If your software makes you tense, avoidant, or irrationally irritated, you’re not imagining it.

In this episode, I’m talking about why your software might be driving you crazy and what that has to do with your nervous system, not your intelligence or discipline. I see this all the time when I’m helping business owners choose and use tools, and the problem is rarely that they’re “bad at tech.”

Your nervous system experiences software as a place you enter, not just a tool you use. When that environment feels chaotic, unfamiliar, or misaligned, it quietly drains your energy, increases cognitive load, and pushes you out of flow.

In this episode, I explore how software can either support regulation or create friction, why daily tools feel easier than ones you only use occasionally, when software can help solve a problem and when it absolutely can’t, and how to tell whether the issue is the tool itself or the habit underneath it.

The right software shouldn’t make your business harder. It should make it easier to be consistent, supported, and in flow.

This is the Be More Business podcast, where wisdom and innovation merge to create a business that supports the life you want to live.

Here's your host, entrepreneurial, wise woman and cyber sorceress, Kimberly Beer.

Let's talk about your nervous system on software.

And I am talking about the software on your computer, not the software in your brain.

So part of my life is being a cyber sorceress, and that means I spend a lot of time in a role as tech support and a great deal of my life in helping people choose the right software to fit their business.

It's part of what I do, and it's actually one of my favorite, favorite things to do is to find a good software solution for an individual who wants to solve a problem or even better, create a new avenue for income or a resource in their business.

And so I spend a lot of time with people who get very frustrated with software.

So I can tell you your software and your nervous system really need to have a good relationship.

And I want to spend a little time in this episode giving you some thoughts around software in your nervous system and how you can create a better partnership between the two of them.

And we're going to talk about firing software that really doesn't work for you or choosing software that does work for you, I guess, would be another way to think about that.

So let's dive in.

So the first thing I wanted you to consider is you experience your nervous system, in particular, experience software as a place more than a thing.

So it feels very much like a place.

It actually keys into the part of your neurobiology that reads maps and understands how you wander in space.

Language also does that as well.

It utilizes those centers in your brain physically that have to do with place and recognizing landmarks.

So it's important to understand that it's more than just a tool in your nervous system and your neurobiology.

Software definitely plays a role as an environment that you enter into as well as a thing that you use.

So environments, if we understand them at their basics, they cue behavior, emotion, and energy.

And software can do that for us.

A chaotic interface is problematic to your nervous system.

And I can tell you I've been in witness more than once.

There's a reason why that there is a silly little meme with a duck throwing a computer out of a window, because software can be frustrating and computers can be frustrating, and software is the biggest part of how we interact with a computer.

On the flip side of that, a clean, familiar system definitely creates an environment that promotes safety and predictability.

And if we learned anything in my three thoughts for Thursday episode from last week.

It's safety and predictability are some of the biggest factors of you sliding into that inflow green state harmony in your business.

So it's important that we start to look at software as something that we can mindfully choose to support that state for us.

And if it kicks us out of that state and either into the red or the blue zone, we need to really start looking at changing that.

So software is a place where I think a lot of people reach to solve a problem in their business so many times.

The problem that they're trying to solve, however, is attached to something completely un software related.

I sell marketing software, so I'm an affiliate for a couple of products.

I like to pick what's the best solution for people, but at the end of the day a lot of people will think, well, if I get the right CRM, it's going to solve my sales problem.

Well, maybe, maybe not.

If your sales problem is that you're not communicating quick enough or you have some obstacles that the software could help fix, yeah, it'll be a good solution for that.

If you're thinking the CRM is going to completely solve your self imposed obstacles around selling, or if it's going to create the system for you, it's not that requires you to be present with it.

So software doesn't fix everything.

It can help, it can aid, it can definitely be a support system, but it's not the thing that you reach for first when you want to fix a problem in your business.

What it can do, if it's good software, is it will reduce memory strain, it will reduce decision fatigue, and it will reduce context switching that exhausts your nervous system.

Bad software, on the other hand, will add cognitive labor to the top of your task list.

And that's what happens when we reach for a software tool to solve a problem in our business that we're not ready to solve with software yet.

The CRM tool is one of the most common ones that people reach for.

It may be a point that you have to put a lot of work in before you put the CRM software into your business.

Otherwise it's adding cognitive labor to your business in a way that feels very uncomfortable.

So another way to think about this or to contextualize it into the real world is that if your software is requiring you to remember or relearn things on a regular basis, or it slows you down, it's not doing its job.

