Businesses: Area or own system

10-19 Concepts 14 Build your system
1

Hey there,
I’m new to the system and just dug through the workbook and Life-admin template.

I’m unsure how to setup my business. I’m a freelancer and work as a voice over artist and graphic designer, this year I’m about to give meditation exercises as a certified teacher and this is the setup I first came up with:

20-29 Business Admin
----21 Voice Over
-------21.00 System Management
-------21.01 Inbox
-------21.08 Archive
-------21.10 Marketing Material
-------21.11 Website
-------21.12 Print Products
-------21.13 Social Media
-------21.14 Newsletter
-------21.15 Blog Posts
-------21.20 Coachings, Education
-------21.21 Coaching A
-------21.22 …
-------21.60 Clients
-------21.61 Client A
--------- sub-folders
…
----22 Meditation
-------look above
-------22.40 Courses
-------22.41 Introduction Course
--------- sub-folders
----23 Graphic Design
-------look above
----29 Admin
-------41.01 Accounting
-------41.02 Tax Number and Documents
-------41.03 Finances

I left out 24-28 because maybe I’ll add a Podcast or other business projects. And I would still need to use sub-folders cause every client has multiple projects

But then I thought that maybe all those categories need there own area? Like
20-29 Voice Over
----21 Marketing Material
----22 Coaching, Education
----23 Clients
30-39 Meditation
…
----34 Courses
…
40-49 Graphic Design
…

and THEN I thought that I might not be a good idea cause it would just add another folder level to everything - and I would not know where to put the accounting folder (because tax wise all these businesses count as one).

I’m not sure. Maybe someone can help me decide :sweat_smile:

Edit: I just tried to make it even bigger and give Voice Over a complete system like:
10-19 Administration
20-29 Marketing Material
30-39 Clients

But this just didn’t feel right. Especially with clients where I definitely need more than 10 in the future.

3

Hey there. So I don’t think it needs its own system. I like how you’ve found commonality between the various businesses and given them a shared structure where you can. Great idea.

And it feels like each of those will be right at home in its own area. You can always ‘promote’ them to their own system if you have the need, but as a general rule less is more.

See this video if you haven’t already. TL;DR: aim for broader IDs that do more. If you can think of most of them ahead of time – like the ‘life admin’ pattern – and create fewer as time goes on, I think that’s what you should be aiming for.

1 Like
4

Thank you very much for the video! Just finished watching. The JD-System is super refreshing and will give all my documents finally a place where I will find them later on :grin:

I used the PARA System by Tiago Forte but it absolutely didn’t work for me. I was constantly looking for files in the wrong place. But now with that granular folder structure that sure won’t happen again.