February 2024 Productivity Report: What It Looks Like When Your Business Systems Hold Up

Reading Time: [23] Minutes

Welcome to my February 2025 productivity report! To backtrack, check out where I started in October 2023. You’ll find November 2023 here, and December 2023 here. For 2024, January is here, February is here, March is here, April is here, May is here, June is here, July is here, August is here, September is here, October is here, and November is here, and December is here. January 2025 is available here.

🌱 How I Felt About February 2025

March was a very productive month for me in terms of moving my career and life forward in the right direction. Probably the most productive in some years. Did I spend a lot of time “working” on the clock? No, and this is where it gets interesting.

It’s never quite about the amount of time you spend working; it’s about the impact of your activities on your life and business in general. This month, I can say without question that the people I spent time with, coupled with my travels and activities, led me in the exact right direction.

Just the other day, I had a discussion with a friend around the expectation that work should feel like “work.” I feel like we have all been conditioned to believe that work isn’t supposed to be fun. This is such an outdated notion that we have to update. In this new creator economy, work doesn’t have to be a traditional 9-5 office cubicle that sucks the life out of you. No. Work can be what you make it.

The idea that you have to separate your life from your work, and do only the “fun things” (like your hobbies) outside of work is antiquated. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those who are successful entrepreneurs understand how to align who they are with what they do. If you’re not an entrepreneur at the moment and have no interest in being one, fine. That’s one thing. But if you are an entrepreneur and haven’t figured it out yet, take some time to think about this.

If anything was possible, what would you do? What would be the dream scenario? Find a way to incorporate THAT into your life. Design your work around it. If I didn’t get paid to do what I do, I would still be doing the exact same thing. My life would look exactly like this regardless. If you can say that with pride, it’s a good indication that you’re on the right track.

Let me point out that – yes – money makes a difference. It’s how you’re able to sustain your business, so I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter. What I am saying is that you can figure it out… as long as you don’t give up. If you need to have a side gig for a while, so be it. But don’t stop working towards your dream. Quitting is a surefire way to never get it right. And you WILL get it right, even if it takes a hot minute.

Time is just one way to measure productivity.

🌻 What It Looks Like When Your Business Systems Hold Up

The topic of business systems may not be the most glamorous one out there, but there’s nothing better than being able to step away from your business without guilt or fear. That’s what I was able to do this past month. There’s nothing more powerful that that feeling because it represents true success.

When you are in business for a long time, there are be times when you need to step away for whatever reason. Even if you don’t travel like I choose to, there will come a time when other priorities or life events need your attention, for example children, illnesses, or moves. The life of an entrepreneur isn’t single-faceted, and I keep telling my clients that “what affect your work usually has nothing to do with work.” That’s why you cannot possibly separate work and life. They have to co-exists in harmony. You will never have perfect balance (one will always pull on the other), but they should not eclipse each other to your detriment. You have to be able to “life” too.

When you business systems hold up, you have the reassurance that you’re able to step away knowing that things will NOT fall apart without you. You can take a few days off and nothing bad happens. Heck, you can take two months away – like I did – and come back to a business that functions pretty much the same way. A few rescheduled meetings here and there – that’s all. If you you have employees or contractors, you can trust that they will handle things in your place. If you’re a solopreneur, you have a solid business model with workflows and automations that hold things together in your absence. Sometimes both. That’s true entrepreneurial freedom.

What many people need to realize though is that none of this happens by sheer luck, and it doesn’t just automatically happen because you become successful. It’s the other way around. You are able to become successful because of it. Without proper systems and operations, you can work your way to being a six-figure business, sure, but beyond? No. You hit a brick wall there. Scaling lives and breathes through repeatable workflows. Without them, you will plateau.

Successful entrepreneurs don’t leave things up to chance. They create the environment they need in order to grow. I worked hard to put everything I have in motion. I took the time to build a strong foundation and put workflows in place. I took the time to find people who have the same values as I do. I took the time to consider how I want things to work, and then I implemented it. All of it is by design and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So with that said, I want to know: have you designed what you need? If not, you need to join us in Creative Systems Architect asap.

🤔 How do you feel about your own business systems?

Do they hold up? If you had to step away for a bit, could you? If not, what’s the hold up?

Let me know in the comments below!

🏆 How Productive I was in February 2025

February was a very productive month for me in terms of life-ing. In other words, my personal life made significant strides. Did my business? Hmm, perhaps not so much, but that’s OK. It’s usually one or the other, not both. Not every aspect of your life can move forward at the same time. That being said, everything co-exists when you’re an entrepreneur, so if you work on yourself, your business will usually benefit long-term from that development too. Once again, we circle back to the idea of harmony and balance.

