The Best Systems Aren’t Permanent

Every August I pull out my calendar and start moving things around.

To someone looking in from the outside, it probably looks like I can’t make up my mind. Tuesdays shift. Thursdays disappear. Fridays suddenly become available again. Homeschool starts back up. Catechism returns. Summer winds down. New routines begin. Every year the rhythm looks just a little different than it did before.

But it isn’t because the old calendar was wrong. It’s because life changed.

There was a time when I didn’t have much of a schedule at all. When I first started my business, I had one client. Other than our Friday morning check-in call, my week was wide open. I’d write and schedule her content whenever I had time. Sometimes that meant first thing in the morning. More often it meant the middle of the night while everyone else was asleep. I also had a newborn, so being awake at two in the morning wasn’t exactly unusual.

Then another client came along. Then another. Slowly, my days started filling up, and I realized I couldn’t just work whenever I happened to find an extra hour. I needed to know what I was doing, who I was doing it for, and when it all needed to happen.

Those first couple of years felt a little like controlled chaos. We were figuring out homeschooling. I was building a business. The boys were growing and changing. Somehow everything got done, but I always had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something. Not because I actually was, but because I never really knew what came next. Every morning started with the same question. “What should I work on today?”

It wasn’t until I started taking on bookkeeping clients that I realized my old way of working wasn’t going to survive much longer. Around the same time, I took a course that introduced me to the idea of batching content.

Holy miracles, Batman.

It was one of those moments where you immediately wonder why you hadn’t been doing something all along. Instead of creating one week’s worth of content, I’d sit down and plan six, eight, sometimes twelve weeks at a time. Then I’d spend the next day or two creating it all before scheduling it out.

I even started batching my own content. One decision instead of dozens. One focused project instead of constantly switching gears. It changed everything. Or at least it did for a while.

By the end of the year my bookkeeping business had grown enough that I needed another system. My solution seemed simple enough. I’d dedicate two weeks every month to bookkeeping, knock it all out, and spend the rest of the month on everything else. 

It worked. Until it didn’t.

Then I started taking on cleanup clients. Not the kind who just needed a few transactions categorized, but clients who needed an entire year’s worth of bookkeeping untangled before tax season. I completely underestimated how much work that would be. At the same time, my carpal tunnel syndrome was getting worse by the day, and I knew surgery was coming.

I worked harder than I probably should have.

I wanted to get as much finished as possible before surgery because I knew I’d be out of commission for a couple of weeks. My wrist hurt constantly. Everything was inflamed. But my clients knew what was going on because I’d kept them informed the whole time. When surgery finally came, every one of them responded with grace. They gave me room to heal, and I eased back into work as I was able.

Just as life started feeling normal again, my youngest broke his arm. Because, apparently, life likes to make sure we don’t get too comfortable.

Looking back, I don’t think any of those systems failed. Every one of them was exactly what I needed for the season I was in. The late-night schedule worked when I had one client and a newborn. Batching content worked when social media made up most of my business. The two-week bookkeeping schedule worked until my client list changed.

Each system carried me exactly as far as it could. Then it was time to build another one. That’s why every August I sit down with my calendar and start asking questions again. Not, “How have I always done this?” But…“What makes sense now?”

Mondays have become my day to reset the week. Tuesdays usually belong to client work while the boys are at Catechism. Wednesdays are catch-up days. Thursdays belong almost entirely to homeschool community. Fridays are for wrapping things up before heading out on a field trip with the boys. Will that still be true next year? Maybe. Maybe not. The point isn’t to protect the calendar. The point is to protect the peace that comes from knowing where to begin.

Because when Monday morning comes, I don’t have to negotiate with myself about what needs to happen first. It’s Monday. That means muffins. It means checking emails for anything urgent that came in over the weekend. It means reviewing my client list, looking over the calendar, and settling into the rhythm of the week before the races begin.

Will something interrupt that plan? Probably. Life has a way of doing that. But having a default means I can stop, take a breath, and remind myself where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing. For me, that’s what a good system has always been. Not a set of rules carved in stone. Just a little bit of normal in a life that’s always growing, changing, and occasionally breaking an arm.