And not doing its job can be in the context of you not being ready for that yet in your business.

There, there is, there are times, right, where we have systems that are well beyond what our business is really ready for.

And then the other context would be that it's just not the right fit for that job.

So sometimes software is complex.

It also has to do with your temperament.

So go back and listen to the episodes I recorded about temperament.

Different temperaments approach software differently.

Some temperaments really jive well with certain software and other temperaments do not.

And it's a matter of choosing what is the right fit for your business.

That's what a lot of what I do when I consult with people around software is going, is this going to be a good fit for this individual if they are highly organized, highly rule following?

Having a software that is super free flow and you have to personally customize every aspect of it, it might feel very overwhelming to that individual.

On the other hand, having a software that gives you no customization might feel really off putting to someone who wants all of that and wants the freedom to make things work the way they want to work.

So that's just kind of a real world example of that.

All right, let's talk a little bit about using software in your nervous system.

So I love batching and I've talked about batching in numerous videos on all kinds of podcast episodes.

But I want to slow down for a minute and say not everything belongs in a batch because not everything belongs in a batch.

And software that you use in a batch situation frequently comes with discomfort depending upon how long that batch or how long the lag time between batches is.

Let's say that.

So let's say that you do all of your social media like creation part in Canva and because Canva is software, right?

So if you, you do it all in Canva and then you only do it every six months when you come back to Canva at that six month period to do the next six months of creation in a batch, Canva can feel daunting, right?

First of all, software changes at lightning speed these days.

Like there's all always a new version of everything, which I think also sort of simulates a lot of people's already overstimulated nervous systems to say we're going to Change this Witness iOS updates.

I mean, I don't know how many times Apple users have wanted to throw their phones collectively at Apple as a company for making a software change that simply just upset our entire day without our consent, right?

But there's a point of like what I was Making with Canva, that Canva will have changed also, you will have lost the muscle memory to be able to get into Canva and to do things efficiently.

And those changes may be big changes instead of small ones because you're experiencing them kind of at hyperspeed, right?

You didn't take the incremental change.

You took a big leap because you weren't in there for six months.

Canva is pretty good about keeping their software consistent, so that may not have been the best example of that.

But Canva is something most of us have used, so it may make sense to you.

The point here is that software is easier for you and for your nervous system if you are interacting with it on a regular basis.

So tools that you need to be able to utilize in an emergency or you need to be able to utilize on a frequent basis, batching is not always the most helpful way to approach those tools.

Your CRM, my friends, is one of those.

CRM software is something you should be in daily.

As a matter of fact, it should be open on your desktop all the time.

You should have regular interactions with it because that's your customer database, right?

That's your way of communicating with your customers.

And if you're unfamiliar with it, utilizing it is incredibly taxing on your nervous system.

So make sure that you're using software like that daily.

Accounting software is another place sometimes we get in trouble.

We only use the accounting software when the tax person says we have to.

That makes it that much harder.

And I think here is a point where you have to just accept the awareness, right?

If you don't want to be in your accounting software every single day, which maybe you do or don't, I would advocate that you need to be in there pretty frequently just to know what's going on with your money.

But if you don't, just be aware, there's a balance there where you're going to have to prepare for the fact there's going to be a relearning curve when you get into it to prepare your taxes for your accountant.

Just understand that repetition builds regulation and your daily software touches become procedural memory.

And it means that that is low threat, low effort, low decision.

And it's easier to deal with where if you choose to do things more on an intermittent basis, like annually or quarterly, that's going to put your nervous system in more of an alert mode.

It's going to feel more uncomfortable for you to utilize.

So remember this analogy.

Familiar does not equal fun.

Familiar equals safe.

That's where we want to be when we're in that green zone nervous system space where we're in complete flow.

The second thing I want to talk about here is habits when it comes to your software.

So there are habits that software supports really well.

There are microhabits it supports well, and then there are macro habits that it supports well.

And I feel like leaning into these is a really good way to utilize the relationship that you have with any software package.

So microhabits that software supports well in your business are things like daily check ins, follow ups, tracking money tasks and leads, and repeating actions that don't have much variation to them.

Software is very good at helping you build those microhabits.

And those microhabits are the ones that remove that load off your nervous system so they offset it.

So it's set aside so you can utilize that energy for either rest and integration, which is a use for it, or you can utilize it to build something or create something.

So software and utilizing it for those tasks is great.

Bigger things that software can help us with.

