Documentation
"How do we do that again?" You've explained it five times. The associate still asks. More meetings won't fix it. Documentation will: written instructions for how to do something (processes, systems, decisions). Good documentation enables delegation and maintains consistency. Without it, you're the bottleneck for every question.
Same process, with and without docs. Without: every handoff is a sync. "How do we onboard a client?" "I'll show you." Six months later, you're still showing. With documentation: there's a one-pager or a checklist. New person (or you in six months) can follow it. Documentation turns tribal knowledge into a repeatable system. It's the foundation for SOPs, checklists, and knowledge transfer.
Write it down. Then others can run it. You do the exception handling.
What to document first
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Processes that repeat. Client onboarding, proposal workflow, invoice follow-up, intake. Anything you do more than once a month is a candidate. Start with the one that causes the most "how do we…?" questions.
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Decisions and why. "We use tool X because…" "We send the proposal within 48 hours because…" When you document the why, the next person can uphold the standard without you. Decision logs prevent re-litigation.
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Where things live. Which folder, which template, which link. Simple runbooks ("for X, go to Y and do Z") save hours. Don't assume people will find it—point to it.
What breaks
Documentation no one uses. If it's out of date or buried, people will ask you instead. Keep it in a place everyone knows; update it when the process changes. One source of truth.
Documenting everything at once. You'll burn out. Pick one process. Document it. Use it. Then the next. Build over time.