than 3 months of consistent effort, you're probably in the discomfort zone, not the "this doesn't work" zone.

3. What feedback am I getting from real people?

   • Not your own thoughts, but actual feedback from prospects, clients, or your audience. (And from more than one person.)

4. Am I avoiding discomfort or addressing a real problem?

   • Discomfort: "Sales calls make me nervous." Real problem: "After 50 sales calls, no one understands what I'm offering."

5. If I stick with this for 3 more months, what's the worst that could realistically happen?

   • Often, the worst case scenario is just more discomfort, not actual danger.

6. What would I tell a friend in my situation?

   • Sometimes we give ourselves permission to quit in ways we'd never advise someone else to.

The minimum viable commitment:

Before you make any major changes, commit to a minimum viable timeline. I suggest 6 months of consistent effort before completely changing direction.

This doesn't mean you can't make adjustments—you can be constantly refining. But it means the core elements (your audience, your main offer, your delivery method) stay stable long enough for you to actually learn what works.

During those 6 months:

• Track what you're testing and what you're learning

• Make small adjustments based on consistent feedback

• Notice when you want to quit and why

• Celebrate small improvements, not just big wins

At the end of 6 months, you'll have real data to make decisions from, not just emotional reactions to temporary discomfort.

As you build your capacity to sit with uncertainty, you’ll stay in the heat long enough to create something that works.

Amy x

Maybe you spent weeks setting up project management tools, creating templates, or mapping out processes — only to find yourself abandoning them a month later.

Or maybe your systems work for a while, then slowly fall apart when business gets busy or priorities shift.

I cannot tell you how common this is.

Every entrepreneur I know has a graveyard of half-built systems, unused templates, and abandoned workflows.

Here’s what I’ve learned after working on systems with hundreds of business owners:

The reason so many systems fall apart despite the best of intentions has nothing to do with discipline or the tools the systems are built in.

In fact, many systems require zero discipline.

Often people think they need systems when it’s actually an underlying structural issue that needs addressing.

And don’t worry, I’m not anti-systems. I’m obsessed with systems.

You absolutely need systems in your business.

But there’s a difference between minimal systems that support your key business functions, and elaborate systems that become a distraction from fixing an underlying issue.

Before you build another system that won’t stick, let’s figure out what you actually need.

First: check your business model

Question: If you got all the sales you wanted tomorrow, would your business actually work?

I’m not talking about the perfect business plan. But, if you max out your sales, can you deliver your offer profitably without working unsustainable hours?

Red flags you have a business model issue:

• You’re working 60+ hours a week just to stay afloat

• You calculate your (real) hourly rate and it’s embarrassingly low

• You dread onboarding new clients because you know how much work it is

• You dream about raising prices but worry you’ll lose all your clients

How this disguises itself as a systems problem:

This looks like an efficiency issue. The instinct is to reach for time management, automation, or better delivery tools — if I could just streamline this, I could make it work.

No amount of optimization can fix it if the business model math doesn’t work.

You’ll spend months building elaborate delivery systems and workflows for a business model that’s unsustainable. Every system you build will feel like pushing a boulder uphill because the underlying math doesn’t work.

What to do instead: Address your pricing, restructure your offer, or change your delivery model before you build any systems.

A sustainable business model is foundational.

Second: validate your offer

Question: Do you have a proven, results-driven offer that creates a clear transformation?

Even if you’ve made some sales, dig deeper: Can you clearly articulate exactly what problem you solve and for who? Are those results repeatable? Do you have a core offer, or are you constantly tweaking and switching?

Red flags you have an offer issue:

• You struggle to explain what you do in one clear sentence

• Your clients get results sometimes, but you’re not sure how

• You’re constantly creating disconnected offers or “pivoting”

• You avoid sales conversations because you’re not confident in your value

• You say yes to any project that pays, regardless of fit

How this disguises itself as a systems problem:

On the surface, this seems like a visibility problem. The instinct is to reach for better marketing, a new website, sales funnels, or content strategies — if I could just get more visibility, people would understand what I do.

But, what’s needed is underlying clarity, then everything you build on top of it gets easier.

If you go try to build marketing and sales systems around an unclear and/or unproven offer, your systems will be as confused as your messaging.

What to do instead: Get crystal clear on the core transformation you create, validate that people will pay for it, and prove you can deliver the result consistently before you systematize anything.

Third: evaluate your conversion

Question: When qualified prospects see your offer, do they buy?

This is different from having an unclear offer. Your offer might be great, but something in your sales process isn’t working. Maybe it’s your messaging, your positioning, your pricing, or your conversion method.

Red flags you have a conversion issue:

• You get lots of discovery calls but few sales

• People say they’re interested but never actually buy

• You have social media engagement but no leads

• You get leads but they go cold quickly

• You feel like you’re always convincing people

How this disguises itself as a systems problem:

This one looks like a follow-up issue. The instinct is to reach for a better CRM, email sequences, or nurture flows — if I had better follow-up, these leads would convert. Positioning and messaging are what move conversion.

I often see people build sales systems and automation for offers that don’t convert well organically. If you’re not making sales, a sales page will not solve the problem. You can’t optimize a funnel that isn’t working in the first place.

What to do instead: Work on your messaging, positioning, or sales process until you can convert organic leads consistently in simple ways (like direct conversations) before you automate anything.

Fourth: assess your lead generation

Question: Are you getting enough qualified prospects to see your offer?

Your offer might convert beautifully, but if not enough people know about it, you won’t hit your revenue goals. This is purely a visibility and marketing problem.

Red flags you have a lead generation issue:

• Your conversion rate is good, but you don’t have enough leads

• You rely heavily on referrals or past clients

• Your content gets little engagement or reach

• You go weeks without new prospects in your pipeline

• You have great months followed by terrible months based on whether you remembered to market

How this disguises itself as a systems problem:

This one looks like a consistency problem. The instinct is to reach for content systems, schedulers, or automation — if I could just post more consistently, I’d get more leads. Consistency amplifies a strategy that’s already attracting the right people. The strategy comes first.

I often see people build content systems and posting schedules around content that doesn’t actually attract their ideal clients.

What to do instead: Focus on one lead generation strategy that actually brings in your ideal clients, get good at it manually, then systematize only what’s working.

Finally: check if you actually need systems

Question: Do you have a sustainable business model, proven offer, good conversion, and adequate lead flow — but you’re overwhelmed, scattered, or working in your business instead of on it?

If you can honestly say yes to the foundation pieces, then congratulations because systems will literally change your life!

Signs you’re ready for systems:

• Your business fundamentals work, but you feel chaotic

• You’re spending too much time on repetitive tasks

• You’re making the same decisions over and over

• Growth feels hard because everything requires your direct involvement

• You know what works, but execution feels scattered

The bottom line

Most business owners look to systems to rescue them too early.

They think the issue is execution but it’s often a breakdown in foundational clarity, structure, or strategy.

The right system, built at the wrong time, won’t solve the underlying issue. But once your foundations are in place, systems are absolutely life changing.

Until then, keep systems minimally viable to support what you need and worry about building more robust systems once you’ve got the foundations nailed.

Amy x