Writing Your First Simple Process

The smallest process can make the biggest difference.

Not a binder. Not a software system. Not a hundred-page operations manual. Just one task, written down clearly, so it gets done the same good way every time.

Here is the tension. The word “process” sounds like corporate work, the kind of thing a big company with a compliance department does. You are one woman with a laptop and a calling. Writing down how you do something feels like overkill when you are the only one who does it.

And yet the reason you feel so tired is that you carry every step of every task in your head, all the time. A written process is not for a corporation. It is for you, on the week your child gets sick and your brain has nothing left. It might be one of the kindest things you ever do for your future self.

The Weight of Remembering

Imagine a therapist in private practice. Call her hypothetical, because she is. She takes on two or three new clients a month. Each time, she has to remember: send the intake packet, get the consent forms back, set up the client in her billing system, verify insurance, send the portal login, schedule the first session, and send a reminder. Seven things. She has done it fifty times. She still forgets one almost every time, usually the portal login, and the client shows up for the first session unable to log in.

It is not that she is disorganized. It is that she is holding seven steps in memory alongside everything else in her life, and memory is not a filing system.

I know that weight. At my worst I was working about 70 hours a week, and so much of my mental energy went to simply remembering. How did I do this last time? What was the next step? Where did I save that template? I would redo work because I could not find the version I had already done. I was not short on effort. I was short on a place to put things down.

A written process takes the weight out of your head and puts it on paper. It frees your mind for the work that needs your creativity, your judgment, and your heart. And one day, when you are ready for help, that written process is the thing that makes handing off the task possible.

Faithful in Little

Jesus said, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much” (Luke 16:10).

He said it after the parable of the shrewd manager, in a teaching about how we handle what has been entrusted to us. The principle is simple and a little uncomfortable: how you handle small things is how you will handle big things. There is no shortcut where the small things do not matter.

I think about that verse when I am tempted to skip the small stuff. Writing down a seven-step checklist does not feel spiritual. It does not feel significant. But faithfulness in the little things is how bigger things get built. Your first process is a little thing. It is also a seed.

This is the Structure pillar in its smallest form. Paul writes that all things should be done decently and in order. A written process is order you can hold in your hand.

How to Write Your First Process

Give yourself about an hour on your Monday CEO day. Here is the method, then a complete example.

1. Choose one task you do at least monthly. Ideally it is something that feels a little messy or that you always have to think hard to remember. Client onboarding, invoicing, publishing a blog post, preparing for a discovery call. Do not start with the hardest thing. Start with the most repeated thing. Frequency is what turns a page of notes into a habit you trust.

2. Do the task and write as you go. Do not write from memory. You will skip steps you do automatically, and those are exactly the ones a future helper will miss. Keep a page beside you and jot each step the moment you take it.

3. Write each step as one plain action. Start with a verb. “Send welcome email.” Not a paragraph. If a step needs explaining, it is probably two steps.

4. Attach the tools. Wherever a step uses a template, a login, or a file, write exactly where it lives. This is the part that saves the most time later and the part most people skip.

5. Mark the decision points. If a step depends on something, say so. “If the client paid in full, skip step six.”

6. Name it, date it, save it. Give it a clear title and store it in one folder called Processes. Note the date so you know when it was last updated.

Here is a complete sample. Picture a solo coach or consultant who takes on new one-on-one clients. Her onboarding process, written out, looks like this:

New Client Onboarding (updated May 2026)

1. When the client says yes, send the Welcome email from Templates > Clients > 01 Welcome. Attach nothing yet.
2. Create the client’s folder: Clients > [Last Name, First Name]. Copy the Client Folder Template into it.
3. Send the agreement from the e-signature tool using the Coaching Agreement template. Set a reminder for 3 business days.
4. Send the first invoice from the invoicing app using the Coaching Package template. If paying monthly, set the invoice to recur on the 1st. If paying in full, send once.
5. When the agreement is signed and payment is received, send the Kickoff email from Templates > Clients > 02 Kickoff. It includes the scheduling link and the intake questionnaire.
6. When the intake comes back, read it and write three notes in the client folder: their stated goal, their biggest obstacle, and one thing to ask about in session one.
7. Add the client to the Active Clients list and to the monthly check-in reminder.
8. Two days before the first session, send the Session Reminder text from Notes > Scripts.
9. After session one, send the Session One Follow-up email from Templates > Clients > 03 Follow-up, and file the session notes in the client folder.

Nine steps. About 20 minutes to write while doing it once. If she onboards three clients a month and this saves even 30 minutes of hunting and remembering each time, that is 18 hours a year. More importantly, no client ever waits on a forgotten link again. And when she hires an assistant, steps 1 through 5 and 7 and 8 are ready to hand over on day one.

If it only lives in your head, it is a habit. The day you write it down, it becomes a system.

But What If…

But what if I do things differently every time? Then you have found the problem, and the process is the cure. Doing things differently every time is why the task feels heavy. Write down your best version. Follow it three times. You will be surprised how little you miss the improvising.

But what if I write it and never look at it again? Keep it where you work, not in a drawer. The process you can see is the process you will follow. A checklist taped to the wall or pinned in your notes app gets used. A document buried in a folder does not. Use it the next time on purpose, and fix the one thing it got wrong. Processes that get touched stay alive.

But what if my business is too small for this? No business is too small to be run on purpose. A solo business with written processes is a business that can survive a sick week, a vacation, and eventually a hire. A solo business with none is a job that owns you.

Do This Week

Plan on about 60 minutes across the week.

1. Choose your one task. Write its name at the top of a page right now. (2 minutes)
2. The next time you do it, write each step as you go. Include where every template and file lives. (Adds about 15 minutes to the task)
3. Clean it up. One verb per step, decision points marked, dated at the top. (15 minutes)
4. Save it in a folder called Processes. Make the folder today even if it holds only one file. (3 minutes)
5. Use it the next time and fix one thing. A process is a living thing. It gets better each time you follow it. (5 minutes)

How the Building Begins

The paradox was that writing down a small task felt too small to matter. The resolution is that small, faithful things are the only way anything large gets built. You do not need to systematize your whole business this month. You need one page, used twice.

Faithful in a very little. That is how the building begins.