The procedure only you know, recorded while you do the task

Every team has a few tasks that live in one person’s head: closing the month, setting up a new supplier, publishing the newsletter, ordering supplies, preparing a lab sample, configuring a laptop for a new hire. Nobody writes them down, because writing a procedure feels like a project, and the person who knows the task has the least time for it. These tasks are also why that person checks email on vacation.

There’s a quicker route. Do the task once while you talk it through, and let an AI assistant turn what you said into a procedure. Beyond the time the task itself takes, plan on about an hour. By the end of today you’ll have one procedure written, tested by a colleague and saved where your team will find it, so the next question about that task gets a link instead of a walkthrough.

Why talking while you work beats writing from memory

When you write steps from memory, you write the version in your head, and that version skips what you do without thinking: the tab you always check first, the email you forward just in case. Doing the task while you talk puts each of those in front of you, so you mention them, and it costs little extra time because you were going to do the task anyway.

The assistant’s part is the one it does well: turning a rambling, out-of-order transcript into clean numbered steps. What it does badly is notice what’s missing. It will fill a gap with a sensible-sounding step you never take, and a plausible wrong step is worse than a visible gap, because nobody questions it. The prompt below is built around that weakness.

For a short task with no exceptions, skip all of this and type the checklist yourself. The recording earns its keep on tasks full of “unless” and “it depends”.

What to say while you record

Talk as if a capable colleague were watching over your shoulder on their first day. Say out loud:

• Every screen and button, by name. “In the supplier list, I click New, top right.”
• Every decision and its rule. “If the invoice is over 5,000, it goes to Marta first.”
• Every “sometimes”, “unless” and “it depends”. These are the cases a newcomer gets wrong.
• Why you do it. “I check the bank first because the form sometimes says paid when it isn’t.” A reason lets someone handle the case you forgot to mention.

Don’t tidy up as you go; putting things in order is the assistant’s job. Never read a password aloud: say “password from the vault”, and the procedure will say the same. Say “the customer” rather than a name, too, and if the task involves other people’s details, Before you upload a client document covers what to check before a real transcript goes into an AI tool.

Getting a transcript

Any recorder that gives you text will do, and the simplest setup is your phone on the desk or in your pocket while you work. These options were checked in October 2026:

• iPhone 12 or later: Voice Memos, in the Utilities folder, transcribes English, Spanish and several other languages, though not in every country or region. Open the recording, tap the More button and choose Copy Transcript. Voice Memos on a Mac shows transcripts too.
• Google Pixel: in the Recorder app, tap a recording and then Transcript to read it. To get the text out, touch and hold the recording, tap Share and choose Transcript (.txt). A Pixel 6 or later transcribes Spanish as well as English.
• No transcribing recorder: voice typing writes into a document as you speak (Windows key + H on Windows 10 and 11, with an internet connection; Tools > Voice typing in Google Docs, in Chrome, Edge or Safari). It types wherever the cursor is, so keep it for a task you do away from the keyboard, such as preparing a sample.

Before you paste the transcript, skim it and fix names and numbers, which speech recognition often mishears.

The prompt

Paste this into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot and put your transcript at the end.

Below is a transcript of me doing a task at work while I explained it out loud. It wanders and goes back to earlier steps.

Task: [name of the task]
Written for: [for example, a colleague who knows our systems but has never done this task]

Turn it into a procedure with these sections:
1. Before you start: what to have open or ready.
2. Steps: numbered, one action per step, in order, using the exact names of screens, buttons, files and people I used. Where I said "if", "unless", "sometimes" or "it depends", write the rule as "If ..., then ...; otherwise ..." in that step. Where I gave a reason, add it under the step as "Why: ...".
3. Done looks like: how the person can tell the task is finished and correct.

Rules:
- Use only what is in the transcript. Do not add steps, checks or advice of your own, even sensible ones.
- Where something is missing or unclear, write [NOT IN TRANSCRIPT] instead of guessing.
- Replace any password, code or account number with [REMOVED].
- At the end, list your questions for me: every gap, contradiction or unclear term.

