I run a small, streamlined coaching business. But somehow, I’m using 13 different apps to keep it going. That doesn’t even include social media. Thirteen. That’s absurd.
And it’s not just the cost. It’s the constant nudging to optimize, automate, and scale. Every app promises to save me time—if I’ll just spend more time learning how to use it.
None of them are terribly expensive from a monthly budget standpoint, but when you have that many apps you just get nickeled and dimed to death.
More than the money though, I want my time back. I want to quit being hassled to spend more time “optimizing” these apps or watching free trainings and webinars to make them serve me better.
I want simplicity. And that my friends comes from subtraction!
It is the job of marketers and advertisers to attract us to spend more time and money with their products. But for me, and many entrepreneurs I know, we spend more time on dealing with our marketing, sales, and finance systems than we do actually executing our craft.
I want most of my workweek to be spent coaching, writing, and building cool things. But right now? Most of it goes to content, marketing, finance, and trying to remember which damn app does what.
That doesn’t include consulting work, jamming with the team on Starting Block, or any long form writing (I’m working on a new book)!
All of the applications I mentioned earlier require some amount of maintenance. They all have to be checked on at least weekly, if not daily to make sure everything’s running smoothly.
On top of that, I get weekly emails from all of them telling me I could be using them in such a way that would make my life easier, my revenue healthier, and all while I sleep.
You know what I’d like? I’d like to spend no more than 5 hours a week on these applications. I’d like to simplify my “tech stack” in such a way that I find myself bored and wondering what to do with my time.
So how can we simplify our our businesses (therefore simplifying our lives)? I have 3 guiding principles that I think can help:
- Do I use this app daily/weekly?
- Is this a must have or a nice to have?
- Marie Kondo Style: Does it spark joy in my life?
When I apply these principles to my tech stack I can already see a few things that are going to get cut. Canva, Kajabi, and Buffer. I don’t use them daily or weekly, they’re not a must have, and they DO NOT spark any joy in my life. Gone.
Again, it’s not the price of these things that are bothersome (although I do love a clean P&L), but the time and headspace they take up. So they’re cut!
I’m sure there are lots of other principles or filters you can come up with for your own business that would allow you to do some spring cleaning (or fall cleaning in this case).
- What can you subtract this week?
- What tools, tasks, or systems are costing more energy than they give?
What would your business look like if it were 30% simpler—but just as powerful?
Recommended Reading
- The One Thing by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan — Focus on just one highly impactful task at a time—and let everything else drop. It’s simplicity-meets-strategy.
- Slow Productivity by Cal Newport — A thoughtful push back against pseudo-productivity. Newport argues that doing fewer things, better is actually the key to sustainable, meaningful success.