[00:00] Things are going to come up that are just going to make you busy, right? Your kid qualifies for some, you know, sporting event, maybe. And you’d have to step away from work or step away from your life and things have to keep going. So you need to have some things on autopilot. You need to have some systems in place.

[00:15] And I’m not talking about hiring people to run these systems for a lot of these, really. You just need things in place so that when things come up or when you’re overwhelmed or stressed or extra busy, you don’t feel like you’re dropping all these balls in your life. Welcome to another episode of Success for the Athletic Minded Man.

[00:34] Real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business and life. This is your host, Jim Harsha, Jr. And today I’m bringing you a solo episode. We’re talking about systems, systems to simplify your life, reduce stress, give you back your time. And this is a seed that was planted in my life, probably.

[00:55] 15 or 20 years ago, I read a book called getting things done, written by David Allen. And I actually interviewed him in episode 100, 116, way back in episode 116. And so years ago, that’s like in the stone age as far as podcasts go. So if you scroll way back in your feed, you’ll find episode 116 as a matter of fact, most podcast players.

[01:17] Only show you the last 300 episodes. So you might have to go to Jim Harsher, jr. com slash one one six to find that episode, but it’s a really good episode. David Allen wrote this book, getting things done GTD. It’s like it was, and I think still is kind of a worldwide movement, like underground sort of productivity movement.

[01:39] People do meetups and you know, there’s probably Reddit channels about. You know, GTD getting things done. It’s a really great system for just getting stuff done, right? Getting stuff done. It’s mostly about work. It’s a productivity system and it’s, it’s a little bit maybe outdated, but there’s probably a newer sort of more updated version of this, but this was before everything was as technology driven as it is today, it was probably written.

[02:03] Well over 20 years ago, or at least 20 around there, probably 20 years ago or so. And just, it’s about systems, right? How to manage your inbox, how to manage how much papers on your desk. And it was very systematic thinking. I’m like, oh my gosh, this really speaks to me. And then I read a book called the E myth.

[02:23] The E myth is this really fantastic book for entrepreneurs. E stands for entrepreneurs, so the entrepreneurial myth. And the idea is. That just because you’re a good carpenter doesn’t mean you can start a custom home building business. Just because you’re a good baker doesn’t mean you can start a bakery, open a bakery, right?

[02:43] It’s, it’s very different. Like being a baker and running a bakery, being a carpenter and running a custom home building business, like very different ways of life, right? And very different ways of, of, you know, occupation, the ways of going about the work that you do. Because you have to have systems in place.

[03:02] Like if you’re running a custom home building business, you’re not, you don’t have a saw in your hand, hammer in your hand, like you are now running a business and you have to create profitable and replicable systems. To run the business. Otherwise the business is going to run you. You’re wearing all the hats and you’re trying to be a carpenter while also buying materials and hire and dealing with HR stuff and on and on and on.

[03:27] And one of the examples they use in the book, the E Myth written by Michael Gerber, by the way, if you’re an entrepreneur, this is just a must, must read. And one of the examples they use is McDonald’s and McDonald’s is run on replicable and profitable systems. The CEO doesn’t get a phone call every time McDonald’s runs out of hamburgers, you know, it’s like there are systems in place to run the restaurants.

[03:49] And that’s why there are tens of thousands of them around the world that you can walk into any of them and, and a hamburger tastes the same and you get pretty much the same for the most part, the same experience everywhere you go because of systems. Then I read a book called Work The system very much in line with this.

[04:05] And this is when I owned a window cleaning business way back in the day, window cleaning, power, washing, gutter cleaning. We got into Christmas lighting. It was a pretty cool business and, and scaled up to, we had about 10 employees, uh, three crews on the road and I just kind of ran it from home. And I had a virtual assistant in St.

[04:21] Louis who. Took all the calls and I had developed systems that eventually sold that business. And there were all these just amazing systems in place. I had about 150 page manual that had systems from how do you answer the phone? What are the common problems that come up? What are the common questions that customers might have?

