More of Our Own Medicine

Recently the subject line of our Build It As You Fly Newsletter lacked the usual, characteristic airplanes ✈️ and formatting, and that’s because we messed up.

Not that big of a deal, right?

Right. And I’m using this example not because I want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but to illustrate a larger point about the importance of using documentation—including for the things you do regularly.

Even if the goal or steps of a process don’t change, other things outside of that process (who does it, the software it runs on, etc.) can change and create negative ripple effects.

In this case, it was a software change. Mailerlite rolled out an update to their platform that reconfigured the process for publishing our newsletter. The updated process included a redesigned interface for the subject line, and the change was drastic enough that it threw us off. 

Had we been using a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) or even a checklist, the mistake would have been much less likely to happen. Thankfully, it wasn’t a mistake that had major consequences, but the point is that it demonstrates that even process-minded people like us make mistakes when we don’t use documentation. 

The truth is that it doesn’t make sense to create a complete SOP for our email marketing process right now. So what are we going to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again? Create a checklist!

When it comes to documentation, which can be time-consuming to create, sometimes you just need to take the next step toward the goal. With a checklist in place, it will be much easier to eventually create a full SOP. And the checklist will ensure consistency and help to prevent errors in the meantime.

If you’re not sure which processes to create checklists or SOPs for in your business, check out our free Delegation Planner. After customizing it with your processes and using the frameworks we share to organize and categorize them, you’ll quickly see which processes should be prioritized as you create documentation.