In the world of interior design, systems are the secret to staying sane. You’re juggling dozens of details at any given moment, from floor plans, to invoices, vendor calls, sourcing trips, and clients who expect magic. Right?! No wonder your brain feels like a browser with 37 tabs open.

If you’ve ever caught yourself reinventing the wheel on repeatable tasks, it’s time to get serious about creating processes and procedures.

What’s a Process?

A process is a set of actions or steps to achieve a specific outcome. Basically, it's an efficient, step-by-step method you and your team follow for tasks that happen over and over again. Think: client onboarding, design presentations, procurement, punch list walkthroughs, and even how you archive your projects.

What’s a Procedure?

A procedure is a guide with detailed instructions for executing your processes. If you follow your procedure (filled with processes) the outcome should be the same no matter who follows it. For example, when you want to improve client experience, you may need several procedures. One for client onboarding, client offboarding, weekly client updates. You get the picture!

Here’s a 4-step guide to creating a custom process that works for your business, something that will save you time, not take up any more time!

1. Prioritize What to Systemize First

Don’t try to systemize everything at once. (That’s the fast track to overwhelm!) Start with the tasks you repeat most often, but do differently every time or tasks that eat up too much of your time, lead to dropped balls, or create confusion.

Some examples:

• Onboarding new clients
• Trade day setup
• Client presentation day set up
• Weekly client update

✨ Tip: Think about where things currently fall through the cracks. That’s your cue to systemize.

2. Map Out the Steps (Without Overthinking It)

Once you’ve picked your focus area, do a brain dump of every single step in the process.

• How does it start?
• What happens next?
• Who does what?
• What tools or templates do you use?

This is your “rough draft” system. Don’t worry about making it perfect. Ask your team to take a peek. You might be surprised what steps you forget when you’re deep in your own flow.

3. Audit for Efficiency

Now that you’ve got the steps down, it’s time to tighten it up. Ask yourself:

• Are there any duplicate steps?
• Are my steps in the right order?
• Is the process too clunky or confusing?
• Are there tasks I could delegate or automate?
• Am I using the right tools (Asana – my fav!, Dubsado, Google Drive)?

This is your chance to streamline and simplify. You might even discover steps that are unnecessary.

4. Implement It (and Refine as You Go)

Put your brand new system into practice. That might look like:

• Setting it up in Asana with due dates and assignees
• Saving a checklist in your project folder
• Training your team on the new workflow

And here’s the golden rule: systems aren’t static. I wish you could set it and forget it, but you can't. Update these as your business evolves or as new tech makes things easier. I like to block out time in my calendar to review processes annually.

BONUS: Ready to Take Action?

To make this process even easier, I created a free guide you can download:

🎉 Create Your Process

It walks you through:

• A 10-minute brain dump exercise
• How to map out your steps
• Auditing your process
• Implementing the process

👉 Click here to download the free guide now!

You’ll come away with more clarity and way less mental clutter.

If you want done-for-you design business processes, I’ve got you covered with my Design Project Blueprint course.

Systems really do Save You Stress, Time, Energy, and Money. (Yep, that’s what SYSTEM means around here. 😉)