[04:38] How do you do a quote on and on and on? It was all systematized and in that planted another seed about systems. And then, and now I’m to a point where I’m actually hiring somebody to be an executive assistant for me. So I have multiple assistants in my business, Pauline and Michael who help edit the podcast and do Pauline just does a million things for my business.

[05:01] And then Zaynar, who’s been with me since 2015. Teen. He runs all kinds of things in my business. So I, so I started building systems for them. And then Sandy pond, he’s another one. He does my bookkeeping. So I’ve got these systems in place for people to sort of run my business. And I even had these amazing coaches and I developed a system for them to run my coaching program.

[05:21] And, and there, there are tons of systems in place. And I never did think that there was a system for how I respond to email, but I’m actually, I’ve hired an executive assistant, a matter of fact, and they’re getting trained right now on how to. Help me manage my inbox and manage my calendar and those sorts of things.

[05:38] These are all systems. And I never thought that that anybody could really run those systems for me, because it’s me. It’s like how I run my life and my business and my thoughts and my email. And some of those are personal emails and all that, like, well. Those are systems too, and this is how very successful entrepreneurs and people who sort of outsource things and aren’t handling all the things in their life.

[06:01] This is how they get things done. And so this is just another step for me, a challenging step for me. So identifying and creating systems for others. And these people are experts at actually helping me identify the systems so that they can manage my email, et cetera. Quick interruption. If you like what you’re hearing here and you want to learn how you can implement Into your life, just go to Jim Harsha, jr.

[06:23] com slash apply to see how you can get a free one on one coaching session with me. That’s Jim Harsha, jr. com slash apply. Now back to the show. So what does this do for you? And what does this mean for you? Well, this is about freeing up your brain to be creative, right? And David Allen with getting things done, he said, having systems in place helps you free up your brain to be a creative device, not a storage container.

[06:50] You know, it allows you to be present for your family. It allows you to be here. And now it allows you to manage your life and we’re not just talking about business, right? We’re going to talk about your personal relationships, your health and wellness, et cetera, here in a minute, but it allows you to manage your life.

[07:06] Whenever stuff happens, listen, stuff’s going to come around the corner that you just don’t expect, right? Whether it’s, you know, Negative things like illnesses or promote positive things like promotions. Like things are going to come up that are just going to make you busy, right? Your kid qualifies for some big event and you need to, you know, sporting event, maybe, and you, you have to step away from work or step away from your life and things have to keep going.

[07:29] So you need to have some things on. Autopilot, you need to have some systems in place. And I’m not talking about hiring people to run these systems for all, for a lot of these, really, you just need things in place so that when, when things come up or when you’re overwhelmed or stressed or extra busy, you don’t feel like you’re dropping all these balls in your life.

[07:46] So let me give you some exam. I’m going to give you some really quick, quick wins, quick, simple examples that I use in my life. We’ve all heard, I think of the sort of Steve jobs method of just the, I think it was like, Blue jeans and a black t shirt. I think that’s what he always wore. It was like very simple.

[08:01] Like didn’t, you know, if you looked in his closet, it was all the same stuff. He never had to make a decision on what he was going to wear today, right? There was a system for reducing the amount of decisions that he has to make in his life. And here’s one that I, that I’ve come up with. Over the years, we’ve, we’ve struggled with this in my family with this huge bit of socks.

[08:20] And they’re like a hundred different types of socks in our sock bin. About five years ago, I’m like, I’m done matching socks. I waste way too much of my life going to look for a pair of socks and rooting through the laundry basket and not being able to find them. So I literally bought like a hundred pairs of the same socks and I just put them in there and I’ve saved hours upon hours of my life, not looking for socks.

