You Don't Need More People, You Need These Systems Instead

Layla at ProcessDriven
31.6K views • October 23, 2025

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If your team can’t execute without you, the problem isn’t headcount — it’s systems. This video breaks down how to grow your small business with three essentials: clear tasks, accountability, and smart priorities.

Videos & resources mentioned in this episode:
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🔗 Watch These 4 Systems Are the Secret to A Business That Runs Without You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctLtsLpKxLk
🔗 Watch the Best Task Management Software for your Personality Type: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWOCexknEAk
🔗 Watch If You Manage Anyone, You Need to Watch This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLwOPsGD0cg

Stop relying on memory and start using simple business workflows that keep everyone aligned. With strong business systems and processes, every task lives in one central place and gets ranked by importance. This single shift helps your team focus on what matters most and reduces stress from constant check-ins. Learn how to systemize your business so it runs predictably and grows sustainably.

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Here's what this video covers:
00:00 Why small business owners stay stuck
00:30 How to help your team get more done
01:02 3 keys to business efficiency
02:03 When accountability is missing
03:01 Why pressure kills productivity
03:55 Few teams document responsibilities
05:00 Write tasks to boost productivity
06:00 Hold teams accountable easily
07:42 One task list for fewer meetings
08:54 Stop chasing shiny new projects
10:05 Balance new ideas and daily work
11:04 Easiest way to prioritize tasks
12:03 How a task queue keeps focus
13:00 Tasks, accountability, priorities
13:45 Create tasks that actually get done

[ DISCLAIMERS ]
Content we publish is sharing information based on our own experience and opinions. We're not your business coach, lawyer, or advisor in any way. We encourage you to do your own research and find a way to Enjoy the Process with your own style and due diligence!

You may notice how our content often includes affiliate links or sponsored content. ProcessDriven may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you. For details, visit https://processdriven.co/terms?utm_source=yt&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=mg-e435&utm_content=how-to-get-more-done-without-hiring-more-people

