If you have followed me for any time at all, you know I love to cook. I don’t cook as often as I used to because there aren’t as many people in my house these days. But I love to cook. And though some of my articles and episodes and social media content are about cooking (those are some of my most popular videos, it’s funny), this week’s topic, despite the name, is not one of those.

This is not a cooking topic, even though it’s about recipes.

But let’s use a food recipe as a launching point for the topic. When I cook, sometimes I make something that I have made so many times, the recipe is in my head and I don’t need to read an an actual recipe anymore.

Chocolate chip cookies or pretty much, you know, your basic cookie base, right? Two sticks of softened butter, three quarters of a cup each of white and brown sugars. Far too much vanilla. Oh, wait, maybe that’s just me. Whip that until it looks right, add two eggs, and then add whatever else that you want to add. For most types of cookies we make, next we add two and a quarter cups flour with a teaspoon each of soda and salt. For oatmeal cookies, it’s more oats and less flour. For peanut butter cookies, it’s more flour. I just wrote that in one sitting. I could have done it my sleep, and perhaps somewhere along the way I have.

How about beef stew? Cut your stew beef into small cubes, then sear them in your pot with some flour, salt and pepper. Dice your carrots, celery, onions and potatoes also into small cubes – we like a little bit of everything in each bite. Then add water, bullion, A1 Steak Sauce and Worcestershire Sauce. Mmm, delish. And that one is in my head, too. I don’t need to write it down and I wouldn’t need to look at it.

These two examples are of foods that are almost a routine, but not quite. Through starting with a recipe long ago and then through repetition of the recipe, I can make these items without referencing a physical recipe. But it’s in my head.

I talk a lot about routines because I really do believe that they are the building blocks for, oh, I don’t know everything, but there are some things we do that are not routine tasks.

Routine tasks, in my mind, are things that we do multiple times a day, or every day, or maybe a couple times a week, or once a week. And the repetition over time cements the process or task in our heads. Repetition and practice, we’ve talked about those, too. Repetition cements the practice.

The practice. I think that’s the other part, too, is the sequencing that comes in a recipe. So it’s not just the list of ingredients in a recipe, it’s also the, “what do you do with them”? If it’s a cooking recipe, ingredients are listed in the order that you use them. So if there’s something in the recipe that needs to be “chilled for 2 hours”, for example, that block of ingredients is probably going to be listed first.

Now, Let’s look at this in terms of time management.

Because some tasks and projects need to be done the same way every time. You do those steps first, and then 2 hours later, you do the other steps. That is how a recipe works, at least in terms of food.

We can use recipes in our day to day life as well, even if they don’t have food attached to them.

In my time management and productivity presentations, I talk about recipes, also known as shortcuts or checklists, because they help us. We determine the right ingredients for a task or project, and then the best sequence to complete the task or project efficiently and effectively and consistently. Like a recipe. Then we make note of the recipe and refer back to it every time we need to complete that task or project or similar, at least until we have the process or practice remembered or cemented.

And we do this to get the expected and preferred outcome. We figure out what we need and how to fit it together to get what we want from the process, and we document the ingredients and steps to an refer to them again and again.

I was at a conference, reviewing some notes between sessions, and a table of techie people near me were talking about recipes. And I quickly realized they were not discussing food. They were talking about recipes for non routine tasks. Like CODE! Yes, they were talking about coding. They were talking about leaving themselves notes about steps and sequences to ensure a positive outcome next time. And we all can benefit from that idea, right?

Let’s think about how we can incorporate the idea of recipes, of notes about steps and sequences, in our own lives.

Recently, I was reminded about the importance of recipes for non-routine tasks by a phone call from a family member asking about how to do something on their phone. Reasonable question.

I’m not familiar with their phone, but I’m familiar with some phones, and have a good idea of how things work. I asked if they had done before what they wanted to do now (send photos in a text to a friend), and they said yes, but it has been a while and they didn’t remember how. Fair enough, we all have moments like that, I know I do.

But, they were out of practice and we needed to re-determine the steps and sequence. We needed to determine the recipe, and also remember to refer back to it next time.

Truth is, I have recipes for different processes myself. I recently documented a recipe for my weekly content process and I have found it very helpful. Let me explain:

I have a topic per week for my newsletter and podcast episode and social media content. I set those up on my editorial content calendar 2 and 3 and sometimes wonderfully, like 4 weeks in advance. I get the idea from something I have learned or current events or from a reader question, and I realize discussing the topic would be beneficial for all of you. I start to think about what it is I want to talk about. For the topic every week,

• I determine the topic;
• I verbally record me talking about the topic on a voice memo;
• I name the voice memo, email it to myself and upload it to a transcription website;
• I copy the transcribed text into my blog platform and start writing the article;
• I record the podcast episode about the topic based on the article;
• I finish and edit the article, add photos and links;
• I publish the blog article;
• I write the newsletter for this week’s topic with the link to this week’s article;
• hopefully, I also record a short video to be shared on my social media channels and you-tube; and
• the podcast episode and newsletter come out on a Tuesday together.

Now that I have determined the ingredients and sequence to this process, I have written it down. And it almost a routine task, but here is another complication that necessitated the writing of the recipe. I do this every week. And the process is longer than week.

What complicates the process is that I initially recorded, for example, this article content about recipes about four weeks ago. My content calendar is complex but I like it. I have these recipes per topic all loaded into my master to-do list, and each week’s content is in varying stages of completion.

As I write this article on a Monday for next week, also today I am publishing this week’s completed article and sending the newsletter out tomorrow regarding this week’s topic. This Recipes article I am writing and content is scheduled for next week, and I have articles started for other upcoming topics, as well.

Each week and topic have a nice clear publication day, but I am also mid-process at any given moment on two or three other topics.

Yeesh.

Do you see why I need recipes and check lists?! I needed to schedule the ingredients and sequencing for each week’s topic. I wanted to simplify, to automate, to give my brain a break. There is just too much to track with all of those processes running, and I needed my brain capacity to also be used for a million other things in my life so it was time to document and then repeat regularly the recipe.

Now it’s all documented, and when I complete a step, I delete the step because I can. For example, on my master to-do list and the recipe for the Recipes article and podcast,: Recording, check!

It is the ingredients, sure, but also the sequencing. Sequencing is super important to understand. For example, there’s no way I can publish my article if I didn’t have it written yet! Seems so obvious. I know, but sometimes we need obvious.

Where in your day, your week, your month, your year would recipes help you?

In a recent article and podcast episode about quarterly planning, I mentioned activating my October 1 holiday planning list. Yes, I have one of those. Because we do these things over and over. Why not figure out the right way to do it, the best way to do it, the quickest way to do it, the easiest way to do it, the right ingredients and proper sequencing of steps? And once we have done it and we’re paying attention and we’ve figured out that wow, that idea really saved me time and stress, and everybody was really happy about it, Oh – let me write that down! So that awareness of what we’re doing and documenting that process, super helpful.

Leave yourself some love notes for later in the form of recipes. Through your experiences and triumphs, you have gained the knowledge and earned the wisdom. So let Wise You leave Future You some notes from later, the recipe, the ingredients and proper sequencing, and make your life so much easier going forward.

Yes, I helped my family member with the tech question. And later, when I sit sit down to work on my content calendar, I am going to appreciate the recipe that I wrote for myself and future me as I edit one article and publish another and do the things I need to do with ease, without having to scratch my head and wonder what my next steps or worry if I have forgotten something! I hope you found this helpful!