Welcome back to Lone Wolf Unleashed! I’m Mike, and in this episode, I’m sharing why smart procedures, checklists, and a bit of automation are the backbone for any solo operator who wants their afternoons back. If you’ve been running your business on muscle memory and sticky notes—trust me, you’re not alone. But today, I’ll show you how documenting your processes is actually your lifeline, not busywork.

I’ll break down the real difference between procedures and work instructions, reveal how to create checklists that don’t leave your future self stuck, and explain how templates and automations can cut hours off your week without adding staff. Whether you’ve never written down a task in your life or you just want to finally escape the daily grind, this episode is about making your business leaner, smarter, and a whole lot more freeing.

Ready to trade those late nights for time off—without taking a pay cut?

Let’s get into it.

https://podcast.lonewolfunleashed.com/

Link to freebie: https://lonewolfunleashed.com/4p-procedure

G'.

Day.

My name is Mike.

Welcome to Lone Wolf Unleashed.

Today we're going to be talking about procedures.

If you've ever followed a recipe, you know you're given a list of the ingredients that go into the meal, but you're also given directions, step by step, about how those ingredients come together.

What you're looking at is a procedure.

It is the task of cook meal and it is laid out, usually in written form, on how to put that meal together from start to finish.

So today we're going to be talking about how procedures come together.

But not just procedures.

It's the things that surround doing the tasks that are really important to delivering value as part of a process.

Most solo operators run on muscle memory and sticky notes, but not actual procedures.

And what I often hear is, I know how to do my job.

I would say to you, I think you need to reconsider.

I'm not saying that you don't know your job, but there's an assumption around that statement that says that you are going to be doing that job for the rest of your career.

And that just may not be the case.

Because keeping it in your head like that, it works until you're sick or you're burnt out or you're trying to delegate.

So the difference between knowing and documenting is the difference between being trapped and being free.

And the idea behind documenting out the critical parts or the critical tasks of your business is so that if something does fall over, you're able to give that to someone else so value can still be delivered.

So what is a procedure?

It is the list of the steps, the individual little steps that go into doing a task that is part of an overall process.

Basically, I'm walking through in a series of episodes, my hierarchy or my framework on how to systemize a business.

We've done one on Profile, which is in a helicopter flying over your business.

At a high level, we've done process, which is all the steps that lead to an outcome of delivery value.

This is procedure, which is the step by step instructions that go into doing each one of those tasks.

Now, the reason why it's important is when we go to delegate or when we go to automate, this information is going to be critical for us to understand how those things are going to come together later on.

There's also a difference between procedures and work instructions, but typically I start out by showing people that you can just include them on both.

It's only when we get into really big ecosystems where we might consider pulling them out.

But the basic difference between A procedure and a work instruction is.

A work instruction is even more minute detail.

It is click by click how you go through different systems to do different things.

And those work instructions might end up on multiple procedures.

For example, if you're doing a bookkeeping exercise, you're going to have a work instruction which is log into Xero.

So as part of your procedure you'll say you're going to log into Xero and this is how you do it.

And then after that you're going to go and reconcile your receipts, for example.

So there's a procedure on how to reconcile the receipts specifically, but there's also a work instruction on how to log into Xerox.

You might then take that work instruction to say you're going to log into Xero and then you're going to go and view a report or issue an invoice.

Those other tasks are going to utilize that same work instruction.

But don't overcomplicate it.

To start off with, you might just have a step that says log into Xero for now on your procedure and nothing else.

You don't need a work instruction under that unless you need it, unless you're dealing with someone who's very detail oriented, who might need training or something like that.

So a procedure example is reconcile receipts.

You're going to log into Xero, you're going to log into your email system, you'll gather up your receipts, you'll get the list of the different transactions that need reconciling.

You'll search and you'll gather the different documents, you'll send them to Xero, and then you'll mark up in Xero and reconcile each line item based on what they are allocated in the different accounts, whether there's GST or not, et cetera, et cetera.

So that is an example of a procedure.

It's a list of those different steps that go into doing that.

A step or a task that needs.

Procedure is discreet and it is something that you can typically do in one sitting.

If it's longer than that and there's many different steps, then you might consider pulling it out and doing two separate documents for when it is relevant.

The key here is that you want to be able to put the procedure somewhere that's going to be utilized as you do the work.

I've seen this too many times where we do procedures and then they end up in a system and then nobody ever looks at it again.

We don't want that.

We want people to be able to look at the procedure as you go about doing the work.

So if you're in a physical environment, you might have something on a wall where that task is being performed.

So I'll give you an example.

I run the venue team at church and part of that is we have to set up and pack down the chairs.

So how to set up and pack down the chairs?

