Question: What do these four items have in common?
#1: My mom’s non-dairy chocolate mousse recipe:
#2: The pilot script for “The Big Bang Theory”:
#3: Google Maps directions from my house to Intuit Canada:
#4: IKEA assembly instructions for a Billy bookcase:
Answer: They are all workflows. And workflows, whether you realize it or not, are a necessity in virtually every facet of our lives.
Even before “workflow apps” were a thing, we often cobbled together whatever we could to avoid doing the same things twice in the same manual way, using the technology that we had at the time. That’s how we got more done with less effort and made fewer mistakes.
How about some examples of workflows from business?
#5: My company’s NDA template, which I created once and now use my CRM system to populate the fields that are specific to each project:
#6: My “out of office” vacation responder email:
What is a workflow?
OK, those were real-world examples. But what is a workflow, exactly? Here’s the dictionary definition:
This says to me that a workflow is simply an ordered checklist of steps.
Sometimes, when order does not matter, a workflow is just a bulleted checklist, like a shopping list or a packing list. But even then, oftentimes order does matter, because in the case of a shopping list, you want to put ice cream in the wagon just before you go to pay, or maybe you also want to remember to pack some freezer packs and a Styrofoam chest in the car if you are shopping for ice cream in the summer.
Or, in the case of a packing list, you might want to leave out your morning toiletries and pack them last so you can use them just before you leave on your trip.
No matter how simple a list it is, I use shopping and packing lists religiously. I employ lists of all kinds, really. Originally, I thought it was because I just can’t remember anything. And that’s probably true. But then I realized there’s science behind this, and not just my own weird brain.
The science: having workflows diffuses overwhelm.
When you no longer have to keep things in your brain, you diffuse the overwhelm that’s going on in there. Having something documented, written down away from your brain really clears up the stress and feelings of overwhelm, according to mental health practitioners. And when you are not stressed, you feel better and you function better. That improved function includes having a better memory.
Again, a workflow is something you list in steps outside your brain to diffuse the overwhelm of information and data going on inside your brain.
How many times have you awakened in the middle of the night telling yourself that you have to remember to do something in the morning? You will never get back to sleep unless you write it down old-school or put it in your to-do list or calendar app. If you offload the task from your brain, you’ve diffused the stress and overwhelm.
A common rule of thumb is this: anything you do manually more than once likely deserves a workflow.
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
If you’ve never heard of Atul Gawande, you should check him out. He’s a brilliant surgeon in Boston, a writer for The New Yorker, and an assistant professor at Harvard. He has done great TED talks. He also has a phenomenal published author. One of his books is called “The Checklist Manifesto.”
Here’s the main thesis of The Checklist Manifesto. I have highlighted the most important sections:
And here is that thesis, expressed visually:
As you repeat your processes, you check off the boxes. And as you do that, you get better at what you’re doing and your knowledge increases from doing things repeatedly, i.e., having experience) with the checklists. As experience grows, the checklists will evolve or improve, and knowledge continues to evolve and grow with it. The more that checklists get developed and used, the better they become.
Why do checklists work? Because they ensure people are applying all the knowledge and expertise they have gained consistently.
A big example Gawande uses is the aircraft industry, which has ever-increasing complex aircraft to maintain. One slip and there is a huge tragedy and incalculable consequences. Therefore, that industry uses checklists and everyone has to use them consistently. As time goes on, the checklists have to change to deal with different aircraft, airline practices, current events, and ever-changing laws.
He then goes on to apply this concept of checklists to the practice of surgery or almost any other complex practice.
This is no surprise to me: human memory can become fallible when there are very serious and pressing events going on. So many things fell out of my head when I was dealing with the deaths of both of my parents in quick succession.
But even when something pressing isn’t happening, it’s easy to talk yourself into skipping steps because most of the time, they won’t be critical matters.
Checklists provide protection against these two key difficulties.
By making the minimum necessary steps explicit and verifiable, a discipline is instilled which can lead to higher levels of performance.
Put another way, checklists work well in complex situations because they hit a balance between what usually seem to be conflicting virtues of discipline (or highly structured environments with no wiggle room for change) and freedom (areas where creativity, judgment, taking a skill to the next level and exceptions to rules are expected).
Checklists help people achieve a balance between these virtues by supplying a set of checks to ensure the basic, critical stuff is not overlooked while at the same time ensuring people talk and coordinate together around common, shared aims.
According to Dr. Gawande, “Under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success. There must always be room for judgment, but judgment aided—and even enhanced—by procedure.”
Fortunately, our workflows, which are crucial to us, do not mean the difference between life and death the way they do in the aircraft industry or in surgery.
Every person, personality and business is unique.
