The business that cannot go on holiday
Ask most sole traders how their business works and they will tell you, fluently, for twenty minutes, without ever writing anything down. It is all in there: the order the jobs go in, which supplier to ring first, the thing you always check before invoicing, the customer who needs the call rather than the email.
That knowledge is the business. It is also the reason you cannot take a fortnight off, cannot hand anything over, and cannot train the person you keep meaning to hire.
Writing it down is not hard. It is just boring, and it never becomes today's most urgent thing. Which is exactly the sort of task worth handing to something that does not get bored.
In plain English
- Standard operating procedure:
- A written set of steps for a job you do regularly, so anyone can follow it. Often shortened to SOP.
- Handover:
- Passing a job or a whole role to someone else, with enough information that they can actually do it.
- Transcript:
- The text version of something spoken. Most phones and AI tools can produce one from a voice recording.
- Edge case:
- The unusual situation your normal steps do not cover. The bit everyone forgets to write down.
Talk it, do not type it
This is the part that changes everything. You will never sit down and write a procedure. You will absolutely talk about one for four minutes while driving to a job.
So do that. Open the voice recorder on your phone, or use the dictation button in ChatGPT or Claude, and just explain the job out loud to an imaginary new starter. Ramble. Backtrack. Say "oh, and before that you need to". None of that matters, because sorting out a mess is the thing AI is best at in the entire world.
โ Weak prompt
Prompt
Write a standard operating procedure for handling new customer orders in a bakery.
Output
1. Receive the customer order. 2. Confirm order details with the customer. 3. Enter the order into the order management system. 4. Verify ingredient availability. 5. Schedule production.
Generic and useless. It describes a bakery that does not exist, with a system you do not have, and it will not survive contact with a real Tuesday.
โ Good prompt
Prompt
Here is a transcript of me describing how I handle a new cake order. It is rambling and out of order. Turn it into a numbered procedure someone could follow on their first week, keeping every specific detail I mentioned. Where I was vague or contradicted myself, list it as an open question rather than guessing. TRANSCRIPT: [paste it]
Output
1. Log the order in the blue notebook, not the phone, because the notebook is what you check on Sunday. 2. Take the deposit before ordering anything. Ariel does not accept returns on colouring...
It is your actual business, in your actual order, with the reasons attached. The open questions at the end are the parts you did not realise you had never decided.
Below is a transcript of me explaining how I do a job in my business.
It is rambling, out of order and repeats itself.
Turn it into a clear numbered procedure that someone new could follow.
Rules:
- Keep every specific detail I mentioned: names, suppliers, tools, timings.
- Keep the reasons where I gave them. People follow steps they understand.
- Where I was vague, contradicted myself or skipped something, do not guess.
List it under Open questions at the end.
- Plain language. No corporate process jargon.
TRANSCRIPT:
[paste it]
Checkpoint
Talk the process out loud into your phone, then let AI turn the rambling transcript into numbered steps. You will never write it from scratch.
The open questions are the point
Most people expect the tidy procedure to be the valuable output. It is not. The valuable output is the list at the bottom of things you never actually decided.
A bookkeeper doing this discovers she has no rule for how long she waits before chasing a client for their receipts. She has been deciding it individually, every time, for six years, at a small cost in attention each occasion. Writing the rule down takes ninety seconds and she never thinks about it again.
Ask for the open questions before you ask for the tidy version. Answer them, paste your answers back in, and the second draft is the one worth keeping.
Making it survive a real week
A procedure that only covers the smooth version is a procedure that fails on day two. The useful step is asking what goes wrong.
Here is a procedure from my business. Someone will follow it for the first time
next week while I am away.
- Where would a new person get stuck or have to guess?
- What common situations does this not cover?
- What could they get wrong in a way that costs money or upsets a customer?
- Which steps need a warning line attached, and what should it say?
Do not rewrite it. Give me the four lists so I can fill the gaps myself.
THE PROCEDURE:
[paste it]
Run that and you find the things you know so deeply you forgot they were knowledge. Never promise a same-day turnaround on a Friday. Always ring this supplier rather than emailing, because they do not read email. Check the meter before you leave, not after.
Turning one procedure into a handover pack
Once you have three or four written up, you can ask for the thing you actually needed all along.
Below are the procedures for my business. I am away for two weeks and someone
is covering.
Write a single cover note for them containing:
- What to do first each day.
- The three things that must not be missed, and why.
- What to handle themselves and what to leave for me.
- Who to contact for what.
- What to do if something happens that is not covered here.
One page. Written for a capable person who does not know my business.
Work only from what is in these procedures. Do not invent policies.
If something important is missing, say so at the end.
MY PROCEDURES:
[paste them]
Two things to keep out of any document AI helps you write: passwords and account credentials, which belong in a password manager and nowhere else, and anything you are contractually required to keep confidential. Also strip customer names and card details out of examples before pasting.
If your procedures touch on how you hire, pay or manage anyone, or on tax and record keeping, treat the AI draft as a prompt for a conversation with an accountant or an employment professional. It can help you write down what you currently do. It cannot tell you whether what you currently do is compliant.
Fifteen minutes, one process
Do not attempt to document the whole business. Pick the one job you would most hate to explain in a hurry, talk about it for four minutes, and let the AI type it up. Then do another one next month.
Six months of that and you have a business somebody else could run, which is another way of saying a business you could sell, or step back from, or actually take a holiday from.
๐ Quiz
Question 1 of 4What is the most practical way to start documenting a process?