It was 2019 and my life was falling apart

I want to share something a little more personal today…

It was 2019. I had moved from NYC to upstate New York to help open and run a small boutique hotel. We’d been open for about a year and a half and OMG I was burnt out. This was not the work-life balance I had moved out of the city for. It was long days, constant pressure, and the cherry on top? Every night I was going home to a marriage that was falling apart.

At the same time, I had an idea for a business. And, as I would bet you have felt before, it NEEDED to work. I needed it to make money, quickly because it was my out. My out to my burnt out work situation and the out to my marriage. 

But in that time, all of this together, the stress and chaos were unreal.

So I went back to what I knew, and honestly what soothes me: systems.

Order and structure had always been my anchor in hospitality, and they became my anchor again. I started to build more systems and organization into my business in hopes that it made the stress go away, or at the very least decrease.

And over time it started to work - It made things manageable and it made things start running sooo much more smoothly. It’s what allowed me to leave my full-time job. It’s what allowed me to make enough money to leave my marriage. And now, it’s exactly what I help my clients build in their own businesses.

The system I leaned on most now is the one tool that carried me through that season is Asana.

You can use any task management system you like. But Asana is the easiest and most user-friendly I’ve found.

But what I also found out is that the system only works if you actually use it (go figure). So I made a few customizations that turned Asana into a place I actually want to check every day.

I’m sharing them because I want your days to feel easier too.

1. I added some whimsy to my My Tasks sections
If I was going to look at this page every day, it needed to feel like mine. So I renamed and styled my sections to feel more inviting. Here’s how it looks now:

2. I use the calendar and tags to bring color into my big-picture planning
Color-coded tags on the calendar view let me see my month at a glance, so I know where my focus is going before the week even starts.

3. I forward every email that needs something from me into Asana
If an email needs action, it becomes a task. My inbox stays an inbox, not a to-do list, and nothing slips through the cracks.

These small changes made me excited to open the platform, so I actually checked it daily and stayed organized.

And the best part? When I started building a team, delegating was simple. Everything was already in one place, so handing off tasks and tracking them together felt seamless. 🙌

So now it’s your turn - if your business feels like an overwhelming ball of stress and chaos, I’d love to help. My Business Systems Audit looks at how your business is running today, where things are getting stuck, and what structure will bring you more ease.

You don’t have to hold it all together on your own. The right systems can do a lot of that holding for you.