📁 Projects Completed in February 2025

In February, I completed 3 projects, which was right on target. As you know, three projects per month is my sweet spot. It gives me just enough to finish up without overwhelming me. However, that doesn’t mean that I only work on three projects. I usually work on more of them, but I don’t wrap them all. The best example from this month was obviously my cross-continental trip (Sweden, India, France, Dubai). It was a massive, multi-layered project, which was only half-way done by the end of February. Despite that taking much of my attention, I still managed to wrap three smaller projects, so I have to be satisfied with that result.

🚀 My Favorite Project in February 2025

My favorite project in February was updating the sales page for my online course Searching Sweden. For years and years, I was a professional genealogist focusing on Scandinavian family history research, and I released this course to help hobby researchers find their footing in the Swedish archives. A lot of people think that you have to be fluent in the language in order to research, and that’s absolutely not the case. You just have to know what you’re looking for and where.

Searching Sweden used to be an interactive program with monthly group coaching, but I transitioned it into a self-study course some time ago. While I don’t offer these types of services anymore, it’s still a course I’m incredibly proud of and will keep for sale for the foreseeable future still.

When I made changes to my academy in the early days of this new year, I somehow forgot to update the links for it, so I finally got to that. It reminded me that it’s still a course that deserves some attention from me, even if it’s a self-study project. Perhaps I’ll do some more marketing for it… who knows?

⏳ Hours Worked in February 2025

In February, I worked just over 27 hours, which breaks down to 6-7 hours per week. That’s obviously grossly under my goal of 25 hours per week, but only if you look at it from one angle. If you consider the first week as one full work week, followed by three weeks completely off, I’m spot on.

What the truth? It’s somewhere in between. The majority of the work came in during the first week of the month, but I worked on one specific project during the last week of the month too. All in all, it was time well spent across the board, and as you’ll hear soon, incredibly productive.

I’ll write more on this topic next month, but the amount of hours don’t matter as much as the impact of what you create with them. Consider that when you prioritize your time. What’s gonna create the most impact for you right now? That’s where you put your attention.

⌨️ Digital Images Organized in February 2025 

I captured a total of 4681 photos and videos this month, and I kept 4310 of them – almost all. This is unusual for me, but it was because of the amount of memories I made during the first half of my trip. I did do several photo shoots as well, so I will likely cull that number down more in the future, but everything turned out so great that I didn’t feel guilty about it one bit. The combination of weddings, sightseeing, family time, friend time, and just all around exploring made it all worth keeping.

Here are just a few snaps from India:

As I mentioned last month, I have used Adobe Lightroom for my photos for the past 20 years now, but that era has come to an end. Don’t get me wring – it has worked well – but nonetheless, I’ve made the decision to use Apple Photos going forward. That program used to function merely as a transportation system for my photos, but now it’s become the program of choice (despite recent updates 😳). I am using iCloud, but all the high-res versions of my files are synced to my iMac and backed up using Backblaze. I like having access to things on the go, so right now, it’s working for me. Let’s see how the year progresses.

If you’re not sure how to manage your photos, be sure to join us in DPO PRO: The Ultimate Photo Organizing Masterclass. We cover how to choose your programs, how to organize your phots, and we have tutorials on the entire process in Photo Mechanic, Apple Photos, and Adobe Lightroom Classic.

👟 Steps Walked in February 2025 

People sometimes confuse the idea of flexible goals with goals that don’t require a full commitment. That’s not quite right, although it’s a slippery slope, and we have to acknowledge that. When you have flexible goals, it’s very easy to put them on the back-burner in favor of other things and prioritize in a way that doesn’t move them forward. You have to be mindful with that, and as you saw last month, my step goal took a hit because I didn’t keep it top of mind. It happens, but as long as you check in once in a while and don’t let it go, you can get back on track easily again.

Having a flexible goal doesn’t mean that you never measure it at all; it just means that you don’t necessarily have a fixed-date outcome, like you do with any given project. But that doesn’t mean you completely let go and don’t pay attention. No, you still have to have some checks and balances in place to help you assess progress.