[08:45] And my whole family actually uses the same pairs of socks. Now they’re like kind of a one size fits all. And like pretty much everybody in the family now wears them. So that’s a system. Streamline simplifies, gives me time back. Don’t have to think about it. Anytime there’s a hole in one, I just throw it away, grab another pair.

[09:00] I have like a whole stash of them in my closet. It’s, it’s amazing. It’s so much, so much easier to find. So it just simplifies my life, right? The oils change sticker on your windshield. If you get your oil changed by somebody else, I put that little sticker on your windshield. That’s a system having a grocery list.

[09:17] That is a system having a, a key hook for where you hang your keys. When you walk in the door, that is a system having a family Google calendar. Like these are all systems that you can put in place to simplify your life. And so before I get into four different areas of your life and some other examples of systems for you, they’re going to help you simplify your life.

[09:38] I’m going to ask you this. If you’re getting value from this episode already, or other episodes you’ve listened to, please give this a subscribe, right? Whatever platform you’re listening to right now, subscribe, please to the podcast. Find me on YouTube. We’ll have the link in the action plan and, and you’ll get that in your email on Monday morning.

[09:54] If you do subscribe to the emails, if you go to jim harsher jr.com/action, you can just subscribe to my Monday emails where you’re getting the entire action plan and links to the episode right there. But if you go in there, there’ll be a link to the YouTube channel and give the YouTube channel a subscribe as well.

[10:09] Anytime you make a comment on any of my social posts or social, um, or a comment or like on any of my YouTube videos, that helps me. That helps other people find me. That helps the algorithm say, Oh, this is important. This is good stuff. Let us share this with others. So any likes, comments, subscribes, shares, those are all super, super helpful.

[10:27] And I really appreciate those. This is free content and that’s the only payment that I asked for. So thank you in advance for that. So yeah. Let’s get into four different areas where you can set some, some systems in place to simplify your life. And the four areas where we coach our clients to set goals are in relationships, self, health, and wealth.

[10:47] Okay. Relationships, pretty self explanatory. Self, uh, I’ll get it. That’s a little, it takes a little more explanation, but I’m going to explain that in a minute. Health explains self explanatory. You know, that’s. Mental health, physical health, and then wealth, right? That’s your work, professional career, financial goals.

[11:02] All right. So relationships, what are some systems you can put in place? And by the way, at the end of this, I’m going to give you one system that rules them all, right? One system to take everything I’m talking about here today. Simplify it down to one thing that you do once a month that makes all of this.

[11:20] Easy. Okay. Let’s get into the first category relationships, a monthly date night, just having a monthly date night with your spouse. That is a simple system. It can be the same day, same week, whatever, or you plan it once a month. You just make that plan for when we’re going to have a date night. Very simple to make sure that connection’s happening.

[11:38] That really works for us. Monthly meeting with a marriage counselor that also works for us. It’s just very simple. We. Meet with our counselor, have an awesome conversation, just stuff comes up that doesn’t come up in the day to day and it’s super helpful. That’s a system. It’s in place. It’s on the calendar.

[11:54] We just show up. Another one is like getting your kids events on your calendar, like put them on a calendar. If they’re, if you’re kind of reacting and trying to remember them, if they’re in your head, you know, like David Allen says of getting things done, he says, Offload these things, have a to do list so your mind can be free to be a creative device, not a storage container.

[12:12] If you’re storing all your kids events in your head, then you’re going to really struggle with trying to remember everything. And there’s always that kind of low level of anxiety or running behind you there. Church is another one. Just go once a week, go to church, right? That’s a simple system. To make sure faith is in your life for me.

[12:29] Another one is putting the Bible app on the lower right hand corner of my home screen. It’s like, it’s right there. It’s in front of me. It’s easy for me to access. It’s a simple system that I put in place. I did it once and now it’s always there. It’s on my home screen. No avoiding it. It’s the easiest app to see on my phone.

