Turn Hidden Knowledge into Autonomous Action

Turn your mental friction into a simple, living document that makes delegation easy and autonomy possible.

December 03, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Make The Work Visible So Humans And AI Can Help

Last week, you made your work visible by listing the main flows in your business and picking one to look at more closely. This week, you will take that single flow and turn it into a simple, clear playbook that someone else can follow. That someone might be a team member today and an AI helper tomorrow.

You are not writing a textbook. You are writing clear instructions that let the business move without you standing in the middle of every step.

The problem in plain language

Most founders swing between two extremes when it comes to documentation.

On one side, there is almost nothing written down. Everything lives in your head or in scattered chats and emails. When someone new joins, you teach by walking them through the work again and again.

On the other side, there are giant documents that nobody reads. They are long, detailed, and out of date. People glance at them once, then go back to asking you instead.

In both cases, the result is the same:

→The business still depends on you to remember how things are done.
→Every slight variation feels like a fresh problem.
→It is hard to bring in help, human or AI, because there is no clear standard to follow.

An autonomous business does not need perfect documentation. It requires simple, living instructions for the repetitive work. The good news is that this can start with a single page for a single significant flow.

A tactical framework: the one page flow playbook

Take the flow you chose last week, the one where you are a bottleneck or where you saw a chance for an assistant to help. Your goal this week is to turn that flow into a short playbook that answers a basic question: If a capable person or AI helper had this page and nothing else, could they move this flow forward most of the time?

You can structure this page with seven simple parts.

1) Name
→Give the flow a clear name.

→For example, “New client onboarding” or “Handling refund requests.”

2)Trigger
→Write one sentence that describes what starts this flow.
→“This starts when a client signs the agreement and pays the first invoice.”

3)Outcome
→Write one or two sentences that describe what “done” looks like.
→“We are done when the client has access to all tools, knows their next key date, and has received the welcome email.

4)Steps

→List 5 to 10 steps, in order, in plain language.
→Keep each step to one line if you can.
→Do not worry about every rare edge case.

5)Roles and owners

→Next to each step, note who is responsible today.
→You can also mark which steps could someday be handled by an assistant or AI helper with oversight.

6)Simple decision rules
→Write a few rules that answer common questions in this flow.
→For example, “If the client is more than 10 minutes late to the kickoff call, send this short message and offer a rebook.”

7)Notes and examples
→Add a small section at the end for patterns or examples that help people use judgment.
→This is where you capture things you often say out loud, such as “When in doubt, do X.”

That is it. Name, trigger, outcome, steps, roles, rules, notes. Not a giant manual. Just enough clarity for someone else to run the flow consistently.

A simple example: documenting a refund flow

Imagine a small software business that has grown to a few thousand users. The founder still decides every refund by hand. Support forwards each request, the founder looks at the account, thinks about it, and replies. It does not take long each time, but the interruptions are constant. Last week, this founder picked “Handling refund requests” as the flow to focus on.

Here is how a simple one page playbook might look.

1) Name
→Handling refund requests

2)Trigger
→This flow starts whenever a customer asks for a refund through email or support chat.

3) Outcome
→The flow is complete when the customer has received a clear yes or no, the account status is updated, and any refund has been processed in the payment system.

4) Steps
→Read the request fully and check the account age and plan.
→Check if the issue is due to a clear product failure or a misunderstanding.
→Decide which rule applies (see below).
→Reply to the customer with a clear answer and, if needed, a short explanation.
→If approved, process the refund and update the account.
→Tag the conversation as “refund” for tracking.

5)Roles and owners
→Support lead: handles steps 1 to 4 for most cases.
→Founder: reviews only cases that do not match any rule or involve large amounts.
→Finance assistant: processes refunds as needed and checks monthly totals.

6) In the future, an AI helper could prepare a draft reply in step 4 and suggest which rule applies, for the support lead to review.

7)Simple decision rules
→If the account is less than 30 days old and the customer has a clear, specific problem, approve the refund.
→If the account is more than 30 days old but the customer has never actively used the product, approve a partial refund of one month.
→If the issue is due to a known bug on our side, approve the refund and flag the bug.
→If the customer is abusive, forward the case to the founder.

8) Notes and examples
→Our tone should stay calm and respectful, even if the customer is upset.
→When granting a refund, it helps to include a brief line about what we learned from their feedback.
→If you are not sure, write your proposed reply and tag the founder for a quick check instead of blocking the whole thread.

This is not complicated. It is simply written down. Once this exists, a few things can happen.

→The support lead can handle most refunds without asking the founder.
→The founder only sees the unusual or sensitive cases.
→An AI helper can be trained later to read the request, apply the rules, and draft a reply that the support lead approves.

The business becomes more autonomous in this one small area because the work is now clear, not because a clever tool appeared.

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