Take one job off your plate

I run my own business and I answer the same handful of questions over and over. I want to write them down properly once, in my own words, so I never start from a blank page again.

Interview me. Ask me one question at a time and wait for my answer before the next one.

Start by asking what I sell and who buys it. Then ask me what people want to know before they buy, what they ask once they've bought, and what they get confused about or ask twice.

For each one I give you, ask me how I'd answer it if the person was standing in front of me. Don't tidy my answer up. Keep my words, my level of detail, and the bits where I say "look, honestly".

When we're done, give it back to me as a list of questions with my answers underneath each one, in plain sentences, no headings in title case and no bullet points inside the answers. Then tell me which three answers I'll reuse the most, so I know which ones to keep somewhere I can find them.

I need to follow up on something and I've been putting it off. Here's the situation.

What I sent: [the quote, invoice, proposal or message]
When I sent it: [roughly when]
What I know about where they're at: [anything, or nothing]
How well I know them: [barely, or we get on well]

Write me three follow-ups, each no longer than four sentences.

One for now. One for a fortnight after that. One that closes the loop kindly and lets them off the hook without me sounding hurt.

Rules for all three: don't apologise for following up, and don't say "just checking in" or "circling back". Give them one easy thing to reply to, even if the answer is no. Sound like a person who is fine either way, because I am. Warm, short, no pressure and no guilt.

Then give me the two dates I should send the second and third one, counting from today.

Here's what's sitting in my inbox. I've pasted in the sender and subject line of each one, and for some of them a bit of the message.

[Paste them in. A rough list is fine.]

Sort them into four groups for me:

Needs a decision from me, and only me.
Needs a reply, but a short one anybody could write.
Someone is waiting on something I promised.
Doesn't need me at all.

For the second group, draft the replies now. Two or three sentences each, warm, no filler, no "I hope this email finds you well".

For the first group, tell me what the actual decision is in one line each, so I'm not re-reading the whole thing to work out what's being asked.

For the third group, tell me what I promised and how overdue it is.

Then finish with the one thing you'd do first if you were me, and why.

I'm going to talk at you for a minute about something I want to post about. It'll be rambly and out of order, because I'm saying it rather than writing it.

[Use the microphone button and just talk. Or paste a transcript of a voice note here.]

Your job is to find the post that's already in there. Don't add anything I didn't say.

Give me back:

1. The one line I said that lands hardest, quoted exactly as I said it.
2. A caption built around it, in my words, in the order a person would actually say it. Keep my contractions and my asides. Leave it a bit untidy rather than polished.
3. Two alternative opening lines, in case the first one doesn't feel like me.

Rules: no em dashes. No sentence that says what something isn't before it says what it is. No emoji as bullet points. Don't make me sound cleverer or calmer than I sounded. If I waffled and there's no real point in there, tell me that instead of inventing one.

I keep rewriting things I've already written, because I can't find them. I want you to help me build one simple home for the things I reuse, and one rule about where new things go.

Ask me these, one at a time. What kind of things do I keep needing again (prices, replies, captions, templates, process notes)? Where do they currently end up (email, notes app, documents, my head)? And what do I actually go looking for most often?

Then give me:

1. A short list of no more than six places things can live. Six, not twenty. Name them the way I'd say them out loud, not in business language.
2. For each one, the one sentence rule for what belongs there.
3. The first three things I should move in today to make it worth having.
4. A naming pattern for files so that future me can find something by searching one word.

Keep it small enough that I could set it up in half an hour. If you're about to suggest something with more than six places in it, cut it down instead.

Help me build a short weekly admin pass for my business, and the wording I keep rewriting.

First ask me what my business does, then ask what admin comes round every week or every month, and what I always seem to find out about too late.

Then give me two things.

One: a weekly checklist of no more than eight items, in the order I should do them, written as actions ("check what's unpaid", not "financial review"). Put the one that costs me money if I miss it at the top.

Two: the wording for the messages I send over and over. An invoice with a due date. A polite nudge on an unpaid one. Rescheduling an appointment. Confirming a booking. Short, warm, no business-speak, and written so I only have to change a name and a date.

Tell me honestly which items on that checklist a person still has to do by hand, so I'm not sitting here expecting magic.

Here is everything I think I'm supposed to be doing. It's business and home mixed together, because that's how it lives in my head.

[List it out. Messy is fine. Half sentences are fine.]

Don't sort this by urgency, because everything feels urgent and that's the problem. Sort it by consequence instead.

For each thing, tell me in a few words what actually happens if I don't do it this week. Then group them:

Something breaks or somebody is let down.
It gets worse and more awkward the longer I leave it.
It's been sitting there so long that nothing has happened, which tells us something.
It's mine and I want to do it, even though nobody is waiting.

Then give me three things for this week. Only three. Say which one to do first and roughly how long each will really take, not the optimistic version.

Last thing: tell me which items on my list I've clearly been carrying for months without acting on, and ask me straight out whether they're actually still happening.

I'm doing one pass over the home side of my week so it stops living in my head. Here's what's coming up.

Who's in the house: [who, and roughly what ages if there are kids]
What's on this week: [appointments, school things, sport, visitors, anything]
What always catches me out: [dinner, forms, the bins, whatever it is]

Give me back:

1. The week laid out day by day, with the things that have a time on them, and one line for what needs sorting the day before.
2. Seven dinners that use overlapping ingredients, with the one shopping list that covers them. Nothing that needs more than half an hour on a weeknight.
3. Anything on my list that somebody else in the house could genuinely do, said plainly, so I can ask.

Then tell me which single thing on this list, if I sorted it on Sunday, would take the most weight off the rest of the week.