Back when I taught Computer Science at the University of Scranton, I was tasked with teaching what most faculty viewed as an unenviable course, computer literacy. It was a required course that all freshmen had to take, and we didn't teach Software Development in it. It was essentially an Intro to Computers course. And I really enjoyed.
Teaching was a way for me to teach 18-year-olds about the evolving landscape of the online world. And while they've since changed the course to combine it with two other courses, I would love a chance to talk to students about AI and large language models. But that's not what today's episode is about. It's actually about how teaching this course led me to one of my core philosophies, not only in teaching, but in how helping solopreneurs like you get a better handle on exactly what you do and how you work.
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Streamlined Solopreneur, the show that helps you automate your business so you can take time off worry-free. I'm your host, Joe Casabona. And here's the problem.
Most solopreneurs don't know exactly what they do. They can't explain it, so they can't build systems around it. Further, when we try to build systems without explaining them, they don't get scrutinized by either ourselves or other people. And so we're not asking ourselves important questions. And here's the rest of that story that I just opened with that really taught me this lesson.
One class in this computer literacy course that I remember clearly as a day is when I was teaching the students how to use WordPress.com to set up their own personal websites. This was an asset I felt, and still feel every young person should have. But I really felt that way in the 2010s, when like personal brand was just emerging, and it was like the talk of the town. And so I thought, if you're going to get a job, a website where you're publishing your own thoughts is better than a resume.
And so I was teaching them the difference between a post in WordPress and a page in WordPress, which is something I had done dozens, possibly hundreds of times before that, but it was mostly to people who were already somewhat familiar with WordPress. So as I finished this well-rehearsed description, I looked out over a sea of neutral, at best, faces in a classroom as quiet as a church. One student mercifully ended the stunned silence by raising her hand and saying, I have no idea what you just said. Seriously. Her face is etched in my brain for all eternity. This happened in, like, 2010. Once she said that, half of the class vigorously nodded along with her. And it was at that moment that I realized that I never had to explain this to someone who didn't have at least a general idea of what pages and posts were in WordPress.
That single class changed my entire perspective on both teaching but also how I explain, how to do something and how I explain how I do something. Because when we explain, we scrutinize. Part of the problem was that my explanation was never scrutinized by someone completely unfamiliar with WordPress. It's kind of like the Harry Potter movies. I read all of the Harry Potter books. And so, watching the movies, I didn't realize that this important context was missing because I had it.
And so I watched one of the movies with my friend, I think it was. It was whichever one they started exploring the Horcruxes in. So it was like one of the later ones. Maybe it was Half-Blood Prince, but it doesn't matter. After the movie, I looked at my friend who hadn't read the books, and I said, what did you think? He said it was terrible. I couldn't follow, didn't make any sense. And I said, what do you mean? And he's like, " What is a Horcrux?” And it was at that moment that I realized that the movies never took the time to explain what a Horcrux was. And so if you weren't a reader of the books, you didn't have this context.
And so this was the reason that my explanation didn't land with my students, because I was either teaching WordPress to WordPress people or I was teaching WordPress to clients who were having me update their website anyway, so they weren't really engaged in what I was saying. And I somehow went multiple years without the incredibly helpful exercise of explaining this fundamental feature to someone who had no idea what WordPress was.
See, when we finally do explain something to someone completely unfamiliar with the process, three things happen. We examine something, we've done possibly so much, we don't think about it anymore, right? Imagine trying to teach a baby how to walk. You would need to think about this thing that just comes so naturally to most of us now. So we examine something we've not thought about, possibly in a while.
Number two is we need to justify our approach, right? When we are explaining something, we need to inherently ask ourselves, why do we do it this way? Or the person we're explaining it to is going to ask, why are you doing it this way. Which brings me to number three. We are then forced to clarify our position. We are forced to examine as we explain, which gives us clarity and understanding and the opportunity to do whatever it is we are explaining better. In other words, we open ourselves up to feedback, both from ourselves and from others. And you know who's really, really good at this? Kids. Kids are really, really good at this.
When I became a dad, I made a promise to myself that I would never say because I said so. I hate arbitrary and capricious rules. And because I said so is the epitome of arbitrary and capricious. If you can't explain why you are doing something, why you are setting this rule, why you are doling out this punishment, then you should not do it. And I've broken this rule only a few times because parenting is hard. But each time I either take back that rule or punishment, or I take the time to explain to my kids why I did what I did.
I've also just as an aside here, I've also explained to them that sometimes I need them to do something without question, and it could be a matter of safety or speed or something. So when I ask them to do something, and I want them to do it without question, I tell them they can ask me later. Do it now, I'll explain later is vastly superior to because I said so. But rules that apply to them aren't the only time that they ask why. They have no preconceived notion of why something should happen. And because I've always done it that way doesn't make any sense to them. I've learned a lot in my kids' pursuit of answers and my desire to answer them accurately.
