In January I felt overwhelmed and ineffective in my business. I was dropping balls and didn’t feel I was being the best coach and founder I could be. On paper, my clients were happy and sales were good but I knew something was wrong.

The feeling of being ‘overwhelmed’ is a symptom of a problem, not the cause. To try to understand the root cause itself, I took to journaling, mind-mapping and getting advice.

I realised that I lacked the right systems.

(I wrote about how to detect your problem and designed the Problem Diagnosis Workbook for you to identify the root cause of whatever problems you might have in your business.)

I was juggling too many different projects and lacked a 10,000-foot view of them all or a way to share these moving pieces with the new team. It was all becoming too much for my brain to handle.

My reliance on pen and paper and my calendar were no longer sufficient for the phase my business was at. The overwhelm came from holding too much in my head without the right information architecture to support me, AKA a system.

Half my mental energy was being spent on deciding what to do next rather than actually doing it. Our brains are for having ideas, not for holding them, as I’ve written about in this post on productivity.

But I’d tried and failed to make better systems work in the past and felt stuck.

So, I brought in an expert.

Now, The Ask has a project management system, a weekly review process and the ability to track at the macro level everything that happens across the business plus the individual tasks inherent to each project.

Not only am I calmer but I am more organised but my headspace can be reallocated to what I do best: coaching and creating content and tools for early-stage founders.

Time is our biggest asset as entrepreneurs and unlike money or resources, you can’t borrow more of it. I knew that systems-level thinking is not my strong suit and partnering with an expert would get me the results I needed, faster.

That’s what coaching is all about — partnering with a professional who can better understand your problem as well as hold you accountable on the journey towards solving it.

This newsletter talks to some of my journey with Daniel and some general systems and focus principles.

But be warned — if you are feeling overwhelmed in your business it might not be a systems problem. It could be the wrong mindset, balance or strategy. You could be lacking clear goals or not using your strengths.

If it is a systems problem then I hope you too can learn from Daniel Canosa, the coach/consultant I hired to help me solve my problem. I am so glad I found him. Here’s a case study on the process we went through together if you’re interested.

Daniel uses systems to help founders nail their business operations.

Daniel Canosa is a Certified Notion Consultant, find him on Twitter or YouTube.

How did you get into this line of work?

I’m an engineer by background and got really passionate about Notion (the no-code productivity app) when I stumbled across a YouTube video about it. I’d tried all the apps to find the ‘perfect app’ over the years and had an “Oh shit I can do so many things with this” moment.

I was actually trying to be a filmmaker at the time but stopped everything I was doing. I dove into the app and spent ages building task managers for myself and other people in my life, I took my girlfriend’s notebook and said “What do you need? Let’s build it!”. I had this seed inside of me but Notion just let it sprout and grow everywhere.

Later I discovered business owners needed specific help and the one-size-fits-all course I’d created might not help them. So alongside the course, I launched a consulting offer, to build Notion bespoke systems for them.

Why should we use Notion?

Aside from being the ‘perfect app’ in my view, they are doing a great job cultivating community amongst their users. There are 35 certified notion consultants and 300 Notion ambassadors worldwide. In my online life, it feels like everyone uses Notion and I’m grateful to have found these nerds like me.

What common problems do you see in early-stage founders with their business operations?

It’s the feeling of overwhelm. Often when you start a business you’re one person doing everything and there is a tonne of things to focus on. It is very hard to maintain all those things that you want to do in just your head, paper or Google Drive.

You never quite know where you’re going or what the next step is.

Another thing I see happening is people who already know what Notion is will take to downloading Notion templates and then have no idea how to actually use them to help them.

Templates can feel like this golden bullet panacea that can solve all your system problems but in the end, these systems are born within us and the way that we work, so we have to build the systems within ourselves. It’s unlikely other peoples’ systems will match the way that we work. With new clients, we normally end up starting from zero.

Did you start by building for yourself?

I’m my own first case study. It took more than one year to really feel settled in the system I built for myself. Everyone should realise that these things take time.

As a first time business owner I had to first understand how I work e.g when I work best, when I over-schedule myself and how I prioritise. So first it is a learning process. Then I built a simple task-manager system and then started iterating on it — to take into account how I work.

