Policies are very underrated. Here’s my favorite thing about policies: no one can argue with them. If this is just What You Do, and you’ve thought about it and written it up into a doc, no one will ever try to change your policy. (Slight exaggeration but only slight.) They just go along with it.
Client: “Hey, I’ve had a really busy week, can you have a call to discuss the project status Saturday morning?”
You: “I can’t, I just have a policy of having no work meetings on Saturdays, crises aside. Does Monday morning at 9am work for you?”
What’s great about that response is, the client can’t argue with it. It’s weird and awkward to try to get you to change your policy.
Just compare that to other possible answers:
You: “I’m spending time with the family” (which implies you can make room to meet, and you’re not making an effort to meet because you don’t value him as a client enough)
You: “I’m spending Saturday working on a book I’m writing in my spare time” (which also implies your fun side project is more important than your key client is!)
In fact, any response other than policies can both get push-back and sounds like you don’t value him enough. Of course, “I’m a religious Jew, that’s why I wear a Kippah all the time and I leave work on Fridays at noon, so I can’t, I’ll be in shul all day and God commands me to not do any work, not even light a fire, on Saturday morning” that’s an even stronger response but guess what? Religious commandments are really just policies, but with the Force of God behind them.
But this case is just an arbitrary example. Policies are helpful in every context and every case. Before you start work, think about the various policies you may want, and as work goes on, constantly add to that list. If it’s open and shared, then it’s even better, because then, it doesn’t sound like a policy invented just for the moment, but something you’re serious about.
The example above is a “meta” policy: a policy about the work itself. But the same argument applies, just as strongly—more usefully day to day and more practically—for every little aspect of work. Maybe you have a policy to not give advice for free. Maybe you have a policy to have one meeting, but not more than one, before someone becomes a client of yours. Maybe you have a policy to read any Google Doc you write that’s more than 600 words at least two times before sending. Maybe you have a policy to wait a day before sending anything emotional to anyone. The number of policies you can have is endless, but, ultimately, the utility of defining and sharing policies is endless.
