In the fall of 1948 on a tennis court beside a San Bernardino house, the night crew acted out imaginary burgers while two brothers dragged red chalk behind them.

The McDonald brothers shut down their already-successful carhop restaurant for three months to overhaul everything—firing carhops, switching to self-serve windows, replacing plates with paper, and cutting the menu down to a handful of items so “pre-cooking” and speed were finally possible.

But the most revealing moment came during the redesign: they brought the night crew to their home tennis court and had them pantomime the whole routine—burgers, shakes, fries—while the brothers marked, in red chalk, exactly where equipment should go for maximum efficiency.

They finished at 3:00 a.m., and then rain washed the outline into a smeared mess—forcing them to redraw and refine the plan instead of pretending it was “done.”

If your workflow only exists in your head, it will collapse the moment you’re tired, distracted, or rushed.

Systems that stick are rehearsed, visible, and specific enough that someone else could run them without you.

That’s the real win with Mem: you turn your best workflows into reusable assets—checklists, templates, “how we do this,” decision rules—so you’re not rebuilding your process from scratch every week.

If you want a system you can actually repeat under pressure, then document your “tennis court version” of the workflow in Mem: write the steps, store the template, and make it searchable before you need it.

SPECIAL OFFER: Get 20% off your first three months of Mem Pro when you use promo code MITTENDAD at this link.

What are some of your favorite systems that help you? Feel free to reply, as I read every response!

Matt