Turning rough notes or a voice memo into a step list

You don't have to write well to write a procedure. You have to know the job, and you do. The tool just tidies what you say. That's all.

Get it out of your head

Pick one way and stay with it for one job.

• Talk it through. Record yourself doing the job, saying each action out loud. Don't plan. Say "now I scan the delivery note" as you do it.
• Jot as you go. Use a phone notes app or paper. Short fragments are fine.
• Have someone watch. A colleague writes down what you do. They'll catch steps you've stopped noticing.
• Take photos. One picture can replace a paragraph, and you can add it to the final page.

Include the odd moments too: the stuck drawer, the customer who always asks for something unusual. Those are what a new starter needs most.

Clean the notes before they go anywhere

Spoken memos pick up names, phone numbers, prices and logins without you meaning them to. Listen back first. Every time.

• Replace customer names with "the customer".
• Delete passwords, card details and account numbers.
• Take out anything you wouldn't want a stranger to read.

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre recommends not including sensitive information in queries to public tools of this kind.¹ Settings differ by tool and plan. One popular chat tool has data sharing for model training on by default for personal plans. Its voice mode has its own separate control.² That was the maker's page as checked on 29 October 2026, and it can change. What not to paste goes through this in more detail.

Ask for a first draft

Paste in the cleaned text and ask for a plain list. Something like this works:

These are my rough notes for a job at our business. Turn them into numbered steps. One action per step. Use plain words. Don't add any steps I didn't mention. Put a question mark next to anything unclear.

The last two instructions matter. They keep you in charge of what the steps say. The maker of one such tool says output should be treated as a first draft, not a final source.³ More wording to try is on the prompts page.

Keep the list short

A checklist should be easy to read, hold only necessary checks and be as short as reasonably practicable.⁴ If the draft runs long:

• Split it into two procedures, such as "open" and "close".
• Move background into a short note at the top.
• Cut steps that every worker already does without thinking.

Checklists are meant to make up for the limits of human memory and attention.⁴ Don't spend them on things nobody forgets.

Walk the job with the draft

This is the real test. Stand where the work happens and do the job once, slowly, with the page in your hand. Mark every place where the page and the real work part ways.

• Does each step match what you actually do?
• Is anything missing, like a switch you press without thinking?
• Are the names of buttons, forms and rooms the ones staff use?
• Can someone who's never done it follow the page?

The maker's own advice is to verify technical information and references to outside documents.³ Mark every change on the draft, update the page and note the date. For a fuller routine, see checking an AI-written procedure.