There will be moments in your life when you realise, more suddenly than not, just how much information we store in our heads.

I experienced this earlier in the year when my husband was hospitalised and I had to take over the running of the whole house and life. Very quickly I realised that we did not have things organised and documented as well as we could have been.

Suddenly, I had to find information, work out how to do things and make decisions about things that I either did not make before or had very little involvement in.

I even had to scramble around trying to find details or piece together how to do things, etc.

So not only was I in the midst of recognising that my relationship with music had changed during this period, I also became much more aware of how much information my husband and I carried in our heads.

It was all well and good when we were both there, having our own routines and responsibilities and knowing where to find certain things. But we did not make it a habit of sharing or documenting the information and ways we did what we did.

All of this made me realise how easy it is to assume the other person knows where things are, or knows enough to find out what needs doing and how.

That is, until one of us isn’t available and the other has to figure it all out.

And that got me pondering – isn’t this something that can happen in business, too?!

The business earworm

We all know this situation: a song gets stuck in your head and just won’t go away?!

You know the one. It starts playing first thing in the morning, follows you around all day and pops up again just when you thought you’d managed to get rid of it and out of your head for good.

Now I’d like you to imagine that instead of one catchy tune, there is an entire playlist of reminders and information playing in your head.

Client workflows, invoicing and follow-ups, website updates, email replies, proposals, internal documents… and I am sure there is much more!

Oh yes! There is that thing you’ve been meaning to get around to for the last three weeks.

Welcome to the business earworm!

We all know that running a business alone means we wear several hats. You are the person making decisions, looking after your clients, content, admin and the rest, whatever else you need to do to keep your business running.

And somewhere along the way, you have become the one person who remembers absolutely everything.

You know all about your clients, where you save your documents, how to write content, update your website… you can add to the list.

I bet it’s all in your head.

And whilst knowing your business inside out is obviously a good thing, I do wonder how much of it we actually need to keep in our heads. There’s knowing how things work, and then there’s having to remember every single little detail.

Especially when life outside your business starts asking more of you.

When everything is playing at once

I want you to imagine this: five different songs playing at once.

You might recognise bits and pieces, but overall it would sound awful and perhaps give you a headache. Your attention keeps jumping from one sound to the next and eventually becomes a noise you can hardly stand.

I reckon that in business it can work much the same way.

You might start off strong by focusing on your next blog post, then suddenly remember there is an invoice that needs to be paid. Then a notification of a client email pops up. And then you spot another task on your to-do list you wrote the day before.

And before you know it, you’ve spent an hour moving between tasks without really finishing anything.

And it’s not as if you don’t know what you’re doing. Far from it. You know your business, you know your clients and you know what needs to be done. But sometimes there’s just so much going on that you don’t know which thing to tackle first.

Everything feels important, and knowing where to start can become another task in itself.

And throw responsibilities outside your business into the mix, and that mental playlist can become rather exhausting.

Perhaps you’re supporting ageing parents, caring for a family member, managing your own health or juggling other family responsibilities.

As we get older, life can become a little more complicated. Our priorities change, our responsibilities shift and sometimes our available time and energy aren’t quite what they used to be.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We might simply want to spend more time doing things outside work, have more flexibility or make room for other things that matter to us.

But have you ever stopped to consider whether the way you’re currently running your business still works for the life you’re living now?

When life gets in the way of business

Here’s another question I would like you to ponder on.

What if you needed to step away from your business for a few days? Could someone else take over where you left off?

I’m not talking about an emergency or something else dramatic, but life being life and having the habit of throwing the unexpected our way.

You might become unwell, have to care for someone, there might be family responsibilities to attend to or you just need to take a day off for yourself.

Be honest, could you take that time off in the first place, without it affecting your business too much?

And then, would someone know how to follow up with a new enquiry? Could they find the information needed to respond to a client? Would they know where important documents are stored or what needs to happen next?

Or would they have to contact you every five minutes because all the answers are tucked away somewhere in your head?

This isn’t about having folder after folder with workflows and documenting every tiny detail of your business or creating a mountain of procedures nobody will ever read.

It’s really about making sure the important stuff is somewhere other than your head. So that you aren’t the only person who knows how things work, and you don’t have to be available every minute of every day.