There is a list or a procedural document in where the chairs are stored that's visible on the wall about how they need to be set up.

There's pictures there about how many stacks and what the stacks look like when it's all packed away.

It's there.

It's in the place where the work is being done.

If you're in a digital environment, then you might consider using a tool like Scribe.

You can check that@scribepower.com and it's basically where you record the task as you do the work.

So it doesn't take a whole lot of time.

So you'll be clicking through, it'll record your clicks, it'll record some screenshots you might go through at the end, delete out some double clicks, or refine your heading names, things like that.

But then when you use the browser extension and you go back into the site where you recorded that procedure, it will list it there as a procedure to look at when using that particular URL.

So the key distinction is that work instructions live inside a single system, whereas procedures can cross multiple systems and include human decisions along the way.

Why does this matter moving forward?

Well, you can't automate or delegate the way I've always done it, quote, unquote.

You need the full picture.

And a common mistake here is that we write a 10 page work instruction for software that updates every month.

We can't control when software systems update.

We tend not to take too much time trying to do this.

We just want to make sure that people have enough knowledge to get on and do the task when they are doing that task.

It's better to just have a quick little one page procedure that stays stable rather than something that we have to change all the time.

You have to remember every business document we produce rots the moment we create it.

It's out of date the moment we create it.

So we want to make sure that in the future.

It's really easy to update these things as things change, because things will change.

Managing a business is managing change.

The next part of a procedure is a checklist.

So you might have checklists, you have a task, and you might just have the list of things that you need to have ticked off or done as you're doing that thing.

I'll give you an example.

I have a customer who created a checklist for when you go to site to inspect a site for building design, there was a list of things that he needs to cover off.

A trap that some people fall into is they make the items on the checklist too general and they're not specific enough that someone might get stuck as they go along.

If you're creating a checklist, make sure that you're looking at the different items that are on there and making sure that people have enough information while they are doing it.

They won't get stuck.

So an example that he had was check that bobcat can access site.

Okay.

Now that might seem simple enough until you realize that if you're in the moment, you might not know if a Bobcat can or can't access a sign.

So what goes into that?

Okay, so what we ended up doing is on that item, just in little brackets, in smaller writing, we have a little tooltip on, on the checklist to say it needs to be a certain width and a certain height.

So if you're trying to get under somewhere or you're trying to get through a gate or something, then those details are there.

And what does it do?

It means that we don't have to visit the site again to get a measurement in case we missed that particular item.

So he was relying on his own expertise to know whether or not the Bobcat would fit.

That's not the case for every single thing, especially if you're going to start to delegate or outsource different types of tasks to people.

So it's really important that we take care of those edge cases as well.

You might take into consideration sometimes there's going to be different conditions under which certain actions will happen and not happen.

So for example, you might have, well, I need to get approval for this thing with a client if it's over a certain budget amount.

So you might go client approval above $500, making sure that those things are on there as well.

Those different types of business rules that go into that.

You can start to get a list of these things from the process map that you did.

Remember, there are points at which a process will diverge, and under those conditions that they will diverge, you'll know that on the task beforehand, you're going to need to explore how you capture the reason for why that process will diverge or not.

You also want to just cover off on the common failure points.

So what are the types of things that might go wrong in this task.

How do you correct them?

Things do go wrong when we're doing the tasks.

What do we do if things do go wrong and what are those common things?

We'll want to list those out as well.

The next one we have are templates and artifacts.

We've covered this off before where on the process level we're going to be listing out the different documents and things that we might be using.

It's here on the procedure level where we're going to flesh that a little bit more.

Because in a procedure, it's in the procedure while you're doing the task that you'll say, I need to send the email.

And in the email I'm going to say this specific thing.

Well, that specific thing is going to be stored somewhere.

You don't want to have to type that out every single time.

You want to be able to get that from a template somewhere.

So just make sure that you've got your document templates there.

It might be a Word document or a contract template that you're doing for your sales process.

That contract's going to be saved somewhere.

The procedure will be, I'm going to issue the contract, but I need to populate that with the necessary details and then I'm going to send that.

You have a template for that.

So you're utilizing that at that specific part of the process as part of this task, and we want to make sure that that is in order as well.

You might also have some other sort of hidden templates, like meeting agendas or client questions.

Recently I did like a sales checklist where you might have different parts of scripting based on what the client is saying or the prospect is saying.

Those types of things go into these as well.

Right.

If I'm on a sales call, I want to be able to reference that to make sure that I've covered off everything that I need to know before I price something up.

No one likes surprises, and so it's best not to leave yourself in a situation where you're going to get surprised if you've covered off everything that needs to happen.

How do we do that?

We do that by prompting our memory to go, have you thought about this?

Maybe you should say something like this, this is where this is stored.

