1 | 15 | Write "click-by-click" procedures for all your routine tasks

​Hi there! I'm Marian Knopp, the Online Business Systemizer at marianknopp.com.

The Productivity Tip of the Day™ is: Write "click-by-click" procedures for all your routine tasks.

This is an absolute game changer. This is like the tip to rule them all for this entire season. If you're not doing this, you need to rethink what productivity means to you because this will change your productivity game. And it gets overlooked. You don't hear this in the top 10 productivity tips. This is not something that a lot of people gravitate to because it sounds like a lot of work. Like, "You want me to write procedures? Click-by-click? That sounds like a lot of details. I don't have time for that. That's why I'm trying to get more productive." But that's the wrong mindset to have with this. The investment of time you put into writing procedures is going to pay back dividends.

So there are two ways to go about this. You might be writing procedures so that you can eventually hand it off and outsource. If you think about the big successful people that you admire, whoever your role models are. If they have some big businesses, you can guarantee that they're not doing every little minute detail in their business. They're not executing an email every time. They might be writing some of that content, but they're probably not scheduling it out, or formatting it, or proofreading themselves. That would probably generate mistakes if you're proofreading your own work. So this act of writing procedures is what they had to do to get to the level that they are now. They make it clear what is needed to happen, and they are specific in how it should happen, but they may not actually do it themselves. They are probably outsourcing other people.

And so by writing procedures, that's the first step into getting to the outsourcing place. Now, some of you may not be interested in outsourcing. That is my specialty. Just like FYI, this is my specialty: writing procedures so that people can outsource. However, you might be needing to write procedures so that you can execute more efficiently. And that is what a lot of virtual assistants do. They write procedures so that they can execute it more efficiently. And even though they're not outsourcing it themselves, the procedure actually makes them more efficient. And I'll explain why.

When you write out every detail, like I said, click-by-click, you are able to see everything on the document, or wherever you're documenting the procedure, and able to assess what improvements need to be made, and what opportunities there are for maybe some automations or some quicker ways.

I'll give you a little bonus tip for this tip. One of the easiest things that you can do is when you're writing a procedure, a lot of people will start like, "I'm going to go to this website. And then I'm going to click here to log in, and then I'm going to click here to go to this specific page. And then I'm going to do this task." And a lot of times you can actually cut out those first couple of steps just by going to the specific URL that you need to be to start the task itself. So this is just a neat little trick. So when you're going in to do things, capture that URL and use that so that the first step is to go to that URL and therefore you are eliminating maybe three to eight clicks sometimes to get to the right place that you need to start your task, whatever that may be. So that is one way that it makes it super efficient for people who are executing the procedure.

The other way that it does is it gives you the opportunity to go on autopilot. And this may sound super lazy and I guess it is, but you need to really take care of your mind and allow yourself to use it for bigger tasks. If you're using your brain to try to accomplish every little routine task every single day, you're wasting your mind that could be used on much greater projects and problems and making bigger decisions than, "Oh, what do I need to format this with?" Or, "How do I make this image this way that I always need to make it?" Instead of thinking those things, every time you perform a task, you have a procedure that's outlining exactly the specifics of it all, and you can just cruise through it. And all of those "what if" scenarios of whether this happens, then I need to do this, have that all written down, so it's one less decision or detail you have to retain in your mind. And you're actually able to accomplish so much more because you're not making yourself rely on remembering all of these tasks and the details within the procedures.

So I want you to get started on this. This is huge. This is a game changer. And even if you're not convinced after what I've said so far, just try it out and experience it. Just getting it documented is the first step. Going through a process, there's a lot of ways that you can do this. As you're doing something, just have a document on the side that you're just typing these things out and making it click-by-click. You can do it that way.

Another way that I do it, if I feel like I'm in a rush, I'll just start a screen recorder program like Loom.com is free, or Soapbox is also free, or you probably have an installed software that you may or may not know about that does screen recording. Just start screen recording your clicks and maybe even talk it out, like say it out loud while you're making the decision you are as you make the decision, and any "what if" scenarios. And go through that process of recording it so that eventually you can go back to the video and write it all out as a procedure. Or, you could even outsource that and you can give the video to a virtual assistant for them to document it for you so you have something written that you can revise and modify.

And it's okay if this takes a few tries. Usually it does take a few tries because the first time you go through it, you've gone through one iteration. You may not have hit snags or any "what if" scenarios. So the second time you're doing it or you're showing somebody else how to do it and you're handing it off to them, you may realize, "Oh, I assumed that you would know this, but actually that assumption is just in my head. I need to actually write these details down."

And once you actually get into the habit of writing these procedures, you get so much better at it and you know exactly what your style ends up being. It's very clear that you always like to have things proof-read. You always like things formatted a certain way. You always like to do things this way. And people who are executing the procedures that you make, if you end up outsourcing, they also learn from you. And so when it comes time for them to write a procedure for your company, they are all ready well versed in what the norm is, what the culture is for that company, and how you like to have things done. And that is like the key to scaling your business, is being able to implement that culture and the way of how you do things into your team's mindset.

if you are not a detail-oriented person and the sound of "click-by-click" procedures seems exhausting to you, let's chat. Schedule a discovery call with me on my website at MarianKnopp.com, and we can talk about how to expedite this process so that you can outsource these tasks and scale your business.

Tomorrow, we will talk about the critical detail that connects your procedures into the workflow that we've been crafting so far in the tips. ​

I look forward to chatting with you guys tomorrow. Bye.