You cannot write it from memory, because memory gives you the tidy version and drops every check you no longer notice you are doing. Do the task one more time with a screen recording running, narrating why you are doing each thing rather than what you are clicking, then hand the recording to the person learning the work and let them write the procedure. Spend the next fortnight adding every "oh, except when" to a running list, because the exceptions are where handovers actually break. Then write one sentence saying what finished looks like, precise enough to tick off.
You know how to do it. That is the whole problem.
The task takes you a few minutes and you have never once thought about the order you do it in. Then you sit down to write it out for somebody else and what comes out is a few lines that would not get a stranger past the first screen. Not because you were lazy about it. Because the thing you are trying to hand over does not exist in a form that can be handed. It exists as habit.
So the job in front of you is not writing a document. It is extraction: getting a process out of muscle memory and into something a capable person can follow on a Tuesday when you are in a meeting. Here is the method, and it starts by not writing anything.
Why the version you write from memory is always thin
Sit down cold and describe a task you have done a thousand times and you will produce the happy path. Every check you now perform without noticing gets left out: the quick look at the client name that tells you which rule applies, the glance at last month's figure that tells you whether this one is plausible. You do not skip those steps. You have stopped experiencing them as steps.
The second thing memory drops is everything that is not the standard case, because the standard case is what comes to mind. That one matters more, and it has its own section below.
None of this is a personal failing and none of it is rare. When an offshore arrangement goes wrong, the cause we see most often is that the process only ever existed in someone's head while everyone involved genuinely believed it was documented. We have written up the five causes and what prevents each one, so this article stays on the one that blocks everything else.
Narrate it once, while your hands are on it
Next time the task comes up, start a screen recording and talk while you work. Not a rehearsed walkthrough. The real one, including the bit where you had to ring someone.
The rule while you talk is to say why, not what. "Now I am opening the supplier list" is worthless, because they can see that. "I am checking the supplier list, because if this supplier is not on it the invoice needs a purchase order before I code it" is the process. One of those sentences survives a software update. The other one does not.
The cost is the task you were doing anyway plus the talking. Compare that with the hour on a Sunday night you keep not spending.
Then do the part almost everyone skips. Hand the recording to the person who has to learn the work and have them write the procedure from it. Their draft will be better than yours, because they write down what they did not know and you no longer know what that is. Every question that comes back is a hole in your process, not a hole in them. Pick a record you are comfortable having sit in a training folder.
Record the decisions, not the clicks
A click list is the most common form of useless documentation. Open Bills, click New, choose the supplier, enter the date. It reads like a procedure, takes an afternoon to write, and stops being true the first time a menu moves. Worse, somebody following it cannot tell whether they are doing the right thing, only whether they are pressing the right buttons.
A decision line has three parts: what you are looking at, what you are deciding, and what makes it go one way rather than the other. Anything without a purchase order comes to me before it is entered. A new supplier gets their bank details confirmed by phone, on a number we already hold, never a number in the email. Those are rules. They survive a software change, a staff change and a year.
Screenshots still earn their place, but only for showing where things live. The sentences do the real work. Our guide to handing over your inbox is a worked version of exactly this, because the whole system is one set of decision rules about what gets answered, what gets scheduled and what comes to you, which is why it holds up on the email nobody predicted.
The exceptions are where handovers break
Anyone can do the clean one by day two. Handovers do not fail on the standard case. They fail on the invoice that arrives in a shape nobody has seen before, or the job that gets coded oddly because of a decision made three years ago that nobody wrote down.
You will not think of these sitting at a desk. They arrive one at a time, in the doing. So keep a running list for a fortnight, and every time you hear yourself say "oh, except when", write the sentence down before the thought goes. Use the same shape each time: when this happens, do this, because of that. The because is what lets somebody handle the exception you never got around to writing, which is the entire point of the exercise.
