An Essay About Boring SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)

Ev Chapman
July 5, 2023
2 min read

I am a master procrastinator.

Not because I don't know what I should do or because I'm not motivated - but because most of the time I just don't have the headspace to get stuff done.

We spend so much of our lives like this. Running around like headless chooks, figuring out how to do the same tedious tasks over and over again... and never creating leverage for the real tasks that need our brain space.

And so to help me free up brain space I create personal SOPs.

Yes, this is an essay about boring Standard Operating Systems. The exciting part is that those boring SOPs are going to create so much leverage in your brain you won't know what to do with it!

Here's A Dead Simple Way I Create Personal SOPs:

Document As You Do. As soon as you notice you are doing something for a second or third time, start to write down the steps as you do them. Nothing fancy, just keep a notepad or document open and jot down each of the steps.

Record Yourself. If you hate writing, then just turn on loom & record yourself doing the task & talk your future self through it. And if you want to go full pro a virtual assistant will turn that into a fancy SOP in no time!

Bundle these into a master SOP List. Once you have a few of these documented collect them together into a list in your task manager. Keeping them in your task manager means you can grab them easily when you do that task next (& they don't get forgotten in some old Evernote notebook).

And that's it! That's how to create boring SOPs and free up your headspace for the more important things in life.

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