Ep 135: Stop Forcing Perfect Systems
Why the Path of Least Resistance Works Better for Creative Teams
SUMMARY
You don't need the perfect system. You need a system that works for you where you are right now. When implementing new systems, the further you and your team have to reach outside of your current habits, the less likely you are to use them.
After years of helping creative professionals build better systems, I've discovered something counterintuitive: the best systems aren't the most sophisticated ones—they're the ones your team will actually use tomorrow morning.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
⚡️ Meet systems where habits are: The gap between current habits and new systems determines adoption success—smaller gaps mean better results
⚡️ Start with Point B, not Point E: Create systems one step away from current practice, not five steps away from ideal state
⚡️ Gradual always beats overwhelming: Layer new systems gradually over time rather than launching everything at once
NOTABLE QUOTES
💬 "You don't need the perfect system. You need a system that works for you where you are right now."
💬 "The best system isn't the most sophisticated one. It's the one that your team is actually going to use tomorrow morning."
💬 "If you can't explain it on a napkin, then it's too complex of a system."
EPISODE RESOURCES
Books Mentioned:
Atomic Habits by James Clear - Building systems through small incremental changes
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - Minimum viable product applies to systems too
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron - Morning Pages journaling practice
Free Resources:
Visit dustinpead.com/free to download frameworks and templates, including:
DO vs DUE Framework
12-Month Outlook Planning Tool
Implementation guides and worksheets
TRANSCRIPT
You know what I've learned after years of helping creatives build better systems? The one area even the most organized creatives still wing it? Their money. And I get it. You don't start your business to become an accountant or a bookkeeper, right? You started it to create amazing work. But here's the reality: financial chaos will kill your creativity faster than any other kind of overwhelm. And that's why I love what The Core Group does.
They're not your typical accountants. They only work with creatives like us and they understand that you need systems that work with your brain, not against it. Their Profit First approach flips everything you think you know about business finances. Instead of paying everyone else first and hoping that there's something left for you, you pay yourself first and build your business around that. They've got three service levels depending on where you're at in your journey, from basic tax support all the way up to full CFO partnership, which is what I use and it's amazing. Stop letting money stress steal your creative energy. Check out coregroupus.com and finally get the financial systems your creative business deserves.
You don't need the perfect system. You need a system that works for you where you are right now. When implementing new systems, the further you and your team have to reach outside of your current habits, the less likely you are to use them. So today we're talking about the path of least resistance and why the best systems meet you where you are. Let's get into it.
Creatives from chaos to clarity. Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast for creative professionals who want to scale their business without sacrificing their sanity. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative consultant for agencies, and I help professionals know themselves, their process, and their teams so they can move from chaos to clarity. Whether you're a freelancer, agency owner, or leading a creative team, this show is about building systems that free your creativity instead of constraining it. So let's dive in.
You know, I've always wanted to be more disciplined in journaling and I've tried all kinds of different paper notebooks and different approaches. I've left notebooks by the bed to encourage daily use. Nothing stuck no matter what I did to remind myself. But I realized about a year or two ago that I really love gadgets and tech. So why not marry those with this desire to journal more? And so I bought a reMarkable digital notepad and it finally aligned with who I actually am, not who I thought I should be. Like I thought, if I'm gonna journal, I gotta be a paper person, right?
But now I journal most weekdays consistently. We've talked about it on this show that I use the Morning Pages from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. And being able to do that first thing in the morning really sets my mind free from all the overthinking and be able to focus on what's in front of me for that particular day and that season of life. So the lesson is that the system worked, right? It's not the ideal journaling system. This was the system that matched my actual preferences and habits. I knew if I had that piece of tech that I bought and paid money for, that I was gonna use it. So I met myself where I was instead of having to live in the "where I should be"—this traditional paper journaling. I said, you know what? I love tech, let's see if this works. And so I tried it and it worked.
So this principle here sounds so trivial, but it does apply to every system that we implement in our creative businesses. And what I'm talking about specifically here is this idea of the path of least resistance, which is nothing new. That concept has been around for a long, long time. And anytime we're trying to create new habits, the path of least resistance comes up somewhere along that journey.
