The concept of 'cycling' is trying to put a discrete traffic light lens on what is actually a gradual and continuous maturing. The moment you put a sponge (or other surface) into water its bacteria and (importantly for us) archea colonies will start to develop, using the nutrient content inherently present in the water. From then on in it's a gradual maturing process as you add more content to the tank.
In general the approach I use is: plant up the tank and fill it full of water. After a couple of weeks get bored of the green stuff on the glass and put some nerite snails in to deal with it for me. After a couple of weeks more, add some cherry shrimp to deal with the annoying brown stuff that's growing everywhere. A week or so later get tired of spooling out thread algea with a toothbrush and introduce a few Amanos to deal with it. Pop some new plants in to replace the ones that didn't like my setup, and shuffle a few around that I was quite clearly bonkers for putting where I did. A week or so later realise something is missing in that big open area and add a school of interesting fish. A couple more weeks along get worried that I'm overfeeding as lots of BBA is appearing, and add some Cory cats to do a bit of hoovering. Give it another week and realise the nerites are just not coping with keeping the glass clean on their own. Add a Bristlenose or some Otos to help them. a week or two later decide something is still missing, and add a feature fish to add that little bit of jazz. Do some napkin maths and realise that my tank is fully stocked. Conclude it must be cycled by now.
The key to all this is that 'a couple of weeks' phrase that keeps cropping up. Give the tank plenty of time to settle in at the beginning, and then every time you introduce more bioload, give your filter a couple of weeks to adapt. Then you'll be fine without having to worry about all this cycling stuff.