What if the thing standing between you and growth isn’t a lack of systems, discipline, or effort but the fact that you’re holding onto too much?

In this episode, we’re unpacking an uncomfortable but freeing truth: scaling isn’t about doing more. It’s about letting go. We talk candidly about what it feels like when your to-do list becomes overwhelming, when systems stop helping, and when even “good habits” start creating pressure instead of relief.

Links and resources mentioned:

1. Rooted in Reality Planner: https://buy.stripe.com/eVqaEY0pC9v8cPl9F6d3i00

In this episode, we cover:

1. 01:02 Why scaling usually feels harder before it feels better
2. 01:19 The truth no one wants to admit: growth requires letting go
3. 05:29 Why deleting tasks is sometimes the most productive move
4. 09:44 How delegation creates capacity (and why “I’ll just do it myself” backfires)
5. 11:56 The hidden power of deciding instead of endlessly revisiting tasks
6. 14:19 When delaying something is strategic—not procrastination
7. 18:29 How to build a to-do list that actually feels doable

Welcome back to Growing a Deeply Rooted Business, the podcast where intentional strategy meets sustainable systems.

We are so glad you're here.

I'm Jess, your systems architect and notion obsessed strategist who truly believes that systems are self care.

And I'm Rachel, your email marketing mastermind.

I'm all about building marketing ecosystems that actually work with the intentional strategy, and you guessed it, all things email.

So I used to believe that if I could just push a little bit harder, I could outrun the chaos in my business.

Like, if I could just get my notion more organized, more beautiful, maybe do some stronger coffee, maybe get some better systems.

I am a systems girl, but sometimes even systems cannot save you.

What you actually need to do is to let go.

I totally feel that.

I mean, I am in the same boat of what do I want to keep?

What do I want to do more?

What do I want to do?

This.

And so this is today's episode.

We are unpacking a super unsexy but deeply freeing truth that both Jess and I have realized in our businesses that scaling isn't about doing more.

It's really about deciding what to do with less.

And I think that is key.

So we're going to be walking through the 5D framework that changed how we work, lead, and breathe.

And yes, it all starts with the first one deleting.

So it had gotten to a point last year where every single week I was ending my work week with 40 different, like, tasks that I had just moved from day to day in my notion calendar.

I know if you are a small business owner, owner, you know that feeling, you're like, I'm gonna get to this, I'm gonna get to this.

And then all of a sudden, I'm looking at 60 task lists and I was like, I don't know what was important.

I didn't know what needed to, like, happen next.

I was really so overwhelmed and I kind of, like, would beat myself up about it.

Like, you know your adhd, if you could just stay focused more if you just had better time management.

And then I realized I'm like, practice what you preach.

Go back to your 5D framework.

So if you've never heard about the 5D framework, this is something that I used to talk about a lot.

And I used to actually begin each week with kind of going through this process.

So the five Ds are delete, delegate, decide, do, and delay.

And so the first one, like Rachel said, is delete.

And this is, you know, maybe the hardest because I think is small business owners.

You know, there's sometimes peer pressure to do it all.

Like, show up on Instagram, show up on social media, launch a new course, do all of these things.

And then a week comes around, like this week, where me, I'm doing a $3 million launch for a client.

I've got another client doing a much smaller scale, like $50,000 launch.

And the world is absolutely chaotic right now.

Chaotic.

And I have.

I'm drained emotionally.

So this is the week where I kind of really had to look at my task list and decide, like, what is not important?

What can I give myself permission to kind of just let go?

So, like, there was no email newsletter that had gone out.

Even though one of my goals was to send out an email newsletter every.

You know, I actually gave myself some margin.

I was like, we're going to send out 10 this quarter so I can have two weeks where I know I'm going to need to delete it.

Any post that went out with something that was like, scheduled and then I just kind of gave myself permission that my business was not going to buckle if I missed one week of posting.

Yeah.

And I think, like, even like you had said, the world is insane.

I had been on a very consistent posting regimen that I have been trying to get myself through some visibility, mindset blocks and stuff.

But with everything that has happened in this world, like I was telling Jess before we jumped on, like, it felt so heavy to one interrupt a lot of the really productive conversations happening in the online space right now.

And for me, instead of, like, guilting myself of, like, my business goals and my progress and da, da, da, da, like, Instagram off my phone Instagram, like, take that post to do off of my list.

It's truly being deleted in a way that, like, I am not sitting there and like, adding more pressure because I do think that the pressure aspect of your to do list, like, especially for somebody who is neurodivergent, like the daunting looming feeling of your lisp reaching 15, 20, 30 items at a time.

