Systems are essential
Why are systems built? You can technically reach your goal with pure manual labor. Systems exist to help you get there faster (it's efficient).
There are two types of systems: those who reduce manual labor/multiply your output, and those who are automatic/semi-automatic and produce results over time.
Let's say that your goal is to make $1 million. You can get there with just work. You can work for an agency for 60 years and eventually save up enough money to reach 1 mil.
Or you can tap into the magic of systems. And build a course/website that will passively generate you income over time.
The difference is that the first one is always making money and it's limited by your time (and also the less time you have the less money you'll make).
And the second one doesn't make any money at first, but once it's set up you can go to bed and it'll work overnight.
There are also some goals (like reaching $1 bil) that are near impossible without using systems.
And what I've noticed from playing videogames like an engineer/speedrunner is...
The faster you create systems the better.
Because that's when your snowball REALLY starts to get bigger.
Right now you have zero leverage. Which means that if you stop working you'll stop making money.
While on the other hand someone like Bill Gates can take a 5 year vacation and he'll keep making money.
He might even get richer after those 5 years.
So, how do you create systems?
First you need to gather enough resources.
After you gather enough resources you'll set up your archaic initial systems. It doesn't matter if they aren't close to perfection. Since you'll bulldoze them in the future for bigger and more effective systems. They will do the work for now.
So, in real life what are the first systems that you should build?
The systems that reduce/replace your manual labor.
For example, if you're a farmer, instead of watering and taking care of your field everyday manually, you'd buy a modern tractor capable of doing it faster, better, and on a bigger area. Then you would hire someone to do it for you. Then you would hire MORE workers to do the same thing on a bigger scale. Then you would hire people to manage the people that you hired and so on. You no longer need to be on the field tending the crops. You can be atop of your throne smoking a pipe and still be making money.
If you live alone inside your home, you need to buy food, prepare food, clean and so on. Instead of doing these tasks manually, taxing your working memory and using your time, you would hire a coach, accountant, assistant, maid, or chef to do these things until you no longer have to think about them.
If you're a copywriter, the first system you might build would replace the manual labor of writing copy, and put it on other people who'll instead write copy for you (copy chief).
Looking at the examples I've shown above, a goal like "reaching $1 mil" becomes not only easy, but inevitable. That's the power of systems.
The first step is to gather resources.