Create Procedures Not Work

World War Two ended and a young man who had served as an ambulance driver in France returned home to the United States. He drifted through jobs, one after the other, becoming among other things a paper clip salesman, a pianist, a jazz musician, a disc jockey, and a milkshake machine salesman.

Somewhere along the way, this man discovered the secret to building a multi-billion, international company.

The secret?

He created a procedure to do everything, right down to the smallest detail, constantly adjusting and perfecting until anybody could understand how his procedures worked.

Ray Kroc bought the McDonald’s name and restaurant for $2.7 million and turned it into a billion dollar brand.

Before Ray Kroc, the McDonald brothers had no way to systematize their idea. They had good hamburgers, sure, but they didn’t have procedures.

Ray Kroc, came in and made McDonald’s an assembly line, assuring customers that each burger was made the same way, the fries all tasted the same. He set strict rules for the francizes on proportions, packaging, cooking time, and cost.

Creating Procedures of Creativity

Most people think of procedures as boring. After all, they are things you do over and over again. The world, especially the entrepreneurial world rewards creativity and boldness.

People like Steven Jobs and Jeff Bezos created new way of doing things. But the secret sauce is not in the latest iphone or being able to sell anything to everybody; it is creating a culture where routines thrive.

Thomas Edison probably changed modern life more than any single other human being. He created the phonograph, the motion picture camera and a commercial-viable light bulb.

But more than anything Edison was an inventor of systems. With those systems he was able to streamline, create mass production and ultimately change the world.

Many other inventors worked on creating a commercially-viable lightbulb including Robert Houdin, Joseph Swan, and James Bowman Lindsay. But most of them are forgotten by history. Lindsay was successful in a public demonstration in Scotland but was strangely not very well documented. He was brilliant but yet he lacked the capacity for procedures.

We often think of inventors as suddenly stumbling across something new and often times that is the case.

But with Edison nothing was accidental. He had a team which he delegated to the systematic task of trying out every single type of material to use as a filament, including a strand of human hair. But once he solved the problem, he didn’t stop.

In 1880 he filed for a patient for an electrical distribution system that would allow all types of people to enjoy lights, not just the very rich. In 1882 he was able to provide lights to 59 people in Lower Manhattan. Five years after that there were 121 power stations across the United States.

He did all this by approaching his problems one foot in front of the other, then the other foot in front of the other. Slowly but inevitably proceeding to success.

How Can I Use Procedures?

Most of us aren’t creating large companies or in charge of a great number of people but the same ideas still hold true.

I used to hate routines and I hated procedures for doing things until I realized the power in them.

Sprinters don’t win gold metals just by trying to run one race real fast. They train each and every day, doing the same thing over and over again, getting a little bit faster, a little bit stronger.

The same applies for any endeavored you choose to take in life.

I would suggest you have a procedure for almost everything you do in life, whether it’s making dinner, buying a cup of coffee, or driving to work.

I write my procedures down in a notebook so I’m sure to follow them exactly. Now I have them memorized so often my day goes like clockwork.

Keep a time log for a week and spend an hour reviewing it. This has helped me immensely and if you’re disciplined it will help you as well. Not only does it improve work flow but it insures you’re doing exactly what you need to be doing, decreasing stress levels.

If you do the same thing over and over again you can see what is working and what isn’t. You can trim the fat, effectively maximizing your own time and effort.

If you drive to work, maybe you can find the optimal time to leave the house or a short cut to get you there faster.

Maybe you become so good at making dinner you can do it while on an overseas conference call.

I have spent years messing around on social media and it wasn’t until about the last six months did I come up with an effective repeatable procedure to make the time spent on social media the most efficient so I could spend more time writing and making money.

Using Hootsuite, I spend only about 30 minutes to an hour a day instead of 2 hours but am able to amplify my efforts across various platforms, connecting with many thousands of people across the world.

I would love to hear what sort of procedures you use and if you don’t have any how you’re going to start using them to increase your efficiency both at home and work.

Joel Mark Harris is a writer, producer and journalist. (@joelmarkharris) He is the proud founder of Scene2Studio and you can download for FREE his award-winning thriller novel A Thousand Bayonets HERE

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