The delete step is so powerful to be, like, not achievable.

Not gonna be able to do this right now.

And that's fine.

And I think that was the energy I had to.

To utilize this week of just delete, delete.

And I actually booked two clients in not posting and not doing all of this.

Yeah, like, last year in my business, I decided, like, I'm just not going to do Instagram.

You know, clients still found me.

They found me on YouTube videos that I created years ago, or I got referrals So I just want us to like, give ourselves the permission.

Like, yes, we want consistency and that's what we plan, but we want you to build margins into those plans so that when life starts lifing, you have that ability to be able to kind of give yourself permission to not do something out of habit or guilt or like the give yourselves a should.

Yeah, definitely.

So that brings us to our next one, which I'm going to talk about this one because Jess is my actual delegation system here.

I have hired Jess to come into my business and help me because this is my biggest problem.

I currently am truly proud as a solopreneur to manage a lot of what I'm doing for client work and all of this stuff.

So delegation is kind of that, like, now that we've gone through and deleted everything, the next filter truly is.

Is.

Does this.

Do I need to be doing this?

And this is where I think is key because you can easily give yourself that mindset of being like, well, I could just knock this out, like, let me get this over with that I can save myself some budget.

But that doesn't help when your to do list will forever just repeat as 40 items at a time.

I want to say I have, I have problems with this, which is why I've delegated to Jess.

And I mean, I think there's, there's two layers of delegation because I'm going to talk about how I, I did it bad and now I'm kind of swinging the other way.

And yes, people say that, you know, you need systems first to delegate, but sometimes you don't have the time to create those systems.

I was actually on a doers call with Ashley and I was like, kind of complaining about like how much stuff I had to do.

And you know, I didn't feel like I could outsource in my business because like, I didn't have the systems yet.

And she's like, oh yeah, I'm so sure you're the only person that like knows how to create notion templates.

And I was like, oh.

Like, it was like hard.

I mean, like, if you know it.

Tell us what you trade.

And I was like, oh yeah, like, you're totally right.

Like there are other people in the world that can create notion templates at my same level that I wouldn't have to create a system for from scratch.

They might cost a little bit more, but what they're going to give me is the breathing room that I need to be go off to the other areas of my business and build those Systems for me.

Like, I ended up hiring a hire last year.

I hired her va. She's still with me.

She's doing admin work.

But she didn't save me because I'm having to train her on every single thing.

Like, she's new.

I got her from upwork.

Like, she's driven.

Like, I know I'm going to be able to like, develop her into a really good assistant or whatever she wants to be.

But right now I need like, somebody to help pull me out of like, the.

Which I think that's kind of what I'm coming into your business to do for you is like, you're like, I don't even have time to create the systems, but I want to be able to hire a VA later on.

So can you come in and do this for me?

Because I don't have the margin and then.

And then do it.

Yeah.

And I think like a really powerful mindset shift too is that you're not like just dumping something on somebody else's plate and being like, okay, it'll get done somehow.

It really is truly saying that, like, hey, me, as either the email strategist or as the CEO in my business have only a particular amount of capacity to give the best quality work and thought and space and like, layer that in with my own time constraints and like, all of that stuff.

Like, it really is just it.

It's taking something and like kind of like shifting and elevating it elsewhere so that it doesn't just get like half assed, it gets completed in a proper and intentional way.

Well, and I mean, sometimes it will be a surprise, like the, the team member that I have that does my design for our landing pages now 100 times better than, than me.

You like?

She does them.

They're beautiful.

I could do them.

She's so fast at them.

Like, and I didn't have to give her any direction.

Yes, she's costing more money.

She's probably like one whole retainer.

But my clients are getting a better output, which means they're happier, which means they're going to refer me better.

My work, our work looks better.

Like, I love to showcase, like, what she does and she does it so much better than me.

So that, that whole thing, like, it's just easier for me to do it.

I can do it better, I can do it faster.

It's not true.

You might have more, but, you know, that's the cost of doing business.

All right, so we went through delete, we went through delegate.

Take us through the next D, which is decide.

All right, so this one is a sneaky one because a lot of times when you're kind of moving your tasks from day to day, so I'm going to do it this day, and then you get there and you're like, like, you'll open up that task and you're like, well, should I even do this?

Or, like, what's the strategy behind this?

I don't know why I'm going to do it.

So a lot of the times you are like a task kind of like hanging out on your to do list because you need to make a decision, think.

A lot of people can kind of get stuck in, like, that analysis paralysis kind of thing.

