⚒ If you want something done right…
You know that feeling when you’re staring at your screen, juggling 27 tabs, half a sandwich, and a creeping sense that you’ve become the bottleneck in your own business? Nothing is going to actually get DONE unless you have your hands on it?
That’s the moment. The one where you either start documenting what you do, or start quietly googling “how to clone yourself.”
While you can’t snap your fingers and have another “you” at your side, you can create SOPs, or Standard Operating Procedures: step-by-step guides for how you do something in your business so someone else can do it just as well (or better) without you.
The Problem: You can’t delegate chaos
Here’s the trap most of us fall into when we finally decide to hire help:
We bring someone in… and then realize all the tasks we want to hand off only exist inside our heads.
So you spend your first week of “delegation” explaining the same thing six times, apologizing for how disorganized everything is, and thinking maybe it’d be faster if you just did it yourself.
It would be faster this time. But that’s how the cycle keeps spinning.
So here’s what you’re going to do: Document your processes before you’re desperate.
Here are some examples:
Social media publishing - your styles/formats, using a scheduling tool, etc.
Sending invoices
Expense tracking
Design file exporting for production use
Client onboarding - contract signing, sending initial materials, etc.
Make your first SOPs without writing a single word
Good news: your first SOP can literally just be you talking out loud.
Here’s the method I use (and recommend to anyone about to hire their first contractor, assistant, or social media person):
1. Record yourself doing the task
Use Loom, Screen Studio, or your built-in screen recorder. If it’s a manual task, set up your phone to record you doing it.
Narrate exactly what you’re doing and why it’s important. What will break if they do it incorrectly? How does it make things easier? What are you taking into consideration when doing this task?
Don’t overthink it. You’re not making a course, you’re capturing how your brain works in real time. It doesn’t have to look pretty. You can say “um” a thousand times. It doesn’t matter.
Pro tip: If you catch yourself saying, “I’ll explain this later,” pause and actually explain it now. Later never comes.
2. Store the recording somewhere reliable with any necessary resources
Drop the file or link in a Notion page, Google document, or whatever hub you already use consistently.
Name it something obvious like “📹 SOP — How to Post Event Recaps on Instagram.”
Add a short summary at the top with links or assets they’ll need. This is where you can leverage guides that already exist. If it’s something you reference to complete the task, drop it in the SOP.
Even if your whole SOP is just a five-minute video and a link to Canva, it’s miles ahead of “I’ll Slack you the login later.”
3. When you hire someone, have them write the SOP
When you onboard a new person, ask them to watch your recording and write the step-by-step instructions as they go.
That one move does three things at once:
Tests whether they understand and can follow directions (you’d be shocked how many people can’t).
Gives you a written version of your process without you having to write it.
Shows you where your instructions are confusing or incomplete.
You can then review their draft, tighten it up, and save it for the next time someone needs it. Boom: something you can delegate forever.
Every task you document is one you never have to explain again.
When you start building systems this way, hiring stops feeling like a panic move and starts feeling like leveling up.
4. Make it a living library
SOPs are living documents. Encourage your team or contractors to update them whenever the process changes. Add screenshots, replace old Looms, and include “last updated” dates so nothing goes stale.
Take a moment to make sure you’re storing them in one place so any time you need to ask “How do we do X?” you know where to look. This is your new Knowledge Base!
Try it this week
Pick one task that eats your time: sending invoices, posting to social, updating your site. Now record yourself doing it once.
Label it. Save it. You’ve just written your first SOP.
Then, the next time someone says “Let me know how I can help,” you’ll actually have an answer.
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