Document One Repeatable Process This Week.

Operational documentation never gets done because it always feels like a project. It’s not. Here’s how to start — and why imperfect is almost always better than nothing.

I’ll be honest with you. When I first started thinking seriously about documenting my processes, I didn’t do it. Because every time I sat down to start, it felt enormous. Document everything? That’s weeks of work I don’t have.

So nothing got documented. And the organised chaos quietly continued.
Sound familiar?

Here’s what I’ve learned: the problem isn’t documentation. It’s scope. Make it small enough and it stops being a project and starts being a Tuesday afternoon.

One Process. This Week.

Not an operations manual. Not a comprehensive SOP library. One process — the one that would cause the most friction if the person who knows it weren’t available tomorrow.

Choose something repeatable. Something that currently lives entirely in someone’s head. Something that would cause a genuine problem if that person were sick, on leave, or simply done.

Good starting points: client onboarding, invoicing, a standard client communication, a reporting routine. Not the most complex process — the most critical one that isn’t documented.

Write It Simply

Don’t aim for polished. Aim for clear.

Write it as a numbered list. What triggers it, what happens first, what happens next. Note the tools or templates used. Flag the decision points where judgment is needed and describe the most common outcomes.

Then test it against what I call the new person standard: could someone capable but unfamiliar follow this without having to ask questions? If yes — it’s good enough. If not — find the gaps and fill them.

Imperfect documentation that exists is infinitely more useful than perfect documentation that doesn’t.

Put It Somewhere Shared and Findable

Documentation that lives on your personal drive doesn’t serve your business — it serves you. Put it somewhere shared, with a clear title, where the people who need it will actually find it.

Then tell them it exists. A simple message: “I’ve documented this process — it’s here, please use it as the reference going forward.”

Documentation nobody knows about is documentation that doesn’t exist.

Why This Works

One documented process this week means one fewer dependency next week. Over a month, four. Over a quarter, close to full coverage of your highest-risk undocumented knowledge.

More than that — the habit changes how you build. When documentation is just how things are done, the organized chaos never accumulates in the first place.
 

If you want a ready-made structure to centralise your processes, templates, and operational information, the Business Operations Hub in my shop gives you a clean foundation to build from rather than starting from scratch → ETSY LINK

Your turn: Which process are you documenting this week? And what’s stopped it from being documented until now?