How do I document a process I have never written down — documenting processes and sops
You do not write SOPs from memory — you capture them while working. Record the task once, have whoever will run it write the first draft from that recording, then approve and correct it in use. Start by naming the blockage, not the task.
Why this happens
Everything lives in the founder's head, so every answer has to come from the founder. Documentation — knowledge that only exists in one head cannot be delegated, only asked about. Until that layer is fixed, every extra task, tool or person amplifies the same problem instead of solving it.
The signals that confirm it
- Your VA asks "what should I do?" every day — ask yourself: do you answer the same questions from your va more than once a week?
- Growth stalls because you cannot scale delegation — ask yourself: does adding a second person feel more exhausting than staying stuck?
- Onboarding a new VA takes weeks, every time — ask yourself: would replacing your va cost you three weeks of training from scratch?
- Tools and passwords are not documented anywhere — ask yourself: do you get asked for logins you have already shared before?
What to change first, this week
- Pick your three most-repeated tasks and document them this week. Record your screen while you work — narration becomes the first draft. (One day of recording and writing removes hundreds of hours of identical answers over the next few years.)
- Take your most important workflow and document it as if you were franchising the business. Test it on the next hire. (When a reasonably skilled person can run a process from the documentation alone, adding people becomes routine.)
- Block one Saturday and build a master onboarding doc: video walkthroughs, written guides, a 30-day checklist they follow alone. (One weekend of work saves months across the next few hires — and every VA gets identical training.)
- Set up a password manager with shared vaults and a simple sheet: every tool, its purpose, where the credentials live. (One hour of organisation eliminates hundreds of interruptions — permanently.)
The rule that decides it
The BBW method. Score each task on founder value, repeatability and automatability. High founder value stays. High repeatability with low founder value gets automated. Judgment-light but human-shaped work gets delegated. Low value with low impact gets eliminated.
What good looks like in four weeks
The three most-repeated tasks are written down well enough that someone else runs them unaided. You cannot delegate what you cannot describe. One SOP per recurring task is what turns a helper into a system.
The objection worth answering first
"I have no time to write SOPs" You do not write them. The person doing the task writes the first draft from a recording of you doing it once; you spend ten minutes approving it.
Common follow-up questions
Where should I start?
With the task that has the most recurring hours and the lowest cost of error. Finish it end to end — documented, handed over, running without you — before you start a second one.
Do I need to hire someone before fixing this?
No. Documentation is the cheapest of the four systems to fix and the one that makes every later hire cheaper.
How long does this take?
One focused week for the first system. The compounding starts when the second one takes half as long because the first is written down.
The chain behind this
- SymptomYour VA asks "what should I do?" every day
- CauseYou have zero documentation. Every answer lives in your head, so every question has to come to you.
- BlockageDocumentation — knowledge that only exists in one head cannot be delegated, only asked about.
- What good looks likeThe three most-repeated tasks are written down well enough that someone else runs them unaided.
Which of the four systems is missing in your case?
Four questions, no email. You get the constraint, how sure we are, and the one thing to do next.