How I Streamlined my Systems and SAVED MONEY $$ and TIME

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Summary

In this episode of the Burnout Proof Podcast, I dive into how streamlining my systems led to significant savings—both in money and time. I’ll reveal the exact tools and applications I used before, how I consolidated them, and the impressive results of my optimization process. From cutting over $1,000 in annual costs to reducing mental clutter, this episode offers practical strategies for simplifying your business operations. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by managing too many platforms, this episode is for you. Learn how to streamline your systems to save money and reclaim your time. Ready to transform your own systems? Check out my Sustainable Systems School at coachellyn.com/systems to get started!

Keywords

• System Optimization

• Save Money

• Time Management

• Business Efficiency

• Cost Reduction

• Streamlining Systems

• Workflow Improvement

• Productivity Tips

• Sustainable Systems

• System Integration

Key Takeaways

• Learn how I saved over $1,000 annually by consolidating my business tools.

• Discover practical steps to streamline your systems and reduce costs.

• Understand the benefits of minimizing mental clutter and managing fewer platforms.

• Get insights into specific tools and strategies that can simplify your business operations.

Need help? Want to streamline your systems like I did? Check out my Sustainable Systems School at coachellyn.com/systems for actionable tips and strategies..

TRANSCRIPT:

Today on the Burnout Proof Podcast, we're gonna be talking about how I streamlined my systems and saved hundreds of dollars per month. Let's do it.

Hey there and welcome back to the Burnout Proof Podcast, where we're all about helping you build the mindsets, habits, and behaviors to burnout proof your life. My name's Ellen, and if you're a busy, overwhelmed Enneagram three achiever like I was, who is sick and tired of letting work run your life, you're at the right place here on burnout Proof. I'm committed to giving you simple no BS episodes that help you work less, live more, heal from your hustle and take back your life from burnout. Let's do this. Hello my friend, and welcome back to another kick new episode of the Burnout Per podcast. We are gonna be continuing a conversation about systems today and I wanna paint a picture for how much money I saved when I streamlined my systems. I'm gonna talk to you about some of the applications I've used in the past, some of the things that I've switched to and give you literally down to the dollar amount what it has saved me.

But I really wanna emphasize as we talk about this, that this is not just about the money savings. I mean, if we are entrepreneurs, obviously saving money in terms of our operating cost is important. We want to be able to sustain ourselves and financially is a big component of that. But we are not just talking about finances when we talk about this. I'm also talking about saving us time and mental capacity as well. There are so many reasons why streamlining my systems have saved me in my business and I'm gonna really paint the picture for you today and give you explicit ways in which I've streamlined from the apps I used to use in the past, the software I used to use in the past to what I use now. So let's jump into this, but before we do, let me tell you where I was at a year ago.

So a year ago I was really looking at what I was spending money on in my business and I started to realize kind of in the same way I did when I moved a little over, I guess, was that a year ago now? That was actually like a year and a half ago now. But I did something very similar in my business to what I did in my personal life and looking at my expenses in my personal life. When I was contemplating downsizing to a studio, one of the things that I was kind of thinking about and telling myself is, you know, I have this room that is where my, you know, all my clothes are and where my bed is, and I literally am only ever in that room when I am unconscious. It felt so silly to me to be paying so much money for the square footage of having that room and the only time I would ever be in there, I was literally sleeping, I was unconscious.

Well, it was kind of the same thing when I looked at my business expenses about a year ago now. I looked at what I was spending money on in my business, some of the applications that I was using, and I was just like, this is silly. I could be doing this for so much less expense. And in a lot of ways it almost streamlines things for my clients as well as for me. So let me break down some of the applications that I used to use, what I used to pay for them, what my total yearly costs are for my operating expenses in my business. And I will say, when I say operating expenses in my business, what I am talking about is I'm talking about the applications and software I use to literally run the fundamentals of my business. I'm not gonna necessarily be going into the nitty gritty about some of the kind of superfluous apps that I used, the apps that are nice to have.