There is a saying that goes “where attention goes, energy flows.” Never before have I seen it quite so graphically illustrated. Wow. This month, I paid way more attention to my step count because of the results during last month, and you can see what a difference that made. I measured 266,727 steps, which is more than double the 115,603 steps I took last month. 😳 Safe to say that I am now fully on top to this goal, and will check in more frequently on it during the rest of 2025. It’s morphing into a fixed goal before our very eyes. One that I will confidently let go of by the end of the year.

📣 Language Progress in February 2025

Last month, I introduced my new goal for 2025, which is “language progress.” I want to learn at least 15 new words in the language of my choice every month to keep me moving forward. For the first quarter, I picked French since I have a collaboration going where the majority of the team has that language as their first.

Fifteen words per month is one word every two days, which is a slow enough progress to let it sink in, but fast enough to keep me moving forward. As it turns out, spending time in Paris helped me a lot during February because I logged 106 new words. Am I fluent yet? No, that’s gonna take a while still… but we’re making significant progress here. Vraiment. 💪🏻

🎧 Books & Learning in February 2025

This month, I listed to the audible version of “Us: Getting past you and me to build a more loving relationship” by Terrence Real. This book came recommended to me by a friend who was working on the relationship she had with her partner, and she commented to me how applicable it was to the world a large. That intrigued me a lot, and now that I’ve listened to it, I have to agree. It was one of the more surprising reads I’ve ever encountered, and a book I strongly will recommend to anyone, regardless of relationship status.

I had so many takeaways from this book, but the gist is this: we are all deeply messed up. The question is really: in what way? And I suppose – as a consequence – how does it affect our current behavior? I have done a lot of self-development work, so certain things here were not new to me, but the reminders were stark and important.

The book starts off by a foreword by musician Bruce Springsteen who touches on the issue of generational trauma and talk about how you truly transform a legacy. Wow. You do it by breaking the trends of poor behavior for the benefit of those who come after you. I was a personal historian for years, so that was something I fully agreed with… It’s heavy, but it’s by far the best gift you can give your descendants. One of my favorites quotes from it is: “True freedom is the freedom from our own automation.” Yes. Just yes to all of that.

The book then goes on to talk about all the different types of interpersonal skills and behaviors, along with examples of how the outcomes change when you increase your self-awareness. It’s such a transferable topic, and I truly feel like everyone should read this book and take the contents to heart. It will drastically change how you see yourself and those around you. One of my biggest takeaways was that we are much more social than we think and the idea of co-regulating emotions as a group was fascinating.

I also realized how to put what I do (i.e. my superpower) into more scientific words: “I regulate my clients’ physical, digital, mental, and emotional environments to a point where they’re all completely free from threats, which allows their brains to free up their pre-frontal cortexes for productive focus.“

How’s that for an elevator pitch?

☕️ Meaningful Conversations in February 2025

Given the fact that I was traveling once again, you can see why I didn’t offer up any FIKA with Caroline rounds this month. It’ll likely be another few weeks before that happens again for various reasons. In its place, I am having frequent and very deep conversations with friends and close collaborators, which right now is taking priority over everything else. Many of us are in a period of unsteadiness and messy transitions, so I have to put my energy there because it makes all the difference. Family first.

⭐️ Success Celebrated in February 2025 

This month, I want to celebrate meeting a collaborator in person for the first time. Arvind Nangia and I have know each other for years, but only online. Still, we have managed to collaborate on a few projects, including some blog posts, videos, and the launch of an app called PhotosTakeout. We were finally able to meet up in person in Dharamshala in India, which was lovely.

It’s always a treat to get to meet people in person, but there’s something special about finally meeting a collaborator in person. Remote work is great, but nothing beats a great lunch with a mountain view.

😍 This Month’s Favorite Hubs, Tools, Services, & Products

What hubs, tools, products, and services do I use to be more productive? Ah, lots. In an effort to be really transparent, I have some of my recommendations below. Some links are affiliates links, others are not, but either way, I’d recommend them. Feel free to reach out if you have questions on any of them.