Making yourself, like, during your 5D session is just decide, like, I'm going to do it, I'm going to not do it, or this is the way that I'm going to do it, and then just do it, because you're not going to know it doesn't work or if it's going to work until you do it.

Totally.

I think this is something we've integrated really well into the rooted in reality, like, planning, where it's.

We've gotten somebody all the way up through.

Because, like, a lot of it is that, like, starting at a blank, like, staring at a blank page.

And just like, step one kind of thing.

If you don't have to start at step one.

And you could almost get to the point where you can say, okay, these are actionable things that I can do now, which is essentially like, if you're looking at planning and you're looking at your calendar and all of those various things, the decision fatigue to get you to 15, like step number 10 or step number 15 is real.

Like, we're not going to say that.

That's not a thing.

But if you're looking at your to do list every single time you sit down and you have decision fatigue to get to the point of saying, I need to execute and build this strategy and do all of this, like, that creates, like, a dooming, looming feeling of, like, ever looking at your to do list.

So it really is one of those things where wherever you can proactively get yourself, like your future self in a place that is closer to a few steps further versus having future, you open that list up and be like, yeah, I'm not.

I feel I don't have the energy capacity to, like, get myself to that point right now.

So I think that that's important to note where it's just all those big looming tasks.

They're exhausting all right, so moving on.

To our fourth day is delay.

And before you're like, rolling your eyes, this is not procrastination in disguise.

This delay is a conscious choice to say, this matters to me, but not at this moment.

So, for example, I have a task that's schedule a photo shoot.

Because I want a photo shoot to redo my website.

This task has been on my task list probably for four months right now.

But I'm.

I'm like, okay, why do you want the photo shoot?

Because you want to do the website.

You need to do the website, but you gotta write all the copy.

You don't have time for that right now.

So, like, this is something that's important to me.

I have.

When I'm planning, like, my website out, but it doesn't need to be done right now.

So, like, that task has been pushing, pushing me.

That's a good delay.

I'll tell you what you can delay in a bad way, and I'll give you an example is that last year, I think in February, Rachel gave me a tax person to talk about taxes.

And it was on my task list until October when I did finally called her to help me out on my basket.

And that cost me a lot of money.

So don't do that.

Consciously delay things that just are.

They might be important, but it's just not a.

Like right now.

And if you are using a project management system, notion ClickUp, or whatever the case may be.

Jess has, like, rooted this into my brain about the idea parking lot.

And then it, like, you're not delaying in the sense that it just like disappears and you hope you remember it one day.

It's being.

Being intentionally placed someplace so that when you're ready, you go and click that tab or that filter or that status that says idea parking lot.

And then you can choose from your things that are ready to be brought into it once you have capacity or once you have space.

I think that's something that I use pretty religiously because I'm.

I think I'm constantly delaying things.

I'm like, actually, you're.

I'm not help.

I'm not ready for that.

Take that.

I mean, I think we haven't talked a lot about quarterly planning.

We've talked about annual planning, but I think quarterly planning is like, a good time to go through, like, all the tasks that have been hanging in, like this delay area or in your idea parking lot and like, asking yourself, does this make sense for this quarter, or do I need to kind of push this back to the Next quarter delay is all about kind of giving yourself a space for margin, white space, rest, so that your calendar is not 100% all the time.

Definitely.

Did we skip do or is due out of order here?

Yeah, do is out of order because I'm like, you got to go through all these.

Because once you go through all these, the delay, decide, delegate, delete, then you're going to be left with your do list and these are the things that you deemed important, that are necessary, important, and urgent.

Just going to kind of like map it out for yourself.

You know, give yourself three tasks a day.

That's kind of like my give.

My guideline is like, I'm going to give myself like three big tasks a day, map it out, put it on the calendar, and it's not going to be perfect.

You're still going to like wiggle it all around.

But hopefully by now you've gotten down to a list that is not super overwhelming.

Yeah, I feel like I unintentionally go through this process.

Maybe I didn't have the language for it, the do, delay, to do, to do whatever.

Now I do.

And I still, I feel like I was going through these steps and, and you know, all of the things that were of like, urgent, like urgency and all of that were like put on my list.

But now, now I'm like, oh, I was actually being very intentional.

Okay, question for you because I do think this is really important.

One, for me as like a Jess fan over here.

But then two, if you have a client who is truly not utilizing this process and is probably just like buried in to do's on a constant basis, like, yes, you could easily kind of like take them through this step.

But like, what's the fast track to get them?

Like, like, what are you gonna do with me when you're like, yeah, Rachel, we need to put you in like some proper systems and like all of this, like, how does someone go from buried in their to do list to like a fully like tracking system?

And maybe not fully tracking, but like there, you know.

