When I first started doing bookkeeping for clients, I learned pretty quickly that QuickBooks Online apparently doesn’t believe consistency should be part of the user experience.

I’d get one client’s books caught up, get comfortable with where everything was, and then switch over to the next client. Same job. Same basic process. Completely different-looking screen. Excuse me? What the heck am I looking at?

So I’d poke around for a while before eventually heading off to YouTube University to figure out which iteration of QBO I had been blessed with this time. I’d finally figure it out, get that client’s books handled, move on to the next one and…oh look. Another version.

Eventually, I learned all the different screens. I knew how to get where I needed to go for each client, and most of it became routine. But every once in a while, I’ll get into someone’s books to answer a question about something I handled weeks or months ago and find myself staring at the screen thinking, “What did I do to get this answer? Where was that report? HOW did I actually get this done?”

The problem isn’t that I don’t know what I’m doing. Clearly, I’ve done it before. The answer is sitting right there in front of me. The problem is remembering the route I took to get there.

I’ve talked before about how some of my bookkeeping work feels like working on a puzzle. I’ll have a pile of pieces in front of me, and several of them look like they could fit. This one is the right color, but the shape is wrong. That one is the right shape, but the design doesn’t quite line up. So I try something. Nope. Try something else. Still nope. Turn another piece around. Go down a completely different path. Eventually, I find the piece that fits and everything starts coming together. Then I celebrate the fact that I figured the damn thing out and move on.

Do I document every twist and turn I took to get there? Nope. Should I? Probably. Would it make my life easier if that exact bizarre problem showed up six months from now with another client? Absolutely. Am I going to start creating an SOP every time QBO sends me on some weird, client-specific adventure? Hahaha that’s funny. But…Most likely not.

Those situations are rare enough that, for me, documenting every detour would probably create more work than it would save. I’d spend time writing down solutions to problems I may never see again. If one of them does show up again someday, I reserve the right to be irritated with Past Lettie for not leaving me better notes while I head back to YouTube University and figure the damn thing out again. But that’s very different from something I know I’m going to need again.

Last summer, I sat down and created a process for onboarding new clients. I had email templates. I had my pricing information. I had the steps I needed to follow. I put everything together so the next time I brought on a client, I wouldn’t have to sit there trying to remember every little thing I needed to do. Past Lettie had done Present Lettie a solid. There was just one small problem. Present Lettie couldn’t find the darn documents.

Earlier this year, I added several new clients fairly quickly. I knew I had an onboarding process. I knew I’d made the templates. I knew the pricing information was saved somewhere. I could practically picture the documents. Where in the world had I put them? I searched for keywords that should have brought them up. Nothing. I tried other words. Still nothing. Eventually I found everything, got the clients onboarded, and carried on, but I was more than a little annoyed with myself.

I’d done exactly what we’re always told to do. I’d documented the process so I wouldn’t have to rely on my memory. Apparently I’d forgotten to account for the fact that I would need to remember where I put the documentation.

As this year went on, I realized the onboarding process itself needed some updating anyway. So I streamlined it, made the process work better for how I’m running the business now, and saved everything with a smarter name. Because there’s not much point in creating instructions for Future You if Future You has to conduct an archaeological dig to find them.

That’s really what my SOPs are for. If it’s something specifically related to my business that I know I’m going to need to do again, I write it down. I don’t want to reconstruct a process every time it comes around. I already figured it out once. There’s no prize for figuring out the same thing over and over again.

I don’t want to rely on my memory for every other part of my life either. I have calendars. Color-coded, of course. I have lists. I have a master list of lists, because apparently I don’t even trust myself to remember all of my lists. 

Then there are the routines that are so ingrained at this point that I don’t really need instructions anymore. Muffin Monday mornings don’t require a checklist. We’ve done them enough that everybody pretty much knows what happens and when.

But if something is happening more than a week from now? It’s going on the calendar. If there’s something for the boys I need to remember later? I’m making a note. If somebody tells me something that isn’t useful right this second but might matter down the road? It needs somewhere to live until I need it.

For a while, I actually had a pretty good system for that too. Telegram has a Saved Messages feature that I use as a sort of holding area. If somebody sends me a comment I want to remember, I find a YouTube video I might want later, or I come across something that could be useful for homeschool, I’ll toss it into Saved Messages. 

Originally, I was really good about going back through it every day or every week. I’d pull out the things I actually needed and put them in their final resting places. Calendar. YouTube Watch Later. Homeschool resources. Wherever they actually belonged. Then I stopped doing that part.

I still save things there. I just don’t process everything the way I used to. Now it’s more of a “Save it just in case I want to come back to it later” pile. Every once in a while I’ll go in to save something new, see something old, and think, “Oh yeah! I forgot about that.” Is it ideal? Nope. Does it work well enough that I haven’t felt compelled to fix it? Apparently.

There are some things, though, that I’m absolutely not screwing around with. Measurements are one of them. If I measure my windows because I need something at the store, there is absolutely no chance I’m standing there thinking, “Eh, I’ll remember that.” I’m writing it down. I’m taking a picture. And I’m probably sending that picture to Saved Messages so I know I’ll have it with me when I get to the store. As Jack Spirko from The Survival Podcast says, “Two is one, one is none, and three is for me.”

Could I maybe remember the measurements until I get to the store? Sure. But why does my brain need that job? There are approximately 900 other things floating around in there already. The phone can remember the window measurements.

The same thing applies when somebody asks us to attend something three weeks from now. I don’t want to spend three weeks periodically remembering, Don’t forget that thing. Don’t forget that thing. Don’t forget that thing. Put it on the calendar. Now I don’t have to remember the event. I just have to look at the calendar.

I think that’s the part we sometimes miss when we talk about documenting everything, creating SOPs, making lists, or building systems so we don’t have to rely on our memories. The goal isn’t to create a written record of every thought we’ve ever had or every problem we’ve ever solved. At least that’s sure as heck not my goal.

The point is to decide what actually needs to be remembered and give that information somewhere reliable to live until I need it again.

Sometimes that’s an SOP because I know I’m going to repeat the process. Sometimes it’s the calendar because the information matters three weeks from now, not today. Sometimes it’s a photograph of window measurements because I refuse to stand in the middle of a store arguing with myself over whether the window was 32 inches or 36. And sometimes it’s a Telegram Saved Messages folder full of things I might theoretically want someday that I’m going to pretend is a functioning organizational system.

Not everything needs the same level of documentation. And honestly, I don’t want everything documented. There are going to be weird client problems I solve once and never see again. There are going to be rabbit holes I disappear down, puzzle pieces I try, and QBO screens I swear at until I finally get the answer I’m looking for. Maybe someday I’ll regret not leaving myself a map of exactly how I got there. I’ll take that chance.

Because there’s a cost to documenting everything too. It takes time to write the instructions. It takes time to organize them. It takes time to maintain them when something changes. And, as I learned with my onboarding documents, it doesn’t do me much good to meticulously preserve information if I can’t find the damn thing when I need it anyway.

I don’t need Future Lettie to know everything Present Lettie knows. I just need to make sure she can find the things that actually matter. Because my brain has plenty to do today without asking it to hold onto a window measurement, an event three weeks from now, the exact onboarding sequence for a client I haven’t met yet, and seventeen clicks through a weird QBO interface I may never see again.

Some things deserve an SOP. Some things deserve a calendar reminder. Some things deserve a picture and three different backups because, again, two is one, one is none, and three is for me. And some things can disappear into the abyss of Telegram Saved Messages until I stumble across them six months from now and think, “Huh. I should probably do something with that.”

Future Me will be fine. I’ve left her the important stuff. She just needs to know where I put it.