[12:46] Easiest app. For my, my thumb to reach, right? So there’s no excuse that I can’t find my Bible app and I didn’t do some reading today. So that’s relationships. Self that’s growth, impact, or fun. Okay. Self goals are growth, impact, or fun growth, personal growth, impact, maybe volunteering or philanthropy or fun things that are just fun for you.

[13:05] So real quickly through each of these three growth, join a mastermind. I I’m in a mastermind, I pay for it and it’s absolutely amazing. I’m around these, these people who are all smarter than me and challenge me to be an even better version of myself professionally and personally. And so put the money, pay the money, you know, put it on your calendar and show up and attend.

[13:25] Growth just automatically happens for me now because I’m in this mastermind. I run all these masterminds and all these amazing people that I get to be around. So my business is actually growth for me. I just grow it because I’m around these amazing people and I’m really grateful for them. These clients that we call pathfinders.

[13:39] A lot of pathfinders listening right now, a book club, join a book club, gets you reading, gets you thinking, gets you growing. It’s automated. It’s court short, creates a system that kind of holds you accountable to growing impact again, under the category of self impact is join a board. All right, join a board of a nonprofit organization.

[13:58] You don’t have to figure out how you’re going to make the impact. The organization already has a plan. They already have things in place. You just help lead, you help implement, right? Or maybe philanthropy wise, donating automatically set up just an automatic monthly donation to maybe it’s your church or maybe it’s your, your kid’s sports league, whatever it might be, but that’s another way.

[14:18] To make an impact fun again, under the self category for me. One thing that I do is like, there’s a system in place. So every father’s day or right around that a week before or a week after I go on a trip with my buddies. That’s my gift for father’s day. Me and my buddies get together. We do a float trip down the river and it’s so it’s like.

[14:36] The best thing ever, man, we have so much fun. So that’s a system in place for me to have fun every year to get back to my roots and do the things that I love to do. Love to be outside. Love adventures. Love getting together with my old crew and floating down a river and fishing and having some drinks and, and just having a good time and talking about old, the old days.

[14:53] All right. Health. So we talk about relationships. We talked about self to four, third of four categories, health, meal planning. Is a simple one, right? For me, a simple, simple system. Every Sunday, I cut up my vegetables, put them in a big Tupperware so that I can execute my daily system of making a salad every day.

[15:10] It’s the easiest thing because I got everything there. Veggies are already cut up. Just put a handful of salad mix in a bowl, throw on some veggies, have all the other things and boom, I can make my salad very quickly. Uh, join a workout group. That’s another simple system. Put it in place. They make the plan for you.

[15:26] Maybe you hire a trainer. Maybe you meet a friend at a specific time where you join a workout group. I’m part of one called F3. You probably heard me talk about that. If you’ve been listening for any length of time, but that’s a simple system. I don’t have to think about the workout. Um, there’s accountability there.

[15:41] It just makes me show up, right? If you pay a trainer, for example, you’re just going to show up because you’ve laid out the money, but. You don’t have to now think about it. You don’t have to wonder if you’re going to have the motivation to work out. It just happens. I mentioned a grocery list earlier.

[15:58] That’s another system having a grocery list. You know, now you can use Alexa. We just say, Hey, Alexa, uh, add salad mix to grocery. Now, whenever we go to the store, we pull up Alexa and there it is. It’s simple. We don’t have to remember. We don’t have to use our brain as a storage device, storage container. It can be a creative device.

[16:15] We can be present because all of that stuff is taken care of. It’s already on the list. We just check the list whenever we go to the store. Another one under health is. This is what’s really for your mental health. It’s set app limits for your social media. I have a 30 minute daily social media limit. I rarely even hit it.

[16:33] I started at an hour, bumped it down to 45 minutes about six months ago. And then more recently bumped it down to 30, a few months ago, bumped it down to 30 minutes and it’s just reducing my social media usage. It’s amazing. It’s a simple system. I put it in place once. And it makes it easier for me to not get sucked into social media.

