Productive Procrastination

Two years ago, if a small agency told me they wanted to set up a project management tool, build out automations, maybe add a client portal... I'd have leaned right in.

That was the work I came up doing. I got brought into agencies at 15, 20 people where everything was kept in a spreadsheet or one person’s memory, and I'd think, “I wish someone had set this up for them sooner”.

I don't think that anymore.

Because once I started working with founders earlier, at the smaller sizes, I kept noticing the same thing.

The ones who wanted to implement these systems sooner seemed obsessed with building the perfect setup. They’d want to tinker with a lot of different options or tell me about a new tool they hear of. And the more I sat in those conversations, the more I realized a lot of it was productive procrastination.

They were procrastinating, but on something you can write down at the end of the day and call productive. “It was research. It was testing. It was due diligence.”

You know what most of them didn't have? A reliable way to get clients.

They were still living in the feast-or-famine cycle, no clear pipeline, no real growth system. But we'd be spending all this energy building infrastructure for a business that didn't have enough coming in the front door to need it yet.

There's a moment where that type of infrastructure matters. If quality is slipping fast and you're scared you'll lose the clients you already have, then yes, go fix that. But if you're not there, I think the focus has to be on growth systems and making sure you have a clear strategy that these systems are supporting.

That's what keeps the business alive.

In all honesty, I have to watch this in myself too. I love geeking out about cool tools. I mean I keep up with product news FOR FUN.

In previous iterations of our infrastructure, I used software I thought was cool every chance I had. But over the years I’ve redesigned how I run things. For example, our own growth systems.

At one point my whole content marketing system was a Google Doc and Google Calendar. That’s it.

I didn't build the most sophisticated thing I could. I couldn’t keep up with managing a system like that on my own anyway. So I developed a clear strategy to follow, and asked myself “what’s the most basic system I can set up that will help me implement this strategy?”.

I color-coded everything, had a few drop-downs using Google’s Smart Chips, and a tab for each channel. It felt like a notebook.

And because there was almost no friction, I actually used it. 👏

A "better" tool I dreaded opening would've gotten me nothing. Simple-and-used beats sophisticated-and-abandoned.

What's one system you've been meaning to "finally set up properly" that you could honestly run on a Google Doc for now?

- Valentina

💚 Full service ops for creative agencies.
Focus on big ideas, not busywork.