And often these are only helpful after we really have good clarity are bigger picture items like strategic planning, big pivot, identity shifts in your business, visions and values, realignment.

These are places where AI can help you a lot.

So large language models are very good if they know about you.

That's why the clarity has to exist first.

So there's a lot of software that can help us analyze data.

Software and AI in particular is really, really good at expanding small thoughts and narrowing big ones.

So taking a lot of data and reducing it down, or taking a small amount of data and learning how to extrapolate that into something that becomes easier and bigger for us to take a look at.

So it can reduce the detail or it can enlarge the details for us so that we can do better at those big picture tasks.

Now there's specific software that helps you do this, but there's also your day to day software.

Of all of the things I've mentioned in this little part about utilizing software to build good microhabits and good macrohabits in your business, your CRM is part of that picture because it's the heartbeat.

Actually, it's not the heartbeat, it's the EKG of your business, right?

It's reporting in the little ups and downs how your business is doing.

And your business does move like a heartbeat.

Sometimes it's at rest, sometimes it is higher heartbeat, sometimes it's a lower heartbeat, sometimes there's an emergency, sometimes it's asleep.

So that resting and the heart rate, it's A good analogy and a good metaphor for how software needs to be helping us in our business.

We need to be able to keep our finger on the pulse.

All right, I'll let that metaphor go.

So what we might want to understand here is that software amplifies what already exists.

It doesn't create coherence, it enhances coherence.

And so we are responsible for doing that.

All right, so let's talk about some more ways that software can really support your nervous system overall.

And these are ways you may or may not be using.

So very specifically, knowledge capture.

So being able to organize your notes, your ideas, your voice memos, and store things for future reference in a way that you can access them.

It's the way I use software all of the time.

I love being able to keep all of my notes in a place where they are searchable.

It makes a huge difference when I want to follow an idea to completion, calendar and time containment.

So one of the things I know in my own business that can set my nervous system on fire is the round and round of setting up appointments.

And software can handle that for you.

Good software will do it in a way that feels so seamless that the person on the other end will have a positive experience, and you will have a positive experience.

Here's the key to that.

You've got to set it up right.

You have to really work at knowing what your schedule is.

That's why we need some clarity sometimes before we dive into a software tool.

It's also a place where you can set it and mostly forget it.

So this is a place where batching it all together and then only checking in with it every six months is okay.

Maybe you had a schedule change.

It's okay to have to kind of relearn that.

You don't have to do high touch on the calendar and booking systems unless you're changing things a lot with that in your business.

Organization and asset retrieval is also really good.

Searching for things creates a lot less stress when you can find it easily.

So finding definitely creates relief.

It helps you know that your stuff is stored.

This is another place where software can be super supportive is if you have good backup software.

Having a good backup system is really key to your own peace of mind and creating that protected, safe feeling for yourself and for your business.

Being able to organize your files in a way that they can be found in a backup system and then having a good backup system is important.

So for me personally, I use a couple of layers of backup.

I use Dropbox, and Dropbox makes sure that all my files are accessible no matter where I'm at.

So if, even if I'm out without my computer, I don't have to get my nervous system on fire when somebody asks to see something.

If there's a computer I can log into Dropbox with, I can access whatever is on any of my desktops.

So all the files that I need to keep within arm's reach, so to speak, they're available on Dropbox.

And then I have another layer of security with a software called Backblaze that keeps my system in a constant backed up state in a cloud and it's only an emergency kind of I'm going to pull the cord and say everything crashed and I need all of that data back.

If I tap into Backblaze, this again creates a safe environment so that your nervous system isn't concerned about those things making sense to you.

Maybe so.

All right.

Automation and templating are also another way that we can create a little bit of nervous system support through software.

So automations really stop a lot of the things that might trigger automatic our traumas or our limiting beliefs or the things that the collective consciousness or our generational trauma has really instilled in us.

So automation as a system really helps us get out of our own way.

It also returns a ton of time to us, and it returns a ton of cognitive load that we don't have to output because the computer is taking advantage of that.

And computers don't feel cognitive load in the way that we do.

Their processors get a little warm, but they don't go into complete shutdown mode because they had to make 27 decisions in the matter of just a few seconds.

You'd have to do a heck of a lot more than that to be able to get them to overheat.

And our nervous systems, especially in the world that we live in right now, where there is so much to trigger us and to be upsetting to the system at large.

Automation can help remove some load that we don't have to carry.

And templates do the same thing.