I'm gonna be really focusing on the necessary tools that I used to run my business, what I used in the past, what I was paying, and why some of these switches literally saved me. I literally, I'm gonna run the numbers with you today. It saves me over a thousand dollars every single year. So let's dive into this. I actually have a really, really good indicator of what systems I used to do because in February, 2003, which I know is actually more like a year and a half ago now, in February, 2003, I posted something on my Instagram about the apps that keep my business running. I used practice do for client work, I use Squarespace for my website, which I still use, but I'm gonna talk you through some of the ways that it's different. Now I use Notion for my task projects and content because duh, I've been using Notion for like two or three years now.

I use um, I use Zapier for behind the scenes automations, which I still use. I used Mighty Networks, which actually at that time I had switched to Circle. I didn't use Mighty Networks anymore. I used Circle. So for my community in my courses and I used something called Meet Edgar for social media and content management. If you know me at all, you know that I am a big fan of, if you can't delegate to another human delegate to a va, sometimes it's actually easier to delegate to technology. So a lot of the things people might hire out to a va, I find ways to do using systems I use find ways to do using online tools and systems as opposed to hiring it out to somebody. Because for me, I want my business to be able to operate with as few people as possible. That is just how I prefer to run my business.

You might be different, that's totally fine, but those were the apps that I used initially. So let's kind of break each of them down and talk through the costs for each of them. So Squarespace, let's start there. Squarespace, I've been on Squarespace to run my business since 2015. Now if you are a product based business, probably wouldn't fully recommend spare Squarespace. But if you are a business that has a diversity of offerings, you do some digital products, you have some courses, you do some services, I love Squarespace. I think it works well for um, businesses that have multiple different things that they sell and multiple different services that they provide. Now with Squarespace, I do have a slightly upgraded Squarespace website. Again, I've been on it since 2015, which is nuts. Um, but I have an upgraded version of Squarespace. So I pay about $588 a year for Squarespace.

That breaks down to about 50 bucks a month. And I use this one because I have some upgraded features on my Squarespace website and I want a store and I want, you know, various other features of the Squarespace website. If you have any questions for me about the different payment plans and what my experience has been like on those different payment plans with Squarespace. Hit me up on Instagram. Again, I'm at Coach Ellen, E-L-L-Y-N. I'm happy to answer questions. I love Squarespace. I've been on it for forever, but I pay $588 per year for my website as of a year and a half ago. That was literally all I used Squarespace for, was just for hosting my website. And so then the next thing that I use in terms of apps and tools to run my business is I used a year and a half ago this service called practice.do.

Now practice was a kind of a cool idea though they're a relatively young company when I was using them, I'm not sure what they're like now. There were some glitches, but ultimately what practice was meant to do is for people who had clients and served clients practice was meant to be a place for you to capture leads, to do invoices, but also was meant to kind of be a client management system in the sense that you could chat with your clients, you could send them tools and resources all within this application. I thought it was kind of nifty. I used it for a while, but ultimately, I'll tell you what, I switched to practice. I actually think I paid slightly less for it when I was using it before, but as of now, practice costs about $500 a year. I think it was more like 3 50, 400 when I was using it.

I think their costs have gone up, but that was about $500, uh, three 50, $400 a year. I'll use my old prices instead of the new prices. So that was for practice, that was kind of the client management and client services part of my business. Then I use Notion for tasks, um, tasks, projects, content generation or content kind of management. I use Notion for that and notion, God, God I love Notion. Notion is literally 48 bucks a year for the personal plan. I do not have any, you know, VAs or anything like that that need access to my notion. So I just use the personal plan and it's $48 a year for Notion. I also don't upgrade. My notion I did at one point, but I don't upgrade my notion anymore to include like the AI features chat. GPT works just fine. So I don't really feel the need to pay for anything beyond just the personal $48 a year plan.