So I want to talk about the gap between your current habits and a new system that determines the adoption success. What I've seen time and time again, myself and other creatives like us, is that these typical best practices that we pick up—we're constantly curating content, which is a great habit. Problem is when we pick up those habits and we learn about those things, we go, "Oh, I should do that." And that thing is so far out of reach. So we just go like, I tried to reach for it, but my arm is only but so long and it's twice as far away as my arm can reach. And so we try and try, and we talked about this in a previous episode about just kind of where your ideas—bring your ideas to you. This is the same concept. We're just talking about bringing these new systems to you.
The industry standards or whatever you see on social media doesn't account for you and your team's unique patterns. So what works for a 50-person agency may not work for a team of five. The wider that gap, the more friction in adoption. I hear from creative agencies all the time that say, "We've tried to implement new systems and people just don't use them." Well, the reason they're not using them is because they're too far out of reach.
Your team is sitting at Point A, and you created a system that's at Point E and you're trying to get them to go through B, C, and D just to use your system. What you need to do instead is, if your team is at Point A, create a system that's at Point B—the next natural step that's in front of them. That is the path of least resistance and that will get you more results for these new systems that you're wanting to implement.
The reason this works is because when I was researching change management, I found out that people need between seven and ten touch points with a new behavior before it becomes a habit. The same is said often of our sales—that people need seven to ten interaction points with us before they're willing actually to buy from us. Same is true with these new habits. And if you're implementing new systems, it's exactly what it is. I know it might sound like I'm talking new year forming new habits, but it's really more about implementing a new system as you're trying to create a new habit within your team. And so they need lots of touch points in order to become familiar with that new behavior.
If they're at Point A, they can touch Point B by reaching out and touching it, but they can't reach out and touch Point E. So again, the further from the current behavior, the more touch points are required. And we want to be able to implement the system with ease. So we're going to go from A to B, not from A to E. And that's why most teams give up before hitting the threshold—it's too far away from where they are.
So let's talk about meeting your team where they are. Successful system implementation starts with understanding your current reality, not some ideal state of where you think you might be. This is why talking to your team in these one-on-ones and these group gatherings is super important to really find out what are people actually doing, not what they're supposed to be doing, but what are they actually doing from a day to day?
You may have a system that is like, "Hey, it works great when we use it," but we constantly have to readjust people to use it. So if they're not using it, then what are they using? Find out what they're naturally gravitating towards. Which tools do they naturally gravitate towards? That'll help you understand how to bring the system to them. What are some communication patterns that already exist? How can you use the implementation or the rollout of this new system or software or whatever it is, process—how can you bring that into a communication pattern that already exists?
When I roll out a new system or process with agencies that I work with, we usually will do that inside of a meeting that they already have. We're not going to schedule this other meeting because now you've already taken up more of their time with another meeting and they're already mad about whatever you're going to talk about. And so they don't want to—they're already shut down to whatever the new idea is. But you want to bring it to where they are, same with communication.
Knowing where you're at now can also help you identify the existing pain points that you may not be aware of. And so if you really kind of dissect your situation with you or your team, no matter how big or small the team is, understand that current reality, then you can start to pinpoint: that's a pain point, that's a pain point, that's a pain point. And then you bring that new system to those pain points. If you scrape your arm and you go to put a bandaid on, you don't put the bandaid next to the wound, you put it on the wound. You're bringing it to the pain point. You're bringing the solution to the pain point. And that's exactly what we're talking about here.
So once you've identified those pain points, try to map out the smallest viable change. Identify one element that's closest to the current practice from your new system and bring that to that old way of doing things. Say, "Look, we're not asking you to change everything. We're bringing this to where you are, not expecting you to go over leaps and bounds to get to where the solution is that we're implementing."
And that comes with not over-complicating it. You need to be able to show people who are visual learners and visual thinkers and list makers and morning people and afternoon people—you need to kind of bring it to where they are, but don't over-complicate it. Simplify, simplify, simplify. If you can't explain it on a napkin, then it's too complex of a system.
So let's say we're implementing a new project management system. Let me just kind of give you a timeline here of how to roll this out simply and bring it to where you are. So you identified all the areas where their current pain points are at, and you're gonna bring this solution to them. And the very first thing you're gonna do is just create a simple, basic task list of the things that they already do. We're not adding new things. We're just creating a simple task list. Then after that, we'll add in our DUE dates—when the things are actually DUE—and then we'll put in our DO dates, and then we'll start implementing project templates, and we're kind of doing things a little bit at a time.
