A day of procedures....

Procedures…Love them or hate them we all live with them daily… whether we realize it or not.

I work on computers and I found myself today with the task of writing procedures. A task that no matter how important I loathe. I can never fully decide where to start, what method to write in and being a highly visual person, the desire to take screenshots and make diagrams is overwhelming. Then there is the audience and how far do I take the description of each step.

So you don’t work on computers...So you don’t think you live with procedures? Betcha ya do!

Ever made pancakes? Isn’t a recipe a procedure? Ever ask a parent or grandparent for their meatloaf recipe? Try to write that down..a hand full of this and a pinch of that… easy to photograph even easier to learn by watching .. but try writing it down ... or have them write it down. 

Write down how to iron a shirt… and have those instructions work for every single type of shirt that person may ever encounter…

Ever explained to someone how to get to your house... yup another procedure.

Ever tried to write down what you do every morning?

Example 1:

1. Preparing wake-up. Set alarm clock to desired alert time. Note: Calculate approximately how many times you will hit snooze tomorrow and remove appropriate time from alert time.
2. When alarm goes off hit snooze appropriate amount of times based on previous night’s calculations. When done turn off alarm.
3. Navigate to bathroom. Use facilities (see does one describe this or not??)
4. Shower, dry.
5. Brush teeth. (again how far do I go?
6. Grab toothpaste with left hand (unless left handed then use right hand) remove Cap with what ever hand is not holding onto the toothpaste tube,
7. Grab the tooth brush with right hand (unless left-handed then use left hand)
8. Squeeze approximately ¼ inch to ½ inch of toothpaste onto toothbrush bristles.
9. Insert Toothbrush into mouth and using a back and forth motion “brush Teeth”…
10. If male continue to dressing step.
11. If female begin hair product script (see page whatever, depending on outside humidity, temperature and overall feeling for the day).. then continue to dressing.
1. Running Hair Product Script. See Reference #1 Page 235...

Dressing Step….And you can see how difficult this is….

Example 2:

Alarm Rings!

Get up!

Shower Etc...

Get Dressed..

Both are correct but depending on the user one will prove to be VERY difficult to follow if the end result for a female desired is straight hair, business suit, high heels and black coffee. And alternatively the end result for  a male is jeans and a t-shirt….

Now consider writing down something you do almost every single day without thinking about it that involves complex problem solving skills, a computer, specialized software in a CLEAR CONCISE manner that anyone could follow??

Welcome to my day! 

So again I say I fully understand the importance of procedures but I can't stand trying to write them.