So that's the notion costs. And then I used Circle, I used Mighty Networks before, but I switched to Circle 'cause it was a slight cost savings, but this was one of my bus biggest expenses. I used Circle to run my community to host all of my courses. That was what Circle's function was for me. And Circle cost $99 a month with worked, which worked out to almost $1,200 every single year. That was by far my bus biggest expense. I liked Circle, but ultimately I feel like, and I had bad experiences with this in the past where if you ask your clients to go to some other website other than a website they frequent like Facebook or some other social media applications, they're less likely to use your community. And that's what I found. I found that I was paying, you know, a hundred bucks a month for this application that my client, that my clients and my members didn't check into very much.

And I was really paying for the ability to live stream and communicate directly with them, but they weren't actually on that application. So that ended up being a massive expense that I didn't really feel like was paying off in any substantial way. So that was Circle. And then the last tool I used that was a big aspect of me managing my business or actually not, this is not the last tool I used, but the next tool I used was I used something called Meet Edgar. So Meet Edgar is a social media and content management and posting platform. You upload stuff into Meet Edgar and it automatically posts for you so you don't have to worry about posting so religiously and Meet Edgar worked out to about $300 a year. So of everything we've talked about so far, and I'm, again, I'm really focusing on the necessities right now.

Squarespace was $588, notion was 48. Um, and then my, uh, my circle was $1,200 a year. Meat Edgar was 300 and practice was 400. So those were the main platforms I used. But in addition to that I used Canva for making like digital assets for my business. Um, I used Zoom for obviously Zoom calls. Um, I used a platform called Try Interact, which was for my quizzes. Um, and then I also used Zapier for automations and flow desks, which I think I've already talked about Zapier, I can't remember. But I also used flow desks for my email marketing. Now together those things cost, let's see, I'm kind of trying to do math in my head as I do this. So roughly 600, 800, so about a thousand dollars for those five things. So in total, for all of these different systems I am talking about I was paying about $3,600 a year for all of these different platforms and tools.

As I've already said, it's not just about the cost, it was about the fact that I personally was spreading myself thin over all of these different platforms. I was checking Squarespace for one thing. I was checking Notion for another, I was using Canva and using Zoom though admittedly was Zoom. There's really not much to it other than launching it on your computer. Um, I was using these quizzes here. I was using Zapier. I had to go to Flow Desk to send emails and then I had to check Circle to communicate with my clients. And then I was checking into Meet Edgar and practice like I was actually using two different platforms to communicate with clients between Circle and using practice. So it wasn't just the cost, it was the fact that I was spread thin amongst all of these apps. Like I had to have all of these different things pinned to my computer to really be able to go about my day in my business and I didn't really like that.

So what I decided to do ultimately was I tr decided to consolidate and as I started playing with all, with all the numbers, I realized how much consolidating my systems down was gonna save me money. The biggest point of consolidation that I did is I got rid of Circle and I moved all of my community courses, memberships, et cetera, onto Squarespace because Squarespace actually has something called a digital products feature, which not only can you use to sell digital products you can use to sell access to memberships to sell courses, the courses thing is relatively new, but I love, love it, like basically everything that I was using Circle for and paying $1,200 a year for, I was able to do inside of practice for $240. That right there saves me a thousand dollars every single year. And it cut one platform out of my, you know, suite of software that I was using to run my business.

It cut time out from me having to hop to this other website. And same for my clients as well. They know how, no longer have to remember this other website, they just can go to my website, they can just go to coach ellen.com. So that was one big thing I did. Um, the next big thing I did is I switched off of practice. So again, practice was the one I was using for client management and client communication. And what I did here is I switched to, again, I wanted to consolidate and save money. I switched to Squarespace scheduling, Squarespace scheduling. I could then use to set up packages for clients, send invoices to clients, schedule with my clients, all of the features that practice was used for, I could use Squarespace scheduling for, and it saved me about 150 bucks every year, which that one isn't as big of a ticket, but again, in the grand scheme of things, that's, that's some nice cost savings.