And I'm telling you this because it's that childlike wonder that we need to take to our own systems that and processes as solopreneurs and small business owners. Because I've always done it that way is not good enough if you are trying to improve your business and take time off, or be free, because I said so, because that's the way it's done. Those are not good enough answers.
But at this point, you're probably thinking, Joe, we are several minutes into this episode, and I don't know what you want me to explain. I can't tell if that's a sign of bad writing or decent storytelling, but let's go with decent storytelling.
But here's the answer. Either way, the answer is simple, but maybe it's not easy. I want you to explain how you work; that's how we build better systems. And when we're in the thick of it, getting our business up and running, launching a new project or product, trying to get that next client, we can live in a mode where we're doing more reacting than planning. But if we want a less chaotic, more predictable business, we eventually need to understand what we're doing.
And explaining how we work will allow us to set up reliable automated systems for repeatable work. So I'm going to explain this exercise, and for this exercise, I want you to pick just one task. That's it. Pick something that you do often. It doesn't need to be a big task; it being multi-step is helpful, right? I put a task in. My task manager is not going to be good enough for this. But you know, pick a thing that you do often, then explain how you do it and why. And so here's two ways how you can explain how you work. And I guess before I get to that, I want you to keep this in mind that you could or should do it for two audiences.
The first is yourself, so you can review what you do if you personally need to do it, and if it needs to be done at all. And the other audience is others. And I'll define others in a minute, but others so they can learn how to do it your way, or provide you with feedback on how you can do it better. In either one of these cases or really both of these cases, stating the goal is important because this is how we determine what better means. Not in a Simon Sinek find your why way, but in a what's the point of me doing this way? If you don't have a good reason to do something, you can save a lot of time by not doing it. Just because you've always done it doesn't mean you need to keep doing it. I learned that with social media.
I've been off social media for like a year now, and my business has not crumbled. So in both instances, you should fire up your favorite screen recorder. Lots of people use Loom. I personally like Tela because it's super polished and really flexible. Then once you're recording, state what the task is, how it starts, that's the starting point, and the result, which is the end point. You should also state why you're performing this task, right? The goal and what you hope to achieve from it.
As you are performing that task or that workflow or whatever, those set of tasks that help you achieve this goal, narrate what you're doing and include as much as possible things like apps, websites, and other tools that you use, what kind of authentication you need for those apps, websites, and tools. Any place the data you're working with starts and finishes, it starts as a text file on my computer. It ends up as a published article on Substack; anything where the data starts and ends also includes how long it usually takes you. Any fields you need to fill in, in forms, gotchas, or variations on what could happen, potential errors you've come across, even if they're not shown on the screen.
The expected result. Any errors that do occur, you should keep recording and talk through them because that is important. It doesn't need to be a perfectly polished video. And in fact, if this error comes up multiple times, right, that's another reason to re-examine what you're doing. Really record anything and everything you can think of. Those are going to be the universal things for any task you record. That's like table stakes.
There are a couple of differences that can occur based on the audience, and so first, I'll tell you what to think about when recording for yourself. Then I'll tell you what to think about when recording for others. Then we'll put a nice bow on this episode.
So when you're recording for yourself, either to review it or just to remember how to do it, you can also include how you feel about this task. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Do you wish there was an easier way? Do a quick tools assessment. How do you feel about the tools you're using? Do you need all of them? Are you paying too much for one of them? It's good to make verbal notes at this moment because if you are frustrated by a tool on a task that you perform regularly, it's a good opportunity to review that tool and also think about its efficacy. If you've been doing this for a while, how effective is it with respect to your goal?
If you are posting on LinkedIn every day to get more newsletter signups, how many people per post are signing up for your newsletter? Be honest with yourself here. It's… this is for you. And so you need to be honest and be like no one is signing up for my newsletter from LinkedIn. Then you've got to, Is it worth posting on LinkedIn? If it's a new task, what are you going to look for to determine if it's effective? What are the metrics? The KPIs, the whatevers? What are you going to look for to figure out if this task is worth doing? Adding these three bits to your recording will give you more context, if and when you go back and review this.
It's easy to forget why we started doing something in the first place. It's easy to deal with the pain of using a tool because it's easier than switching. And so recording those notes and listening to future you, listening to past you, or present you, listening to past you is going to be really helpful and be like, oh, man, I've been dealing with this issue for a long time. Or, right, that was the goal, and I'm nowhere close to achieving that. Something needs to change. So that's when recording for yourself, the process will change slightly when recording for other people, depending on who the audience is, you could still state the efficacy, but how you feel, and the tools assessment should be framed slightly differently.
