What does it mean that document your workflows?

An undocumented workflow lives only in your head and degrades over time.

Example: You publish a newsletter every Thursday. Some weeks it takes 90 minutes, other weeks it takes four hours. You can't figure out why. When you finally write down every step — research, outline, draft, edit, format, schedule, promote — you discover the variance comes from one step: you sometimes research and outline simultaneously, which produces false starts. The documentation didn't change the workflow. It revealed the workflow you actually have, which turned out to be different from the one you thought you had.

Try this: Pick one workflow you do at least weekly — your morning routine, your expense process, your content creation sequence, your weekly review. Set a timer. Write every step as a numbered list, including steps that feel too obvious to mention. Include decision points: 'If X, then step Y; otherwise step Z.' Time yourself. The entire documentation should take 10 to 20 minutes. If it takes longer, that's a signal: the workflow is more complex than you realized, and that complexity has been running on autopilot.