For example, what kind of items would get included in an investment checklist? One investor has developed his checklist by analyzing every investment Warren Buffett has ever made. His checklist includes these kinds of items:
Want to repeat or automate?
If you want to speed things up, either by repeating the same workflow over and over, or having your staff do it, or perhaps you want to find the unicorn of apps to automate the workflows for you, you first have to know what you want to speed up, repeat, and/or automate.
That means….defining your workflow. So whether your practice is very much like many others, or if you feel it’s unusual or unique as I feel mine is (and so many of us feel our practice is unique), here’s how you find the right workflow app for you.
Maybe it is the unicorn of workflow apps, but always start by defining what your own workflow is.
Why? If you want to take advantage of how you have done things in the past, either by repetition or by automation, you have to define your workflow.
A lot of us do this type of system selection for our clients, but we should be doing it for ourselves too.
So in this case, you would be both the consultant doing the system selection and the client, evaluating possible solutions:
- Define your needs
- Identify every set of tasks (workflow) you perform (for clients and for internal purposes)
- Map each specific step of each workflow
- Identify what’s constant and repeated
- Work backwards to see what triggers each workflow (e.g. email, phone call)
- That is your checklist for each workflow
- Pick task management/project management system(s) that meet(s) your needs
I did just that to find my Customer Relationship Management system, and, with the help of Kellie Parks and The Workflow Watering Hole Facebook group, I was able to find Dubsado, which has been my CRM ever since. For those of you who are interested, here's a discount code.
Dubsado works great for me, because it works the way my brain does. However, it may not be your jam. So you need to test it (or any other app) out. If something doesn’t work for you, or doesn’t work with your brain, then it’s not the right app for you. Period. Find something that is.
But, if you’re like me, you will not have everything going at top speed all at once. You will be easing into things with your app because you have a business to run and you don’t have time to learn everything and to put everything into practice.
After several years, I’ve got automated workflows going on in Dubsado, as well as several automations going between Dubsado and Zapier …and QBO.
For example: if someone fills out my client intake form on my website, it triggers a new Lead in Dubsado and I get a text telling me who filled it out via Zapier (“zaps,” in Zapier parlance). Then one of my Dubsado workflows sends out a Thank you for contacting EFK CompuBooks Inc. to the new lead and cc’s me and then puts a reminder on my calendar to call them the next day.
If I wanted to get fancy, I could set up Office Hours in Dubsado so workflow emails go out only during office hours. I could also add a delay to my Zapier zap to wait until 9 a.m. the next day if I receive the client intake form after hours. These are things which are down the list of priority for me, but I may get around to them at some point.
Am I done setting up Dubsado? Not even close. It’s a work in progress, like so many other elements of my practice.
Back to Zapier: I have a zap that, when a payment is received in QBO, including one by QuickBooks Payments, initiates a “Thank you” email to the client, acknowledging their payment, telling them what their balance is, and thanking them for their business.
Would my existing automated workflows be perfect for you? Maybe not. We don’t necessarily do the same things. And we likely use our brains differently.
So what I’m saying is this: Define who you are and how you work best. Define your needs and your workflow steps. Pretend you’re your own client and do system selection for them.
Go on The Workflow Watering Hole on Facebook and share your experiences while others share theirs. Try out the app and see if it works for your needs and your brain. If it doesn’t match both, move on.
If it’s just a matter of documenting your workflow recipes or checklists so that you or anyone else can follow the steps, create a company procedures manual.
But don’t get gobsmacked by trying to automate everything all at once. If you do things in baby steps, you’ll enjoy the small feelings of success every time you create something that saves you time, effort, and errors. That will encourage you to try more baby steps and enjoy further time savings and successes. In addition to the proven value of workflows and checklists, that too will diffuse your overwhelm.
Esther Friedberg Karp is an internationally-renowned trainer, writer and speaker from Toronto, where she runs her QuickBooks consulting practice, EFK CompuBooks Inc. Consistently in Insightful Accountant's Top 100 ProAdvisors, she has been named to the Top 10 twice.
With the unique distinction of holding ProAdvisor certifications in the US, Canadian, UK, and International versions of QuickBooks, she has traveled the world with Intuit. She has spoken at conferences such as QuickBooks Connect, Scaling New Heights, and Future Forward, and has written countless articles for Intuit Global.
Esther has been named one of the “Top 50 Women in Accounting,” a “Top 10 Influencer” in the Canadian Bookkeeping World, and is a repeat nominee for the “RBC Canadian Women’s Entrepreneur Awards.” She counts among her clients many international companies, as well as accounting professionals seeking her out on behalf of their own clients for her expertise in multi-currency and various countries’ editions of QuickBooks Desktop and Online.
She can be reached at esther@e-compubooks.com or 416-410-0750.
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