The next thing I switched to, which admittedly actually costs a teeny bit more, but again, it's not just about cost saving, it's about consolidating, was getting off a flow desk. Now I mentioned that I was paying about $240 a month for Flow Desk. That was actually because I am amazing and I found like a discount code on somebody's website. Now typically Flow desks actually costs almost 40 bucks a month. So I would've been paying if I didn't have this little, um, if I didn't have this discount code, I would've been paying almost $500 every month to use flow desks. And a lot of people are paying that much every month to use flow desks and I just don't think having a pretty email interface is quite worth that. So I instead again, consolidated and switched to Squarespace Marketing. Squarespace marketing costs $288 a year and for most of the people who are using Flow Desk, they're paying almost $500 a year.

So again, that saves almost $250 right there. So of the three things that I have talked about so far, getting off of Circle, um, getting off of Flow Desk and getting off of practice, I'm saving almost $1,500 a year by switching three of my tools to just be on Squarespace. And I'm cutting three websites that I would have to access out of my, you know, software suite that I'm using to operate my business. So now instead of being on Squarespace Flow desks, practice and Circle, I'm just on Squarespace, it simplifies things and again, saved me $1,500 every single year. Now I can do probably 85% of the things that I need to do in my business just off of two platforms off of Squarespace, off of Notion, I moved all of my customer support and all my client portals into Notion as well. So I still get the same functionality, but it simplifies it and it consolidates it.

I still use Zapier. I swapped out using MeetEdgar for something called Notion Social, which again streamlines things for me even though the cost is the same because of the fact that now my systems are all, like all of my content management is just from notion and Notion Social pulls everything from my Notion system. So it makes it super, super easy. I'm still working on cutting out some additional costs. I am considering canceling Canva, especially since they announced their price increases. I've contemplated trying to find another solution that's cheaper than Zoom. Those Zoom is not a big expense. And then I've also contemplated switching off of using Try Interact for my quizzes and cutting down some costs elsewhere. So ultimately I'm saving like $1,200 every single year in cost savings and it's cutting down on tons of time in terms of having to constantly switch back and forth between platforms.

It's saving me on management times. Uh, I just have to do everything on Squarespace and Notion now, and it has made things so, so, so much simpler in my business. I mean, ultimately my costs now for operating my business are about $200 a month, just a little bit more than $200 a month, which is pretty good in my opinion, considering I used to be paying almost a hundred bucks a month just for one service and one platform. It gives me so much peace of mind too that I can constantly look for new ways to save and new ways to do things because I have consolidated my systems and my costs more money in my pocket means my business is more sustainable, which means I am happier at this point. I have used so many different platforms across the internet to run my business over the five years that I've been in business, 10 years that I've been dabbling.

And I fully believe that this is one of the best ways that we can really burn out proof our businesses and burnout proof our lives, is by streamlining things down. It saves you money, it saves you time, it saves you mental capacity. And I'm a huge proponent of it, which is why I am launching very soon my Sustainable Systems School. Sustainable Systems School is gonna teach you exactly how to streamline your systems down exactly like this. What are some of the automations you might need, how to put those together, so on and so forth, to really utilize Notion in the best way you possibly can to create sustainable systems for your life and for your business. You do not need to be a business owner to benefit from Sustainable Systems School. Really what I'm gonna show you is how to build systems that are not only consolidated, but that in and of themselves are easy to maintain, easy to sustain and support you easily and seamlessly through all of the seasons, the ebbs and flows, and the growth that you're gonna experience over your life and over your career.

Head on over to coach ellen.com/systems to learn more. We're not quite live yet, but we will be very soon. And if you've got any questions about if Sustainable Systems is gonna be the correct program for you, head on over to Instagram, shoot me a DM at Coach Ellen. I am super excited for this program to come out and even more excited for you to streamline your systems in the exact same way I did with Notion. With that, my friend, thank you so much for being here. I know this has been a very systems heavy month, but shoot, we're gearing up for something really exciting that I think is gonna have a massive impact on your life. So thank you once again so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you next time. Bye.