And at this point, I should say that there's actually like kind of two different recordings for other people's modes here. If you're recording it strictly as a standard operating procedure or SOP for a VA or a contractor, you can leave all of that stuff out. They don't need to know how you feel, the tools assessment, or how effective it is. You should make that recording as factual as possible. You don't want to get the most important stuff, which is how to perform the task, lost in the weeds of internal metrics and feelings. But if you're recording it for a coach, peers, a mastermind group, or whatever people you're seeking feedback from, you want to frame it. You want to frame everything to elicit that feedback. So when you talk about how you feel, focus on the things you like and why you like them. You can signal that you're still open to suggestions, though, right? We don't want to shut down feedback in this recording. We want to signal that we are open to whatever they have to say because we want the best version of this task or workflow possible.
With frustrations, you can ask point-blank if you know a better way. Please let me know. With tools, talk about why you use those particular tools and if you need them or not. Again, ask if you know a better tool or know a better way to use this tool. I'd love to hear about it. My friend Kat is a Notion expert, and if she sees I'm doing something in Notion a certain way, I don't need to ask. She will ask. She'll be like, " Why are you doing it that way? Why aren't you doing it this way? And I'm probably, I'm learning something about Notion that day, and it's very exciting for me.
So again, be open to asking that for efficacy. State your goals and ask them. Whoever is viewing this video, if that's reasonable, what seems to be working and what isn't, ask them if they think something is missing, and if the goal is on point, knowing what they know about you. This is, this is, this is really good for my mastermind group, or it's at least for me personally. But this is good in a group setting because someone will be like, why is that your goal? Like, why is your goal to sell a low-dollar digital product when you have less than a thousand subscribers on your mailing list? Your goal should be to get people on high-ticket calls. Real feedback, by the way, that I got from my mastermind group. So definitely get feedback on the goal of the task too. Because again, if the people giving you feedback see that the goal is misaligned, they might save you a lot of time by saying, " Hey, don't waste your time on this. Do this.’ Instead, ask them if they've tried something like this and how it worked out for them.
And finally, tell them that they can ask as many clarifying questions as needed. In this instance, when you're not recording specifically for an SOP, you want to give the recipients as much context as possible without biasing them one way or another. That's why I kind of hedged on the tell them what you like, right? Because if you're like, I really like this tool and I don't want to move, you could be closing yourself off to feedback for somebody saying, hey, this tool is actually purpose-built for the thing you're talking about.
But I want to wrap up here with getting clarity and what to do next. The magic comes from the clarifying questions. Just like when that student told me how confused she was. The clarifying questions can reveal blind spots and assumptions that you've made and are working off of.
One time, I was explaining my marketing copy and positioning to my mastermind group when my friend Becky said, " You keep saying podcaster, but I don't consider myself a podcaster. I consider myself a business owner who has a podcast.” And then when I asked more people this, they were like, yeah, I learned my target audience doesn't consider themselves podcasters. That single statement, that single clarification, changed everything for me. How I describe my services, the niche I talk to, and even the processes I help people with. Getting a second or third set of eyes can be hugely helpful, especially if you're open to honest feedback and they're willing to give it. So I would encourage you to record a task or a workflow for yourself.
But I also want to extend an offer to you. I want to provide feedback on how you work. If you're a solopreneur or small business owner and you perform a task or a workflow on a regular basis, I would love to see how you do it. Bonus points if you feel it could be done better, but you're not sure how. So if you go to taskteardown.com, it'll be in the description taskteardown.com. You can submit a video of you performing that task, and if your video is selected, I will publish it on my YouTube channel, I'll send it to you separately, and I'll invite you to collab if you are on YouTube. So again, head over to tasktaredown.com, and you can submit your task.
There are, there's a list of things to consider for recording there that I would strongly recommend you read, but I hope that this episode has shown you how monumentally the act of explaining how I work has helped me shape my business. I want you to see those same benefits because explaining what you do is the first step to understanding the systems you can build, right? A construction worker doesn't just go to a construction site and start building a building. They need to work with an architect to create blueprints and plans.
Recording yourself doing your task is the blueprint. It is the plan. So again, head over to taskteardown.com or just do this for yourself or your mastermind group. Either one works for me. But if you want a guy with 20 years of experience building systems for small business owners, who has done this for himself a lot and for clients a lot, head over to taskteardown.com. I'm doing this completely for free. I'm doing it for content for my YouTube channel, and I hope you'll take advantage of it.
But that's it for this episode of the Streamlined Solopreneur. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was helpful.
And until next time, I hope you find some space in your week.