George Kao explains hat manuals: simple checklists for recurring tasks under different roles. Writing down your steps reduces anxiety and makes work concrete. Start with whatever tool you have, list the steps now, and refine later.
Alright, in this video, I'm going to teach you a process that I have been using for more than 15 years. And it's something that I teach to a lot of my clients to help bring more calmness and clarity to their business. Because business is basically, you could say, it's a series of tasks that you do on a regular basis. And when it comes time to do a particular task or project, how calm and clear are you now? For a lot of us, myself included, before I started using hat manuals, when I approach a project or task, I often feel anxiety about it. And the anxiety is often due to a lack of crystal clarity about what exactly I need to do for that project. And even if I'm clear on what I need to do, are the steps really, really do? Have they been written out to say step one? Oh, I can really do step one simple. That sounds maybe even fun to do. I always try to bring as much lightness and joy into my day as possible. And so when I see a step that's very doable, that's much easier to bring lightness and joy to doing that one step, the second step. Oh, very doable, etc. This tool or process is, I call this a hat manual. Some of you who have worked with me for a while probably have heard me say this, and now this short video, hopefully I will explain it. Okay. A hat manual is simply a checklist or workflow document, or some people call it a standard operating procedure for doing a particular task or project that you do ongoingly, that you do more than once in a while, your lifetime. So as long as it's a project or task that you do more than one or several times, certainly several times a week, or several times a month, or even several times a year, I encourage you to have a hat manual for it. So why is it called a hat manual? Well, it's because you wear multiple hats in your business. Now you are. Now I'm a video creator hat. I've got my video creator hat on and I have a hat manual for that, you know, to remind me. Step one, connect from the heart with my ideal viewer. Step two, outline three ideas I want to say in the video. Step three, you know, go to Instagram and go live and you know, or set a timer, I set a timer for myself, etc. Anyway, so you wear multiple hats in your business, content creation, you know, bookkeeping, client follow up, or whatever, you wear multiple hats. And for each of those hats that you wear, wouldn't it be nice to have a manual where it's very clear to you what to do so you don't have to always figure it out. Think about it, be anxious about it. And when I say manual, it doesn't have to be a 500 page. None of my hat manuals are that long. A hat manual can simply be a post it note that where you've written down the five steps, or a note on your phone where you wrote down the 10 steps for doing something. It could be a spreadsheet, it could be a mind map, it could be a Google document where you write it down. That's what I do. I have a Google document for each of my processes in my business. And the nice thing about having a digital document is that you can link to certain places. So when I create a course, I use my course platform to deliver my courses. So my hat manual includes, you know, click here for the course platform, right? And another one says, you know, brainstorm three ideas. Or I have another one that says, open up Google Drive and create a folder for that course. And I have a link to Google Drive. So I have links in my hat manual. So it's easy for me to open up the places where I need to create or manage something. And so the action step for you, I hope this starts to make sense now. And I promise you, every time I have my clients or my students do this process of a hat manual, they feel calmer and more clear the next time they have to do that process. So the action step for you is step one. Okay? Open up whatever tool you enjoy using for note taking that's easy for you to pull up. Okay, Maybe it's your Google Doc, maybe it's your to do list software, maybe it's your, you know, Apple Notes or whatever. Open up that tool. Step one. Step two is to open up a new note, open a new document, open up a new folder or whatever and name it HAT manual and whatever process you want to write a hat manual for. Course creation, client preparation, video making, blog writing, bookkeeping, business planning, whatever it is that you're like, yeah, I do this several times a year, several times a week even. It'd be nice to just have a document. I'm following the steps. I don't have to. I even have a hat manual for how I start my day. When I come to my desk and I'm preparing, preparing for my day, I have a hat manual that's quite simple, but I've written down the steps that I have looked at literally every workday for the last 16 years. When I started my business. I started my daily morning review hat manual and I follow that every morning and I've looked at it I don't know what is it thousands of times now and I still look at it and it calms me to say I know exactly how to start my day. And by the way, you can update evolve your hat manual over time of course based on and so don't start it perfectly, just start it now and start writing down what you think the first step is what you think the second step is. Just knowing that you're going to keep evolving it and hopefully you can make your hat manual pretty nice to look at. Feel free to add fun image a fun image here or there or use a font that you like and colors that you like. So anyway, I hope this is helpful. I hope that you will go and try creating a hat manual and I look forward to hearing how it goes for you. Blessings.
