Why Your Photography Business Systems Need to Work With Your Temperament

Have you ever spent hours setting up a new system for your photography business, convinced that THIS was finally going to be the thing that got you organized, only to abandon it a few weeks later?

Maybe it was a project management app, a complicated CRM workflow, or one of those planners that promises to organize your entire life.

And for a while, you really did try to use it.

But eventually, you found yourself back to doing things the way you'd always done them, except now you had another piece of software you were paying for and feeling guilty about not using.

I've seen this happen to plenty of business owners, and I think part of the problem is that we spend so much time talking about what systems can do that we forget to consider the person who's supposed to use them.

I joined Kimberly Beer on the Be More Business Podcast to talk about exactly that, along with automation, AI, and why understanding how you work matters just as much as understanding what your business needs.

The Best System Isn't Necessarily the Best System for You

Some people love having every step of their day planned out. They want structure, schedules, and processes they can follow without having to make a hundred little decisions.

Other people need more flexibility. They know what needs to get done, but they don't necessarily want someone (or something) telling them exactly when and how to do it.

And there are people who need to understand the bigger purpose behind a process before they're willing to invest the time in following it.

None of these approaches is inherently better than the others, but they're going to influence which systems someone will actually use.

That's something Kimberly and I discussed during the episode. We have different approaches to organizing our work, but we can both create systems that support what we're trying to accomplish.

The important part is understanding what works for you instead of assuming that somebody else's workflow is the standard you're supposed to meet.

I talked about the other side of this in an earlier Business Animal podcast episode, where Kim Beer and I discussed building systems around your business goals.

Automation and AI Should Make Things Easier, Not More Complicated

We also talked about automation and AI, including how useful they can be when they're applied to the right problems.

I love technology that saves me time. But I'm not interested in adding five new steps to a process just so I can say I've automated something.

Before automating a task, I want to understand what's happening, why it's happening, and whether the process makes sense in the first place.

Otherwise, there's a pretty good chance I'm just going to automate something that wasn't working particularly well to begin with.

AI brings another layer to the conversation because it can help with everything from writing and organizing information to developing workflows and evaluating options.

But it still requires some judgment.

Just because AI can do something doesn't automatically mean it's a good idea to hand over that responsibility. You need to understand what you're asking it to do, check the results, and decide whether the output makes sense for your business.

Kimberly and I talked about how to approach these tools without assuming they're either the solution to everything or something you should avoid entirely.

You Still Have to Live With the System You Create

One of the things I think gets overlooked in conversations about productivity is how much effort it takes to maintain a system.

A beautifully organized workflow isn't particularly useful if you dread opening the software or spend more time managing the system than doing the work.

Sometimes the answer is better automation. Sometimes it's simplifying the process. And sometimes it's recognizing that the way you prefer to work is different from the way somebody else does.

That's perfectly fine.

The point of having systems is to make running your business easier. If you're constantly fighting the ones you've created, it's probably worth figuring out why.

Listen to My Conversation with Kimberly Beer

This episode of the Be More Business Podcast was released on December 22, 2025.

Kimberly and I talked about temperament, different working styles, automation, AI, and how to create systems that support the way you actually operate.

You can watch our conversation on YouTube or listen to the podcast episode.

If you've been struggling to make a particular workflow stick, this conversation might give you a different way to look at what's happening before you decide you need another app, planner, or productivity system.