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, formally planning with my clients, even if it's not like a big formal like session.

And I always start with annual planning for my clients where we're at least mapping out what we want to do when their big sales promotion periods are, and then quarterly planning, being really realistic about what is happening right now.

And then just like kind of keeping an eye.

Like project managers jobs exist for a reason.

It's because we are recognizing when tasks get overloaded.

So I Actually had to message a client yesterday because we're in the middle of a launch and, you know, a lot of my time is getting sucked up by that.

But we do have these, like, other offers that I'm building some automation systems for.

And I just kind of had to lay it out.

Like, she had to lay it out.

I was like, I just want to make sure I'm communicating.

Like, I know we still need to do these things, but right now, you know, I'm working on finishing our webinar.

Then we're going to go to open car and then by like February 9th, I'll be able to like bop back into like this kind of option brain.

So I think just kind of like staying, I guess, aligned with the client in communication.

We do do like we.

We have a episode a long time ago about like the five meetings you should have with yourself or with team and it's the annual planning, quarterly planning, monthly planning, and weekly planning.

So making sure that you're going through all those things because that's when like all of these Ds come into play.

And if you skip them, which you inevitably will, like, that's when your to do list is going to get really long and then you're gonna have to.

Go through this again.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah, no, I definitely.

I'm excited and one for you to be back in my business because, man, when I came back from maternity leave, I was like, this is what organized feels like.

And then I trashed it.

So just, I have not.

I do have access to renovation, but I have not looked at it at all.

It's pretty empty because I haven't been putting tasks in there.

And I mean, I mean, it's definitely have to build like, even as an ADHD person, like, I don't know why I know when things work for me because it's like I don't even have to think about building the habit around for like, I don't my medicine.

I don't really have to think about opening notion.

Like I do it all the time because it's good because I know it's good for me.

But you know, every now and then I'll skip a couple of days and just have to kind of do a task.

But like, the benefits of building that habit is just so much less mental over.

Yeah, definitely.

So I mean, let's do a quick recap here just because we.

I feel like we had a few extra tangents today.

All right.

So the five Ds to kind of empty out that clear out and Make a more intentional to do list here.

So removing things that maybe are just not pertinent right now maybe can, like things won't burn.

I would call these more what your paper plates versus your glass plates.

Like, if you drop one of these, you're fine, pick it up next week kind of thing.

Delegate intentionally.

This is you kind of handing it off to create more capacity, more intention in the actual things that you're touching in your to do list.

Decide.

What do we decide?

What was decide?

I feel like you said this was a sneaky one.

Yeah.

Cause tasks are decisions that we think need to be made.

Yes.

So I mean, the way that I always kind of interpreted this one was like kind of deciding, like creating an action plan for your task so you're not just like coming to it and being like, you know what I mean?

Or no, was I wrong there?

Yeah.

Like, I mean, I think a lot of times, a lot of times we'll put tasks in there that are like so vague.

Like post on Instagram.

You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's going to.

Because you've never decided what the actual strategy behind that task is going to be.

Totally gotcha.

Okay, so decide delay idea, parking lot.

Embracing that area in your project management system and then doing so actually finding what that truly glass plate to do list tasks are and then taking those on and doing it.

And so if you haven't, I guess, gone through this process with your to do list, I having a little light bulb moment here, realizing I do do the most of this.

But being more intentional now, you know, today's what's it, they're going to get this on a Thursday, on your Friday, the next opportunity you sit down to like assess the week ahead or assess, you know, your upcoming to do run through this.

I think it'd be a really enlightening exercise to kind of take some of those tasks that keep moving from week to week and like haunting you, those haunting tasks and delete them.

Because why they're obviously not moving anything if they're just following you along every week after week.

So would you like to wrap this up cleaner?

Yeah.

No, no.

I just actually love the suggestion of doing it on a Friday.

I think it has like, it'll help you go into the weekend, like allowing you to actually like turn off.

And then when Monday hits, because you've mapped out your dues for the week, you're like able to kind of just step into it really grounded and not step into a task list that is 60 items long, which I kind of do that, actually.

When we turn this off, I go into my notion and I clean it up.

Any things that I didn't mark, complete all of that, move everything around, see what's going on, and then turn my brain off for the week.

Okay, so next week, we are going to be talking about content overwhelm, helping you detox your content system.

If this episode helped you, make sure that you send it to a business bestie and let us know.

Which D do you need in your life?

Where's that.

Man?

We have just been so giggly today.

It feels good, though, because this has been a heavy.

I need some dopamine.

Get more dopamine, please.

Until next week, we're rooting for you.