I don't have to keep thinking and remembering and using my brain power, trying to remember where stuff is.

How do we bridge this into saving time?

It'll save you time in the sense that you won't have to think about it.

It'll save you energy.

Right?

You can just crack on and get on with the job.

That's without automation.

With automation now, we can pick up a lot of these different items and we can start to utilize AI to understand how we might be able to streamline the population, a lot of these things within tasks.

So I'm going to cover that off now with you.

So I'll give you an example.

I just did this with a client.

We mapped out a process.

We wanted to move this process into a platform that they're already utilizing.

They already had a form done up that was emailed, so the template was already done.

And what we did was we just figured out that maybe we just need another piece of information.

And so we added that information to the list, we took that form template and it's allowed us to do a specification into how to build into that platform for those tasks.

I wouldn't have been able to quickly write up that specification so we can start build without that template.

AI really only gives you suggestions that you need to validate with a stakeholder.

So it's really important that that template was already done because we were able to move really quickly.

The same is for you.

If you haven't done your templates or you haven't done a procedure or all that context is missing for when we actually want to go and sort out the automation side of things.

So we're going to use all of the things that you've just documented as an input into the automation.

So now we can figure out, okay, we're using this system, we're doing these things, we're using this information, how are we going to manage that?

We can ask the AI things like these are the several tasks that we've got.

These are all the documents and things that we use.

Suggest for me the ways in which you can tie those things together and make this more efficient.

And you can start to brainstorm some ideas there about how that can work.

If you're doing say a contract population thing, if you have within your sales process somewhere where you're entering in the client requirements, there's no reason why you should be reentering those client requirements on the contract.

For example.

So if you've already got that, you can automatically create the client contract from your sales call.

That's automation.

That saves you a lot of admin time rather than simply just checking over that the contract is right and sending it.

You also want to just figure out what are the decision mapping here?

What are the if then statements in your procedures?

Those if then statements are automation logic and you can start to build that in so long as we're able to capture that information in a database that we can start to utilize in pathing different cases to different places.

Every single piece of information that goes in on a form is data that an automation platform can utilize to streamline things.

The quick task that you could do, you could say, oh, well, you know, I only spend half an hour doing the contract and I do three or four of them a month.

That's an hour a month, two 50 hours a month.

You have to remember that these iterations happen in small chunks over time.

What takes you back to 249 hours is going to take you back to 248 hours next month and you can work your way down.

Obviously, we want to target opportunities there that are going to be more beneficial for you and have a bigger bang for Buck.

I covered that in a previous episode about figuring out what parts of your ecosystem can be automated and whether they are worth it or not, and how to put together a backlog on how much time they're going to save you.

There's a couple of iterations here that we can start to do.

So iteration one might be I have an email template.

Then iteration two might be I have an email automation.

It's just populated information into the email template and it's sent it.

The third iteration might be stringing those together of multiple tasks into a full workflow automation.

The compound effect, you know, if it's five minutes saved daily, that's three full work days per year that's now back in your pocket that you've got under your control.

This is the messy part of the business.

It's all in this detail where the monster, which is your business, is out of control.

We need to get that monster under control.

And the way that we do that is by systemizing things, whether it be through automation or not.

So how do we do requirements?

We start with the current state, we document what we actually do.

Plain English wins every time.

You just make it really simple to understand.

And then we want to have some success criteria.

So how will we know that this worked for, for example, an invoice marked paid without me touching it is success criteria.

And then we do exception handling.

So what if it breaks normal flow if there's a late payment or partial payment?

What are some of the edge cases or scenarios that we have to run through you build those into your requirements and you can use AI to really help you understand how this strings together really well.

AI was built by developers.

They understand requirements, they talking requirements.

All day long, and then you want to build in stages.

So just as I said before, in iterations.

Okay?

We have a manual procedure, we have an assisted procedure.

We have it semi automated, and then we have it fully automated.

So to close, stop documenting for documentation sake.

Chances are that if you're a solo operator, you're not even documenting at all.

And I do recommend that you start start documenting to build your escape route from your daily grind.

Every procedure written properly is a step forward to switching off sooner.

So next week, we're gonna cover off on the fourth P, which is performance.

So how do we know if any of this is actually working?

Okay, it's all the tracking that goes into your business.

It's the sexy dashboards and all those sorts of things that we're gonna be looking at to make sure that your business is running effectively and it is actually serving your life.

And if you do need help sorting this out, I have a resource on my website.

You can find that@lonewolfunleashed.com 4p-procedure that's 4p procedure.

Thanks for hanging out with me today.

I appreciate you and your time.

You decided to hang out with me and learn about how to properly document your business procedures, checklists, and other artifacts.

And for that, I thank you and I'll see you next time.