One of the challenges in business is that you don't need systems in the early days.

You are working out what works.

What does not.

Documenting things that don't work seems a waste.

Silly even.

Better to be getting the work done!

And you can get by with meetings, chat, and even email.

The team is small enough that everyone knows mentally what is getting done.

And the cost of not having a working method of using systems?

Not much.

At this point, you don't really need it.

So it's easy to put it off until later.

"I know I should deal with that systems thing, but I've got so much on... I'll deal with it later. It can't be that hard."

And eventually later comes.

And what at a glance seemed easy... I mean, how hard can systems really be?

But suddenly, when you're running your team, doing your work, and remembering all the details, while the fires keep coming?

Now, working out systems no longer seems so simple.

You look and see so many moving parts.

• Do I make a list of work for each person?
• Or should I list the work and then assign a person to it?
• Is this a process?
• How should I set it up?
• As a Google Doc?
• Or should I get software for that?
• And where do the templates fit?
• What about the results we produce from this work?
• How do we track that?
• Should we use Kanban or spreadsheets?
• Do I get software for that, or is Excel enough?
• What about if things change?

The number of variables in "systems" is much more than at first glance.

This is why is so difficult to work out what to do about "systems" when you already have a lot going on in your business.

The takeaway: Don't wait until the last minute to figure out how your team should use systems in your business.