This can span—implementation can span over a long period of time. It doesn't have to be all at once, because gradual adoption beats an overwhelming launch every single time.
A way to make these new systems stick as well is when you start to see success from you and your team, you need to celebrate that success, because we know that what gets celebrated gets repeated. So it's highlighting the fact of like, "Hey, you see how we went from A to B and how great that was? Imagine if we kept going further down the line from B to C, how much greater that would be." And you start to build that confidence with each layer. Natural momentum begins to develop within your team and resistance begins to go down.
Remember your new systems should be simple and sustainable. They don't need to be overly complex and sophisticated. That kind of stuff will get abandoned because it's too far out of reach. The best systems are the ones that become invisible when you use them. It's not about the actual tool. It's about the outcome. And if your team has to think too hard about the system, it's way too complex. Friction in the system means friction in adoption, which means abandoned system.
So if you're wondering why you're implementing systems that your team isn't grasping and using the way that you envision they would, it's because there's too much friction in the system, which equals too much friction in the adoption, which means they're going to bail—they're not going to use it.
So before you implement these systems and you're doing the reality check of where you're at right now, I also want you to ask who is going to use this system? Also, who is going to maintain this system? Because those people, those unique people, those unique creatives on your team—they're gonna be the ones that are gonna have to figure it out on how to use it. So if you understand that this person is a thinker, then give them time to think. If you understand that this person is a visual learner, then give them the visual aids needed in order to be able to use the tool. Bring it to them.
So before you implement any new system, maybe you're thinking right now about implementing a new system on your team, or maybe you're gearing up for it in the new year. Here's the number one thing you need to do: you have to audit your current reality. Document what your team is actually doing right now, not what they should do, what they are doing. Which tools are they already using daily? If there's something that has an integration with it, perfect. So like when we started using Slack with our team and our clients, there's tons of integrations out there with Slack for communication tools. It works with Asana and it works with Google Drive and it works with all these different things already. So we're bringing that in to a system that they already use.
After you find their current reality, identify what step B is. You're at Point A. What is Point B? That's the smallest gap between the current habits and the new system that you are considering. It's the minimal change that you can make that will add value and create value in this new system that you're trying to implement. So you start with that one small change and then the last thing is just to layer it out gradually. Don't rush new systems. Don't roll out the whole system all at once. You can roll it out in phases and parts, but paint the picture full, sure. But just go, "This is where we're going right now. We're not worried about Point E. We're just worried about getting from Point A to Point B."
So a few books to consider on this topic that you should definitely check out: Atomic Habits by James Clear, amazing book—building systems through small incremental changes and habits. Also The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. It's a minimum viable product—the MVP applies to systems too.
So here's what I want you to remember: The best system isn't the most sophisticated one. It's the one that your team is actually going to use tomorrow morning. So stop trying to force yourself and your team to reach for ideal systems that are miles away from your current reality. Instead, build a bridge from where you are to where you want to be. Start simple. Layer gradually. Meet your people where they are.
The creative professionals who scale successfully—they aren't the ones with the fanciest systems. They are the ones with sustainable systems that grow alongside their team as they grow as well.
So if you want more resources to help you build systems that actually work, head to dustinpead.com/free and download any of my frameworks or templates that are available for you. And if you found this helpful, we would love for you to share it with another creative or agency who may be struggling with system implementation.
Next week, we're going to be talking about some systems as well. We're going to meet you where you are. We're going to talk about our 12-Month Outlook. I'm actually going to walk you through—this is a free template on my website called the 12-Month Outlook. As we gear for the new year, I'm going to walk through step by step on how to use this 12-Month Outlook. It's one of my most-used planning tools for myself and all clients that I work with. And I'm going to show you exactly how to use it to get clarity on your entire year.
So when you're planning for 2026, or you're just trying to get Q4 finalized and organized, this walkthrough is going to give you some practical frameworks that you can implement immediately. So don't miss that episode next week. We'll talk to you then on Creativity Made Easy. Have a great week.