0:00 So many small business owners are doing
0:02 everything right to systemize their
0:03 business and yet they're trapped. It
0:05 doesn't matter if they've written
0:06 standard operating procedures, set up
0:07 project management tools, or hired a
0:10 players. Nothing can get done without
0:12 their direct direction. And after
0:14 analyzing behind-the-scenes operating
0:16 data from over 4,000 small businesses,
0:19 yes, really, I think I know how we can
0:21 fix it. You see, to get more done
0:23 without just throwing more people at the
0:24 problem and hoping that fixes things, we
0:26 need three ingredients. Number one, we
0:29 need clear tasks. We need to know what
0:31 actually do we need to work on. Pretty
0:33 obvious, right? But also number two, we
0:36 need accountability. We need to know
0:38 that if we are going to do something and
0:40 we say we're going to do it, we're
0:42 actually going to be held to account,
0:44 required to answer for and make sure we
0:46 actually fulfill those promises, whether
0:48 we're a team of one or team of 100.
0:51 Also, number three, we need
0:53 prioritization. So, we've got stuff we
0:55 need to do. We know we are going to have
0:57 to answer for whether or not we do it.
0:59 But how important is it really? Having a
1:02 clear priority system to say, "Hey, this
1:04 is really important. This doesn't
1:06 matter." is our third key ingredient of
1:08 actually getting things done without
1:10 hiring more people. But the thing is,
1:11 from this behind-the-scenes data, we
1:14 found that based on the 175,000 data
1:17 points I've looked at, teams aren't
1:19 actually doing this. They're missing all
1:21 three or at least a handful of these key
1:24 ingredients for execution. And so they
1:25 have a team that wants to do great
1:27 things. They have a leader who's excited
1:29 about the future and yet they cannot
1:31 execute. To paint the picture, I've
1:33 actually whipped up this quick chart to
1:34 show you what happens when we start
1:36 missing some of these ingredients. For
1:38 example, if we miss prioritization,
1:40 meaning we know we need to do something
1:42 and we don't forget about it, but we're
1:44 not really sure how important it is. We
1:46 end up with tasks that exist and we just
1:48 delay them and delay them and delay
1:50 them. It's like, "Oh yeah, Ila should
1:52 really write her book." But we don't
1:54 really know how important it is. So, we
1:56 think about it, it takes up our mental
1:57 bandwidth, but we never actually make
2:00 progress, which I'm sure many of us can
2:02 relate to. Uh, number two is if we are
2:05 missing our accountability. We say we're
2:07 going to do something, we know it's
2:09 important, but we never actually hold
2:11 ourselves to account to make it happen.
2:14 This usually happens when we make verbal
2:16 promises or just don't record things.
2:18 And so we say, "Yeah, I should make sure
2:20 I write that book. It is super
2:22 important." And then we go on with our
2:24 day and we think about what we're having
2:26 for dinner, when to pick the kids up
2:27 from school, and all of a sudden, we
2:29 can't even remember the fact that we
2:30 made that commitment to write the book.
2:33 Missing this accountability component
2:34 leads to forgotten tasks and having to
2:37 nag and remind people in order to get
2:38 things done, which is exhausting for any
2:41 operator. Finally, if you're not even
2:42 sure what the task is, if you feel like
2:45 you're being held to account to
2:46 accomplish a goal, maybe because you
2:48 have metrics in place and you know it is
2:50 important, but you're not actually sure
2:52 what you should be doing, that is
2:54 perhaps the most common and painful
2:57 position of all because when you're in
2:58 that arena, you are fighting stress. In
3:01 fact, I have a little sticker for this
3:02 one. You have pressure without
3:05 direction. That's kind of one of my
3:06 personal mantras around here. Stress is
3:09 pressure without direction. when you
3:10 know you need to be doing everything. Oh
3:12 my god, it's all so important, but you
3:14 don't know what concrete actions you
3:16 need to do to move a project forward or
3:18 to cover for the boss's out of office.
3:21 That is stressful and that's what we
3:23 want to be able to fix. Now, when we
3:24 work with people here at Process Driven,
3:26 we actually help them work through all
3:27 of these pieces. But if you're in more
3:29 of a DIY phase, I'm going to go through
3:30 how we can fix each of these areas of
3:33 failed execution one by one. To build
3:35 our get done engine, we need to
3:36 start off by clarifying our tasks. We
3:39 need to be clear what we are actually
3:41 doing which sounds so basic but based on
3:44 the data we have looked at this is not
3:46 nearly as common as you think. In fact
3:47 when we dug into the data we realized
3:49 only 24.8%
3:51 of people had recorded responsibilities
3:54 for their team. Only 17.8%
3:57 recorded any ideas and only 21% took the
4:00 time to write down major issues and
4:02 emergencies that were happening in their
4:04 company. In other words, when things
4:06 needed to get done, let's say about 80%
4:09 of people did not write it down at all.
4:11 And clearly, this is going to introduce
4:13 some inefficiencies because what you say
4:16 may not be the same as what I hear, let
4:18 alone what I remember to actually do.
4:21 What we'll often see in teams where all
4:24 the task communication is happening
4:25 verbally is there's going to be
4:27 misunderstandings. I'm going to think
4:29 you needed the report by Friday, but you
4:31 actually needed the report by Thursday,
4:33 and I didn't understand what you meant
4:35 by right away. What's going to end up
4:36 happening is there's going to be this
