Find the Flow

What if the problem isn't that you need more help, but that the work itself isn't flowing?

I think I've been a Systems Fixer longer than I realized. I just didn't call it that.

One of my first clues came in one of my earliest full-time administrative jobs. I was a receptionist, and one of my tasks was entering the shop workers' timesheets. It was monotonous work, made worse by terrible handwriting, project codes I couldn't decipher, and having to track down supervisors to figure out what someone had actually been working on.

I remember thinking, “Why are we doing this?” The workers could have entered their own hours at a simple computer terminal with pre-populated projects and drop-down menus. Instead, they wrote everything down, I deciphered it, and then entered it again. They could have spent two minutes entering their information. I spent considerably longer entering theirs.

Nobody asked if there was a better way.

I may have mentioned my idea to a coworker, but I was a receptionist with very little experience. Who was I to suggest changing the process?

Apparently, I was someone who couldn't stop noticing inefficient processes.

Years later, I still find myself asking the same questions. Why is this being done this way? Does it actually need all these steps? Could this information be entered once instead of three times? Where does the work slow down? Where does it get handed from one person to another?

I've seen processes where a document goes from Person A to B, back to A, over to C, back to B, then A again, and eventually to the client. There may be legitimate reasons for some of those steps, but there are also times when nobody has stopped to ask whether all of them are actually necessary.

And this is where I think delegation can sometimes miss the point. If you hand a complicated process to someone else without examining the process itself, you've solved the problem of who does the work, but not necessarily the problem of why the work is so complicated.

I've also learned that fixing a process requires communication. I once worked on a project where I was asked to build a landing page, but I wasn't given enough information about the client's process, preferences, or desired outcome. I asked questions, but there wasn't really an opportunity to work through the answers together. Eventually, what I produced wasn't what she wanted.

I couldn't fix what I couldn't see.

That's an important part of systems work. You can't build a useful process around information that isn't being communicated. Sometimes the first step isn't changing anything. It's getting the people involved to explain what is actually happening.

Once you can see the whole process, you can start looking for the places where the work gets unnecessarily complicated.

My favourite question is probably “Why?”

Why do we enter this information twice? Why does this have to be approved by three people? Why does someone have to remember this? Why are we making five copies when four are needed? Why does the client have to send this information to us when they could enter it directly?

There will always be reasons for some steps. A review might be necessary. A signature might be necessary. A human decision might be essential.

The goal isn't to eliminate every touch. It's to eliminate the unnecessary ones.

I think of it a little like a river. The water doesn't have to move at the same speed all the way downstream. There can be rocks, bends, and places where it naturally slows down. That's fine.

What you don't want is a giant concrete dam in the middle of it when a smaller adjustment would have allowed the water to keep moving.

That's what good flow feels like in a business. The work moves from beginning to end without unnecessary backtracking, duplication, or confusion. There are pauses when they serve a purpose, but you're not constantly fighting the process itself.

And the outcome isn't simply “greater efficiency.”

The outcome is everything downstream: the client being served, the project being completed, the revenue being generated, the business remaining sustainable, and the people doing the work still having a life outside of it.

That's why I'm increasingly interested in helping small businesses look at the way their work actually moves.

You can start doing this yourself.

Choose one process you repeat regularly and write down every single step, including the ones you normally skip because you know them by heart. Then ask two questions:

Where does this process stop?

Where does something get touched unnecessarily?

You don't have to fix everything you find. Just notice it.

Because sometimes the first step toward a better system isn't a new app, an automation, or another person.

It's asking why.

I've spent years calling myself a VA, and I still know how to do the traditional VA work. But I'm realizing that the part I love most isn't simply adding data, formatting documents, or keeping the status quo moving.

I want to understand the status quo, question it, and find a better way when there is one.

That's what I mean when I say I'm becoming a Systems Fixer.

Not someone who comes in and makes a business run like a machine.

Someone who helps find where the flow has stopped and figures out how to get it moving again.