Then add one more line at the top of the list. Anything not covered here and not obvious comes to me, and asking is the expected answer rather than a failure. Put it in writing. People new to a business will guess rather than appear not to understand, especially when the person they report to is senior and in another country.
Procedure travels. Judgement does not, yet
This is the distinction that decides what your brief can honestly contain.
A procedure has a right answer somebody else can check. A judgement is a call where two capable people could reasonably go different ways and you carry the consequence of which. The test takes a second: could you give the answer over the phone right now, without looking at the file? If yes, it is a rule you have not written down yet. If you would need to see the situation first, it is judgement, and no document is going to move it.
Judgement is not stuck with you permanently. It moves once somebody has watched you make the same kind of call enough times to predict you, which is months rather than weeks. It does not move on day one and it never moves by being written down. Some of it does not move at all, because a licence, a registration or a signature is personal to the person who holds it, and the boundary sits at the sign-off rather than at the preparation underneath it.
So split the task instead of shelving it. The preparation goes across. The decision, the release and the signature stay with you. If you are still working out which task to start with, the four-question framework gives you an order rather than a verdict.
Say what finished looks like
Most briefs describe an activity and never describe a finish. Manage the inbox. Look after the invoices. Done at what point, exactly?
Write it as a state somebody could tick off from the other side of the room. The reconciliation is finished when every line is matched, the unmatched items are listed with a reason each, the file is saved in this folder under this name, and I am tagged in the channel. That is a definition of done. "Keep on top of the reconciliation" is a mood.
Include the format, because much of what you correct in the first fortnight is format rather than substance: the date order, the file naming, the currency column, whether the client name goes first or last. Each is small enough to feel petty to raise and annoying enough to raise weekly if you never settle it. Settle them once, at the start.
What this actually costs
- One screen recording of a task you were doing anyway.
- One written draft, produced by the person learning the work and corrected by you.
- One running list of exceptions, built over a fortnight as they turn up.
- One sentence per task describing what finished looks like.
None of that is a project. It happens alongside the work in the first two weeks, inside the same fifteen minutes a day that a proper onboarding fortnight asks of you, and it is most of the difference between a hire who is useful in month two and one you quietly take the work back from. What the first month looks like week by week is a separate question, worth reading before day one.
The document is worth having whether or not you ever hire. It is what you hand the next person, and it is what stops the business being one bad flu away from a stalled week. If you would rather see finished examples first, our handover guides work through specific processes end to end.
Who writes the process down while you talk
The fastest way to get a process out of your head is to narrate it once and have somebody else write it up, and that somebody is usually the person who will end up doing the work. We hire administration assistants in the Philippines on behalf of Australian and US businesses, from A$14/hour plus GST for Australian clients and from US$9/hour for US clients, with no placement, recruitment, setup or exit fees. About two weeks from brief to first day.
- Turns your screen recording into a written procedure in their own words, for you to correct rather than author
- Keeps the running exceptions list, each one written as when this happens, do this, because of that
- Asks the question that finds the rule you never wrote down, then adds the answer to the document
- Works to your definition of done: the file name, the folder, the deadline, the person tagged
- Flags anything the written process does not cover instead of guessing at it
- Every judgement call the written rules do not cover, until you have made enough of them out loud to turn into rules
- Anything needing your licence, registration or signature — they prepare, you sign
- Deciding what finished looks like, and changing it when the work changes
- Approvals and releases, including anything that moves money
Frequently asked questions
Should I write the process down before I hire, or after they start?
Is a screen recording enough, or do I still need it written down?
What should I use to record my screen for training?
What if the task is different every time — can it still be handed over?
How do I hand over a task I only do once a month?
What happens to the process document if the person leaves?
Alfie is a natural facilitator with a passion for building meaningful relationships. A true people person, he thrives on creating genuine connections and bringing people and businesses together, and he excels at fostering collaboration and teamwork. At StaffingSolutions.io he is usually the first person you speak to: he maps the role, writes the brief the recruiters work from, and stays on the account long after the placement.
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