They help us be consistent.

And consistency.

If it doesn't calm your nervous system, my friend, it calms the nervous systems of your customers.

Consistency is one of the things your customers love and appreciate about you and it creates trust in your business.

So having templates set up means that you don't have to work as hard to consistently deliver consistent results and your customers don't have to work as hard to understand what you're putting out into the world.

Because it's templated they can look at it, they get it, they move right into it.

It's not novel.

It is expected and expected is trustworthy.

Also, visibility is another place that software can really help us.

Dashboards, trackers, summaries that kind of check in of am I okay?

Where am I?

What is what do what needs attention?

So what do I need to be looking at?

And it helps us take away that nervous system load of I'm going to forget something.

So that's what I mean by visibility.

Is it something that's on your radar and that you can see?

All right, so let's talk a bit for a moment about what happens when software stops the support of your nervous system and actually becomes friction to your nervous system.

It happens.

It does happen.

So here's something that you can do to kind of give your software all a little bit of a friction audit.

So ask yourself, do I procrastinate working in that software or am I procrastinating the task behind it?

So let's take an example here.

Let's say follow up.

Let's say you've created in your CRM tool a follow up email that you have to go in and personally trigger.

So in other words, it's like a snippet or a template that you insert that individual's name in and send off to them.

So you've created your system, you've done that part, you've checked that box, but you're still failing at follow up because you're not actually going in there and executing it in the software.

Now let's take a look because now we have the data that we need to have.

We need to look at the why underneath the data that's actually showing up.

So you have to ask yourself, am I procrastinating this because that software is difficult?

Am I procrastinating it because I don't log into that software enough?

Logging into it is hard.

I don't know how to navigate around it, I don't know how to create the contact, I don't know how to institute the template.

I don't know how to actually move it through the system so that it's sent and the follow up gets to the person that I need to follow up with.

If that's the case, the software is the problem.

If on the other hand, you take a look at that and go, you know what, I really don't have a problem with that software.

I know how to log into it, I know where everything is, I know all of the right buttons to click, click, but I Still don't feel comfortable with it.

That is an internal issue within you that you should start getting curious about and working through.

Because then it's not the software that's the issue, it's what's underneath it.

Which is why software doesn't fix every problem in our business.

Like software solves problems, yes, but it is not the fixer that we sometimes hope it is.

Because the underlying friction isn't the software itself, it is what is underneath it.

So another way to reframe this is am I avoiding what is going on, or am I avoiding the interface of interfacing with the tool that I need to do to execute whatever task that is?

And also sometimes checking in with your body when you open a certain piece of software on your computer, does your body tense up when you open that tool?

And again, you have to ask, what is underlying this?

Is it the technical part of that tool?

Is it that you haven't used it enough?

Is it that it is not easy for you to use and you're not sure of it?

You don't know where to go or what to do?

Is it a learning curve situation, or is it something deeper than that you possibly need to dig into?

In scenario one, change the software, see if something different helps, or spend a little dedicated time saying, I'm going to get good at this.

That's where that daily repetition part can really help.

Because when you're in there on the daily, that muscle memory builds, the cognitive procedural memory builds and you're able to access those tasks easier and it becomes less daunting, and so you're not as tense when you go into it.

On the other hand, it's a situation to get curious about why that is.

Change the tool when the interface overwhelms you, when you need workarounds to do very basic things, or when you dread opening it more than you dread doing the task.

That's the bottom line to that.

Change the habit or make some personal life change or awareness changes if the tool works, but you're avoiding something inside of you or some inner pressure.

You resist that particular structure in and of itself.

Or you really want your automation to completely replace decision making.

Sometimes that does not work so well.

So automation needs to support your decisions that you've already made.

It can't make all of them for you.

What it can do is carry you through some of the residual if you understand why you struggle with something.

In closing for this episode, we've kind of gone over a lot and I hope that you're looking at your software systems right now going that one over there I'm not too sure about or this system really does support me but I don't spend a lot of time with it and maybe I need to do that more so I'm more comfortable there.

At the end of the day, the right software doesn't make you a better business owner.

It makes it easier for you to be the business owner that you already are and it allows you to do that consistently.

And that's ideally what we want from our software is we want it to be support so that we can become the full expression of what we want to inside of our business.

All right, thank you for hanging out with me today.

I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for listening to the Be More Business podcast where wisdom and innovation merge to create a business that supports the life you want to live.

For more resources, courses and inspiration visit Be more business dot com.