And it isn’t only about someone else being able to step in. It’s also about making your own working life easier.

Because here’s what I believe:

Your business should be able to support the life you’re living NOW, not become another thing that demands you hold everything together.

We can’t always predict what life will throw our way. But we can look at how we’re currently doing things and ask ourselves whether there might be a better way.

Perhaps the way you organised your business five or ten years ago no longer works for you. Maybe you’ve taken on more responsibilities outside work, or simply don’t want to spend quite as much time keeping all the moving parts together.

And that’s okay. Your business is allowed to change as your life changes, too.

Untangling the business playlist

Now, this is where I get a little excited!

I really enjoy getting stuck into a jumble of thoughts, ideas, tasks and information with someone. You know, when there’s so much going on that you don’t quite know where to begin?

Sometimes just talking it through and getting everything out in the open can make a difference. And then I start asking questions. Lots of questions, actually!

What are you trying to achieve here? Why are you doing it this way? Is there an easier way? And do you actually need to keep doing this at all?

Because sometimes the thing you think needs fixing isn’t necessarily the real problem. There might be something else going on underneath it.

Perhaps a process is more complicated than it needs to be. Maybe information is scattered across several places, or you’re spending time doing something manually that could be made much easier.

Or perhaps you know something isn’t working quite as it should, but you can’t quite put your finger on what needs to change.

And that’s often where having someone else look at things with you can help. A fresh pair of eyes, someone to bounce ideas off and help you work through it all.

It’s not necessarily about introducing another tool or creating a complicated new system. Sometimes it’s about looking at what you’re already doing and asking whether there’s a better way.

I really enjoy that process of turning what initially feels like a rather chaotic collection of thoughts and tasks into something clearer and more manageable.

Making a little more room in your head

The good news is that you don’t need a huge business makeover to start making a difference.

Sometimes, a few small changes can take a surprising amount of pressure off.

Give your information a home.

Instead of having documents scattered across your computer, email inbox, cloud storage and random folders, decide where important information should live.

It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just needs to make sense to you, and you need to be able to find things again.

And be able to share it with others, too.

Write down the things you do repeatedly.

Think about the tasks you do regularly. What happens when someone makes an enquiry? What do you do when a new client comes on board? What steps do you follow when sending an invoice?

You don’t need a 20-page manual. A simple list of steps can be enough to help you, or someone else, understand what needs to happen.

And whilst you’re doing that, you might even spot something that could be done differently or made easier.

Stop relying on your memory for every reminder.

Use a calendar, task manager or another tool you already have to keep track of follow-ups, deadlines and important dates.

The aim isn’t to create another system you have to spend hours maintaining. It’s to give your brain a break from being the only reminder service available.

Make things understandable to someone else.

When you save a document or write down a process, ask yourself whether someone else would understand it without needing you to explain everything.

A folder full of files called ‘New version’, ‘Final version’ and ‘Final version 2’ might make perfect sense to you.

Someone else? I don’t think so.

A little thought around naming, structure and where things are stored can make a big difference.

And if you’re looking at all of this and wondering where on earth to start, don’t try to tackle everything at once.

Pick one area that’s causing you the most frustration and start there.

You don’t have to be the entire orchestra

There’s nothing wrong with being hands-on in your business. It’s yours, after all, and you probably enjoy many of the things you do.

But being the person who runs the business doesn’t mean you have to be the person who remembers, manages and holds every single detail together.

Good organisation isn’t about controlling everything. It’s about making things easier to manage, easier to find and easier for someone else to pick up when needed.

And perhaps most importantly, it’s about recognising that your business needs to work for the life you’re living now. Not the life you had five or ten years ago, or the one you think you should still be able to manage.

Maybe you need to simplify a few processes, get information out of your head and somewhere more accessible, or have someone help you work through all those moving parts.

You don’t have to figure it all out on your own.

So, if your business currently sounds like an endless playlist of reminders playing on repeat, perhaps it’s time to get a few of those tracks out of your head and somewhere more useful.

You don’t need to remember everything.

And you certainly don’t need another business earworm keeping you awake at night.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is turn down the mental noise, untangle a few things and give yourself a little room to think.