Transcript:
[paste the transcript here]

“Use only what is in the transcript” stops the assistant from adding the steps a typical version of the task would have, and [NOT IN TRANSCRIPT] turns each gap into something you can see and fill. Answer its questions in one reply, ask for the updated procedure, and check that it changed only what you answered.

A worked example

Everything in this example is made up. Sam coordinates a monthly training workshop and records herself processing new registrations:

OK, new workshop registrations. I open the Workshop 2026 sheet and filter Status for blanks, those are the new ones. First one. I search the payments portal by email, not name, because people pay with a partner's card sometimes. Paid. Back in the sheet, Status, Confirmed, then I send the Workshop confirmation template with the session date. Oh, if they ticked the accessibility box, I forward it to Daniel in facilities first, he needs a few days. The room holds 24, so after 24 confirmed it's the waitlist email. Bank transfers take a couple of days to show, so those I mark Pending and check Thursday. Then I update the count on the Dashboard tab.

The procedure that comes back looks like this (trimmed):

Before you start
- Open the Workshop 2026 sheet and the payments portal.

Steps
1. Filter the Status column for blank rows. Each one is a new registration.
2. Search the payments portal by the person's email address.
   Why: people sometimes pay with a partner's card.
3. If they paid by bank transfer and it isn't showing yet, set Status to Pending and check again on Thursday. Any other missing payment: [NOT IN TRANSCRIPT]
4. If the accessibility box is ticked, forward the registration to Daniel in facilities before confirming.
   Why: he needs a few days' notice.
5. If 24 people are confirmed, send the waitlist email. [NOT IN TRANSCRIPT: how is the person marked?] Otherwise, set Status to Confirmed and send the "Workshop confirmation" template with the session date.
6. Update the count on the Dashboard tab.

Done looks like
- Every new registration has a status, and the Dashboard count is updated.

Questions for you
1. How often do you process registrations?
2. What happens if there's no payment and it isn't a bank transfer?
3. Do Pending registrations count toward the 24 places?
4. How is someone marked as waitlisted?

Question 3 justifies the whole exercise. Sam knows without thinking that a pending transfer holds a seat. A colleague covering for her could confirm 24 other people while three transfers are pending, and discover on Thursday that 27 people have places in a room for 24.

The colleague test

Ask a colleague who has never done the task, ideally the one who would cover for you, to do it with only the page in front of them, on a real case or a practice entry. Sit beside them, or follow their shared screen on a video call, and say nothing, which is harder than it sounds. Every time they stop or ask you something, write it down.

Each stall points to a fix, often a missing step or a button that looks different on their screen because they have different access. Fix small things by hand. For bigger ones, go back to the same conversation:

A colleague followed this procedure and got stuck here: [your notes]. Update the procedure to fix these points, and change nothing else.

Keep the questions that weren’t about steps, such as “why do we do it this way?”. They belong in an FAQ built from the questions you answer every week.

Where to keep it

Save it where your team already looks, such as the shared drive or the team wiki. At the top, note who owns the procedure, how often the task is done, and a “Last checked” line with the date and the name of whoever last followed it. When the task changes, the owner updates the page the next time they do it, and an old date tells everyone to test before trusting. For the next month, make a mark each time you send the link instead of explaining the task, and you’ll know what the page gives back.

Try it today

Pick a task you do at least once a month, one that someone would struggle with if you were away and that you can do today, even as a practice run. If nothing comes to mind, How to find your most repetitive work starts from last week’s calendar. Before you start, book half an hour with a colleague for this afternoon. Then record yourself doing the task, paste the transcript into the prompt and answer the assistant’s questions. You’re done when the procedure sits in the shared folder with today’s date under “Last checked” and the name of the colleague who tested it.

The second procedure goes faster, because you’ll already know what to say while you work. Once you have a few, a newcomer’s first week can be built around them: A new colleague’s first week, ready in one sitting shows how, with your procedures linked from the plan. When people have read them, ten good questions from your own material will tell you what actually stuck.