4:38 pressure and misunderstanding and
4:40 assumptions that result in, you guessed
4:42 it, stress, which is what happens when
4:44 we have unclear expectations of what
4:47 actions actually need to be done. So,
4:49 the solution for this one is actually
4:50 really simple. Start writing down your
4:53 tasks. So, that way I don't have to read
4:55 inside your brain to know what you
4:57 meant. actually write down what you're
4:59 asking for me to do. Now, I should point
5:01 out most teams, even when they try to
5:03 write down their tasks, they do so in
5:05 such a vague way, it's not that helpful.
5:08 But I have a whole other video and
5:09 another reference chart up above this
5:11 video that goes through how to create
5:13 tasks properly in case you're part of
5:15 the majority of teams that don't quite
5:17 know what this even means. So, open that
5:18 another tab and let's move on to
5:20 accountability. So, our next step after
5:22 we get clear of what we need to do is
5:24 holding people accountable to do it.
5:26 because you can't hold someone
5:27 accountable for something they
5:28 misunderstood, right? So, do these in
5:30 order. When it comes to accountability,
5:31 we want to make sure that when we commit
5:33 to action, we are held to account. We
5:36 are reminded and need to answer for
5:38 whether or not something got done. Based
5:40 on the 4,000 small teams we surveyed and
5:42 analyzed here at Process Driven, over
5:44 50% of small teams do not have some kind
5:47 of simple accountability system. And the
5:49 only way they know what is being worked
5:51 on or what's falling behind is by having
5:54 a one-on-one conversation with person,
5:56 which is not only very timeconuming
5:58 because you have to have a ton of
5:59 meetings for no real productive output
6:00 and also it's not the most trustworthy
6:03 because if you're asking people, hey,
6:05 what's the status on that? Um, that's
6:07 assuming they're going to remember to be
6:09 asked and they're going to remember what
6:11 the status is. And if you haven't caught
6:13 a trend here, memorization along this
6:16 journey is not going to be a recipe for
6:18 success. So instead of having your 30th
6:20 meeting of the week to just get a status
6:22 update on something, the solution for
6:24 this accountability piece is simple. One
6:27 task list, that's it. If you're in
6:29 person, this could be as simple as a
6:31 whiteboard, a clipboard, or a notebook
6:33 where you write down all of your tasks.
6:35 If you are digital, you could be using a
6:37 Google doc, a spreadsheet, or any of the
6:39 many task management softwares. I have a
6:41 whole video comparing some of my
6:42 favorites up here. But what matters is
6:44 that you have one spot where every
6:46 promise you or your team makes is
6:49 logged. And yes, I'm saying promise to
6:52 mean task. Because if you're committing
6:53 to doing something, you are promising
6:55 your future self and your colleagues and
6:58 in some cases your clients you're going
6:59 to make good on that promise. So make
7:02 sure you do by recording it in one spot.
7:04 This is a huge difference than where
7:05 most people go with task management,
7:07 which is either they put it in people's
7:09 brain and then uh are surprised when
7:11 people forget about things, or they put
7:13 it on a bunch of little sticky notes all
7:15 over the place and then they're
7:16 surprised when you lose track of
7:18 something or they have a thousand
7:20 different tabs in different windows and
7:21 then they're surprised when they lose
7:23 track of something. We don't want any of
7:25 that complexity. If you truly want to be
7:27 held to account and make sure things get
7:29 done, have one spot that you look at
7:31 where you see those promises until they
7:34 are done. We know from our data that the
7:35 majority of teams do not do this, but
7:38 please make it a practice in your team
7:39 if you'd like to make sure things get
7:41 done instead of forgotten. Oh, and I
7:43 should say a bonus of having the shared
7:45 task list is when you have this, you can
7:47 see real-time status reports on where
7:49 things stand without having to have a
7:51 meeting just for a status update. That's
7:54 a huge timesaver. and it allows you to
7:56 use meetings for things that meetings
7:58 are actually good for. More on that in
8:00 this video up at the top. And if you're
8:01 a client of Process Driven, we actually
8:03 help you organize all of your tasks with
8:05 some really fancy templates that you can
8:07 just install in a few clicks. But that
8:08 brings us to our third category, which
8:10 is prioritization. Because if we know
8:12 what we need to do, we know we're going
8:13 to answer to doing what we need to do.
8:16 We also need to make it clear how
8:18 important is it relative to all the
8:21 other things we need to juggle. Whether
8:23 you're a business owner or employee,
8:24 there are so many things that demand
8:26 your attention every day. From the
8:28 laundry to the emails to the support
8:30 tickets to creating videos, all of these
8:33 little pieces need to be balanced and
8:34 done in a specific order. And if you
8:36 don't know what order to do them in, you
8:39 can end up just kicking the can down the
8:41 road. Now, when we start looking at the
8:42 data of how small teams are actually
8:44 prioritizing, um it's not so great. Uh
8:48 what we've seen across the board is that
8:50 small teams have a high tendency to
8:52 record things that are extraordinary,
8:54 right? The special project the CEO wants
8:56 to work on, the major issue that the
8:58 operations leader wants to fix, those
9:01 tend to get written down in a time of
9:03 crisis. But the ordinary work that a
9:06 business needs to done, needs to done,