[16:52] All right. We talking about relationships, self and health, final category, wealth, money, professional career. An important one for me is having a morning startup routine. For me, it’s a very simple journaling system. I write down three things I’m grateful for. I write down three things that will make today great.

[17:09] Do three affirmations about. Life and things that I want to manifest in my life and, and kind of visualize what success looks like in my life and in all areas. So having a simple system that you just do on a daily basis to start your day. That’s a simple system there to start your work day. I have blocked time on my calendar for strategic work and you should too.

[17:30] Otherwise you’re going to get. Caught up in the day to day in the minutia, if you feel like you’re going a hundred miles an hour all day long and you’re getting a hundred things done, but at the end of the day, you don’t really feel like you’ve moved the needle in your life block time for strategy work, right?

[17:45] It’s because you’re, you’re busy. You’re hustling. But if you’re not really moving the needle in your life, it’s because you’re, you’re in the weeds and that’s not really, that’s not gonna advance the ball. It’s the, the strategic work, the higher level work. For example, the productive pause that we do with my clients every year in, in late December, which is a review of the prior year and I’ll, and I’ll look ahead to the next year.

[18:06] It’s about two hours when I do it personally for myself, I actually take about four to five hours, but we do at least two hours with my clients. And that is the most important two hours. They spend. All year long because they get more done in that two hours that will impact the rest of their lives in every area of their lives and the rest of their year because they’ve done the strategic work so that when they go into the weeds and execute day to day, they’re working on the right things, not just the things that are, you know, putting out fires, but they can do their, they’ve done the strategic work.

[18:39] So that they’re laying out everything else that can work more efficiently because of that. Um, a few other sort of easy, simple systems are regular meetings with your financial advisor in the wealth areas, again, in the wealth category, regular meetings with your financial advisor, regular meetings with your mentor, regular meetings with a coach.

[18:58] And that’s what we do. Like we are executive life coaches. We are life coaches for successful professionals. And, and we have regular meetings with our clients to help them step out of the fray, identify simple systems in all four of these areas, identify the goals in each of these areas. So they can, when they re engage, Into the busyness of life, they’re working on the right things.

[19:19] And so when you schedule these recurring meetings, you don’t have to think about it, growth happens, security, wealth, all of that just happens because you show up because it’s on your calendar. These are all simple systems. They’re going to help you get you back time in your life, get you back your sanity.

[19:37] And help you do the things that you know, you want to do. Listen, you can’t make your life an entire system, right? You can’t make everything in your life, a system, right? This is just using the discipline equals freedom concept that Jocko Willink talks about, and I think it’s good. It’s others. It actually came from somebody else prior to that, maybe, but like.

[19:57] Discipline equals freedom. This is discipline, like the discipline to put these systems in your life so that you can be free so that you can be creative. So you can be present with your family and your kids. And so you can come up with new ideas at work, right? This isn’t about being robotic and living by these simple systems and not having anything else that you do.

[20:15] This is about putting these systems in place so that. You can be free so that you can be creative so that you can be present. Right? I told you I was going to give you one system to rule them all. This is the system. It’s reveal your path. If you go back to the five part series that I recorded at the very beginning of the year here, I think it started episode four 39, if I’m not mistaken, there’s five episodes, you’ll see it says part one of five, two of five, three, four, five, a five, um, every other episode right there in early January.

[20:45] This is the reveal your path system. This is what we coach our clients to go through. It is a simple way to live life. And the one system that we use to rule all of our systems. Once we put this framework in place is a monthly resetting of our micro goals. We take our larger goals. We score last month’s goals and we plan the next month’s micro goals.

[21:05] So if you do just that, you will find yourself living with more clarity, with more focus, with more balance, and with more freedom. Take action on this. Don’t just let this be another episode you listen to. And don’t forget, please subscribe, please comment, please like, please share. That is how this thing grows.

[21:26] I appreciate your time. I appreciate you listening now. Take action.

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