As I began to see the benefits from it I started to share what I’d done online — on YouTube.

How did you transition to offering this as a service?

It took some time to believe I could be a consultant. A lack of confidence stops many people from ever starting their businesses.

My first step was to create an online course and offered some free calls with me to course members. These calls felt low pressure because they were free. I realised that I was able to answer almost all the questions people asked me and find solutions to their bespoke needs.

This furthered my knowledge of the topic and increased my confidence. Then a business coach offered to exchange services with me and we had a mutual consulting relationship where he helped me grow my business and I helped him create systems. His business coaching helped me to charge for my services and I think it’s unlikely we’d be talking today if it wasn’t for working with him.

(Side note from Ellen — that’s why I love coaching new and aspiring entrepreneurs to unlock their talent, get confident in their unique thing and create a plan that can make them money from doing it. Apply for coaching if that’s where you’re struggling)

How confident were you that you could support my needs?

I have a very simple checklist that I use when I start working with someone.

i) Is this person hardworking?
ii) Is this person driven?

I am basically betting on the person.

Whilst I know that all system problems can be solved, I am depending on the client to be the one to solve them.

If I see that you are just trying to outsource this system work then it wouldn’t be successful. Since the system is for you it means you have to put in the time to learn how to use it.

In you I saw that you were thriving, growing your business and I felt comfortable with you. It is more about the human part than the problem that you come with.

The coach-client relationship thrives on the trust that you will solve the problem together. How did you figure out what I needed?

I knew you had to end the overwhelmed feeling and needed somewhere to dump your brain first before we could organise it. You also told me you needed accountability which we solved by having weekly calls with homework and interacting with your system in between the calls.

System building can always be delayed, there are always more important things to do. From simply existing and talking to you every week, it pushed you to focus on building the system and not delaying it. We were successful in both aspects.

Some BTS of the system Daniel helped me to create

What advice do you have for early-stage business owners feeling overwhelmed?

Something I realised early on, was that being just one person driving the business forward, I could only do one thing well at a time.

We have to do marketing, building services, social media etc. So I started to pick a monthly focus e.g building a landing page one month, then the next month focused on customer acquisition.

I also have 1 day free of calls which is my focus and content creation day. I find calls take up more than the scheduled time itself and you are mentally preparing for them so it helps to set boundaries of having at least one day without calls.

I also recommend the Freedom app to focus which blocks sites like Telegram, Whatsapp or social media when I’m trying to concentrate, which is a game-changer.

Working on my imposter syndrome has been important, too. I always thought that I didn’t know enough for other people to benefit from my work — even with the positive comments I could feel like a fraud. Or if I had a month with not enough sales I’d think “This is the end, people have stopped liking me”.

I have learned that the mindset of being a business owner is so different to the mindset of being an employee. I think this is one we learn through tears (no seriously there was tears). I learned that we have to have more faith in what we are doing. We aren’t going to have a stable paycheck to tell us we are good enough. Instead, we have to rely on faith on ourselves that we are good at what we do and just believe that clients will come. That we will find a product to build that is going to be successful. So if we rely more on faith and not just pure raw numbers then we are going to be much healthier.

Not only can Daniel help you build an incredible system if that is what your business needs he is also a pleasure to work with, and somewhat of a motivational speaker, as you can see!

Check out his services and book a complimentary consultation here.

Beat overwhelm with clear thinking.

So if you’re trying to overcome overwhelm in your business first spend time exploring why that is. Do you have too much on? Lack of documentation? Lack of support? Lack of clear goals, habits or routines?

Identify the cause and then take action. Speak to people who can help you see your problem objectively and don’t assume that the latest productivity app or hack will do the trick. A gimmick is no substitute for putting in the work, I’m afraid.

My new system is incredible but without knowing my big picture goals for The Ask this year it wouldn’t move me closer to achieving them, and without a strong mindset, I wouldn’t feel confident executing them.

Thank you for reading as always! Leave a comment if you have any questions about beating overwhelm that myself or Daniel can answer.

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Until next time…

Ellen Donnelly, Founder + Chief Coach, The Ask