9:08 needs to get done, needs to do, the
9:11 ordinary work across the board is
9:13 largely ignored. It goes back to the
9:15 previous points of being memorized. Yet,
9:17 in a small business, ordinary work
9:20 should take up anywhere between 60 and
9:22 80% of any given employees time. So, 60
9:26 to 80% of your work should be fairly
9:28 predictable. It's client work, it's
9:31 marketing, it's the things that you know
9:32 how to do. Maybe there's going to be 20%
9:35 chaos or experiments, but the majority
9:37 is predictable. The problem is most
9:40 teams are only writing down the 10 to
9:42 20% that is chaotic and unpredictable.
9:45 So what ends up happening is when the
9:47 CEO comes back from a conference and
9:49 says, "Oh my gosh, guys, I have the best
9:51 idea. We should start a podcast." Right?
9:55 That is the only thing people see. And
9:57 so they commit to the task. They commit
9:59 to being held accountable, but they fail
10:02 to remember all of the other things they
10:04 need to do to keep the lights on. They
10:05 need to fulfill orders to current
10:07 clients. They need to answer support
10:08 tickets. They need to film their normal
10:09 YouTube videos. We have all of these
10:11 baseline commitments that we've made in
10:13 our business. And when we don't pay
10:15 attention to those and we just commit to
10:17 new and shiny things, we end up feeling
10:19 very overwhelmed. We add too much to our
10:21 plate that we can't actually do. So,
10:23 what ends up happening is months go by
10:26 and the big shiny project doesn't really
10:28 see a lot of progress. The CEO, often
10:31 I'll be talking to them, they'll be
10:32 getting upset. They'll be like, "Man, my
10:34 team can't get anything done. We might
10:35 need to hire more. these people must be
10:37 lazy. All the excuses in the book. But
10:40 what you don't realize is the reason
10:42 progress isn't been happening is because
10:44 there's not a clear priority between the
10:47 things that we always need to do and
10:49 this new shiny thing. We only have so
10:52 much time in the day. We just can't
10:54 create more. So to add this, we need to
10:56 remove some of this. And that's what
10:58 most business owners miss because they
11:00 don't have any way of seeing what is
11:02 actually happening in their business.
11:04 So, how do we fix this? Well, let's add
11:07 on to what we've already talked about.
11:09 Number one, we've got tasks. Number two,
11:11 we have a list of them. To make
11:12 priorities clear, put them in an order.
11:16 That's it. The most common way to put
11:18 things in order is by using due dates.
11:20 To do this though, you need to make sure
11:22 you are accurately estimating how long
11:25 things take, which is not something most
11:28 people are good at. If you say you're
11:30 going to answer all your emails in 15
11:32 minutes on Monday and they actually take
11:34 three hours, you're going to need to
11:36 move some things around. Okay? Uh if you
11:38 work with us inside Foundations, we give
11:39 you some tactical strategies for making
11:41 this more accurate. But that is the most
11:43 common way to order that task list. The
11:45 second way to do it if you are someone
11:47 who's not so good at estimating due
11:49 dates, which is many people, is to use a
11:52 Q system. So, in a Q system, we
11:54 basically just create a rule and we say,
11:56 "Hey, in the company, we work from top
11:58 to bottom of our to-do list, and we
12:01 don't work on the next thing until the
12:02 one above it is done." You can make some
12:04 kind of little exceptions, like maybe we
12:06 can have two in progress before we start
12:08 moving on, but either way, you force
12:10 yourself to work in order. It doesn't
12:12 matter how many days it takes. It just
12:14 needs to be done in order. So, you are
12:16 constantly prioritizing your to-do list
12:18 and seeing all of your commitments there
12:20 as you add or remove more things from
12:22 the list. You can get more or less fancy
12:24 with this Q system by having stars and
12:26 points and different tracks and
12:28 pipelines, but at the end of the day,
12:30 it's just do one thing before you do the
12:32 next. And that'll keep you nice and
12:35 prioritized. In the case of the business
12:37 owner coming back from the conference
12:38 with the shiny new idea of a podcast,
12:41 what we'd want to do is put those
12:43 podcasting tasks in the queue and seem
12:46 are they really more important than
12:48 answering the support tickets and
12:49 finishing the project from last time.
12:51 Yes or no? And when we're starting to
12:53 make those hard choices, the CEO and the
12:56 team are both aligned of, oh, okay, so
12:59 this is why it's going to take this
13:00 long. This is what I'd have to give up
13:02 to make it get done faster. Now when we
13:04 have both clear tasks, accountability
13:06 and prioritization, we are able to
13:08 execute perfectly. And at the end of the
13:10 day, that is the job of any team leader
13:12 or team member to take the vision and
13:15 bring it to life. When we combine these
13:17 three things, that's exactly what we
13:18 build in our team without necessarily
13:21 needing to throw more people at the
13:22 problem. But it all starts with having a
13:25 very clear definition of what a task is.
13:28 News flash, most people are not creating
13:30 tasks correctly. So watch this video to
13:32 make sure your team is. And again, if
13:34 you are tired of trying to trial and
13:36 error your systems and you want to get
13:38 all of this stuff working in your team
13:39 without the guesswork, that is exactly
13:41 what my team process driven can help you
13:43 do. Link in the description below. And
13:45 until next time, enjoy the process.