Here’s my list of things I loved this month:

• Notion → Where would I be without Notion? Not anywhere close to where I am now, that’s for sure. I run my entire life and business in Notion, so I wholeheartedly recommend this platform. We hosted a Building in Notion (for Beginners) event some time ago, and the replay is available for purchase.
• Airtable → We have used Airtable for many years now – as our main hub before Notion, and now for student-facing databases, external editorial calendars, and intake forms. Love it!
• Forever → This is good platform for storing photo archives. I invested in this company when they were a startup a decade ago, and it has only gotten better since then. Great for memory-keeping!
• ShowIt → Love ShowIt! It’s the most flexible and best website platform out there, IMO. Plus, it’s run by nice people, which is a plus. I just renewed my own subscription not too long ago.
• Convertkit → Convertkit is now simply Kit, and I’m not really used to that change yet. I’ll come around, but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be calling it Convertkit for a while still. Change is hard. 🤣
• Lightroom Classic → This is a program I’ve been using for two decades. I teach it and several other solutions in my course DPO PRO. Join us to learn how to use it!
• Teachable → I’ve been a loyal customer with Teachable since back in the early Fedora days, which says a lot about how much I like their platform. It’s a great place to host your courses.
• Circle → Circle is easy to use for everyone – from students to coaches to guests. We love it as our community hub. It stands well on its own, but also integrates nicely with Teachable (see above).
• Trackabi → My new time-tracking platform, which is working out wonderfully so far.
• Audible → I love my Audible subscription for when I’m getting my steps in, and I recommend trying it out if you want to get your learning on. Sign up for a free 30-day trial through my link to get a free book (or 2 free credits if you’re an Amazon prime member!) – cancel anytime!
• Secret → This is a wonderful place for finding deals on software hubs and tools. Who doesn’t love to save some $$$? Invest a little, save a lot! I’ve saved thousands. Great deals for the new year too!
• Grove Collaborative → Love my Grove subscription! It saves me so much time because I can restock all my household needs easily. They write sweet messages on each box too! So cute. Get a free gift set by signing up through my affiliate link!
• Almond Cow → In 3 minutes, you can have fresh nut milk. What’s not to love? I miss it so much when I travel. It’s the best thing I’ve ever bought for my kitchen, hands down.
• Nuuly → This is so much fun. I just love renting new stuff each month. It’s a creative way to try thing you never would have picked up otherwise. 🙌🏻 Use my link to save $ on your first order.
• Taja → I really like this AI-driven platform for optimizing YouTube videos. It’s a great starting point for coming up with attention-grabbing headlines, descriptions, keywords, and more.
• Wise → Banking as a digital nomad and international service provider can be a bit tricky, but lately, I’ve enjoyed using Wise to make things easier. If you’re a nomad or course creator, take note.
• Harney & Sons → My favorite tea supplier in the US. They have outstanding quality teas for all tastes and budgets, and they’ve worth trying out! Save $10 on your order using this link.
• Music Mastery Hub → Kai “Verse” Tyler is one of the most generous people in the entertainment industry, so for anyone interested in learning more about the business of music, I recommend joining his online school for mentorship and guidance. I’m proud to be an affiliate.

🫖 Tea of the Month

For this month, I’m highlighting the Kangra Masala Tea from Wah Tea, the tea estate we visited in the Kangra Valley in India this month. Their work ethic, quality control, and processes were truly impressive, so I want to make sure to support them as much as I can.

I was saddened to hear that harvests have been reduced by over 40% in the last few years due to global warming, but glad to know that they are working towards finding solutions. If you ever get a chance to visit Palampur, I encourage you to stop by and learn more about their work and how you can help. You’ll be impressed by their dedication and commitment. 🫖

Kangra Masala Chai

Yield: 1 cup

Prep Time: 1 minute

Cook Time: 2 minutes

Additional Time: 1 minute

Total Time: 4 minutes

According to Wah Tea's description: "Finest hand plucked black tea blended with cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, calendula petals and natural flavouring. This king of all teas has a heady aroma of the spices and a brilliant amber colour. The crispness of the black tea is further complemented by the delicious taste of delicate spices. This tea is perfect for both newbies and veteran tea drinkers." I agree.

Print

Ingredients

• Whole Leaf Black Tea, Cinnamon, Clove, Cardamom, Ginger, Star Anise, Nutmeg, Calendula Petals, Pepper.

Instructions

1. Heat filtered water to 90-95 degrees Celsius.
2. Pour over 1 tsp of tea leaves
3. Steep for 2-3 minutes
4. Enjoy hot!

📐 Measure What Matters

Thanks for reading this report til the end! I hope you enjoyed it. Please remember that productivity is very personal, and you DO NOT have to track the same metrics that I do. Your goals and metrics could be quite different from mine, and that’s OK.

If you’d like to understand where you should be focusing your attention, join us in an upcoming Quarterly Planning Workshop to identify your own goals.

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• About the Author
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Caroline Guntur Organizing & Productivity Coach

Hi there! I’m Caroline, and I’m here to help you get organized and be more productive, so that you can live better and have time for what matters.

www.theswedishorganizer.com

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