Workspace - Day 12 of 14 : The Box

A grey fabric box with a leather handle and a handwritten label. Files.

Nothing fancy. Nothing digital. Just a box.

I like that it has something vintage in its design. A reminder that success in business has been happening for decades, if not centuries. Before software. Before dashboards. Before AI. Someone sat at a desk and kept their files in order.

This is my personal GTD folder. If you know David Allen's Getting Things Done framework, you know the power of capturing everything in one trusted place. His work was an inspiration for the creation of my own framework.

Every system I built at Solpak started as a mess like this one. Receipts in folders. Notes on napkins. Client info scrawled on Post-its.

I did not start with a CRM. I started with a box. Then the box became a spreadsheet. Then the spreadsheet became a tool. Then the tool became a system that my team uses without me.

Most founders think they need to start with the perfect tool. They do not. They need to start with the discipline of writing things down. The tool comes later.

At Solpak, we went from paper to Excel to Smartsheet to a full CRM with automated workflows. But the habit started here. In a box like this one.

Start simple. One file at a time. The system builds itself if you build the habit first.

What was the first "system" in your business?