If You Do It Twice, Document It

In the early days of the restaurant, I made the same mistake a lot of founders make. I kept too much in my head. I knew the answers, so I answered the questions. I knew the process, so I jumped in and fixed it. I knew what needed to happen next, so I made sure it happened. At first, that felt efficient. It felt responsible. In reality, I was creating a business that relied too heavily on me.

I remember running around trying to support the team while also answering a million questions. Sometimes that mental load is just as heavy as the physical load. I would find myself thinking, we do this all of the time, why are we struggling right now? Eventually, I had to look internally and ask a better question: had I actually built a system, or was I just expecting everyone to remember what lived in my head?

That was the turning point for me.

If the Standard Only Lives in Your Head, It Isn’t a System

It’s important to give the customer a seamless and frictionless experience. No matter who from your team services them, or when they’re serviced, they should experience the same product, the same service, the same way every single time. That kind of consistency doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from documenting what works, training around it, and creating a process people can actually follow.

That’s when “if you do it twice, document it” became one of my core philosophies in business. Once I realized we were repeating the same instructions and processes over and over again, I knew the answer wasn’t to keep reminding people. It was to build a system.

One of the first things I did was create a front-of-house brief that included specials, FAQs, and even the code to our phone. It sounds simple, but it meant the team could answer more questions without having to stop and find me every five minutes. That gave me more time to provide support where it was truly needed and more time to focus on the backend systems that actually keep the operation moving.

Systems Are Memory Outside of Your Brain

Catering is a perfect example. Every time we prepare for an event, we create a pack-out list. It makes preparation more seamless and reduces the chance of forgetting something important. Catering is high stakes. A lot of the time, you don’t have the time or the proximity to go back and grab something you missed.

On my end, I’m managing logistics, decor, and design. Having a dedicated process in place makes all of that easier because I’m not relying on memory in the middle of a million moving parts. The system carries some of the load for me.

That’s really what good systems do. They take the information that would otherwise live in one person’s head and give it somewhere to live where the whole team can access it. The more you document, the less the business has to depend on one person’s memory, mood, availability, or proximity.

Systems Are Also a Leadership Responsibility

When too much of the business lives in your head, it leads to burnout, fatigue, and eventually resentment. You’ll find yourself questioning the team, wondering why they’re struggling with something you feel like you’ve explained a hundred times.

But every time we part ways with a teammate, I take time to reflect on our systems, processes, and training. Where did we drop the ball? Did we train properly? Did we set expectations clearly? Did we coach too late? Did we wait too long to set boundaries?

And then there’s the bigger question: how can we hold people accountable to expectations we haven’t documented?

That doesn’t mean the team is never responsible. It means leadership has to be honest about whether the standard was actually clear in the first place. If the expectation only exists in your head, it’s hard to call it a system.

Documentation Isn’t Excessive

A lot of entrepreneurs believe documenting systems is unnecessary or excessive. It can feel too formal, too time-consuming, or like something you’ll get to later when the business is bigger.

But once you actually turn the page and do it, you realize it opens up a whole new world for you, your team, and your business.

Yes, finding the time to sit down, think through the process, and put pen to paper or type it out can feel impossible when you’re already stretched thin. But once you get into the habit of documenting what you do, you start freeing up time for yourself. The work you do once can save you from having to explain, correct, or remember the same thing over and over again.

Start With the Pressure Points

If you want to start documenting systems, begin with the questions your team asks you the most. Keep a running list in your Notes app or in a notebook. Pay attention to the things you find yourself answering, training, correcting, or coaching on over and over again.

From there, create a document that answers those questions. And don’t just create the document and stuff it away somewhere. Actually use it as a teaching and training tool. Take a few minutes during a team huddle and go over a couple of items. Then keep incorporating that into future huddles. It doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out training session. Sprinkle it in.

Take a step back and look at what you’re constantly training, correcting, and coaching on. Those are probably the first things you need to document because they’ll relieve the pressure the fastest. Then, as time permits, continue building out the systems.

The Goal Is to Stop Being the System

For years, I was in the restaurant for 12 to 14 hours at a time. I felt like I needed to be there because so much of the operation depended on what I knew, what I remembered, and what I could solve in the moment.

Three years later, with better systems and processes in place, I can actually take a day off. I can come in late. I can step away without feeling like everything is going to fall apart because I’m not standing in the middle of it.

The old version of me would be shocked that this is my reality now.

That’s what documenting systems can do. It gives your team more confidence, your customers more consistency, and you more freedom. The goal isn’t to remove yourself from the business. It’s to stop being the only thing holding it together.

If you do it twice, document it.