Schalk Burger van Wyk | I map how you actually work

my work

Every time, the same thing has happened. Somebody asked for the obvious thing. The real problem underneath turned out to be a different problem. It got written down. Then something got built that carries it.

dance awake

flow

workflow redesign for a private practice

the ask: An app. The paper diary cards kept coming back late, so make them digital.
the problem: The cards were one drop out of six. The work lived across too many channels and too many homes for the data, and never in one shared space between practitioner and client.

written down: One diagram of the week between two sessions, with all six drops on it and the single cause sitting under them.

built: The shared space itself, where the record fills in as the week happens. The session stops starting blind, and the practice stops running on her evenings.

held

Her practice, her material.

why you cannot read this one yet The build is mine, but the practice is hers and the material in it is real. Nothing of it is published here until I have her yes in writing, and every screen shown then will be made up for the purpose.

socrates

an AI thinking partner, built for myself first

the ask: A coaching session, to get myself unstuck. The obvious move, and a good one.
the problem: I left with more questions than I arrived with, and nothing held them. By the next session the thread was gone.

written down: How I am actually wired, and what I was circling on, in a form something else could pick up.

built: A thinking partner on Supabase and the Claude API that holds both. In daily use. I am customer zero.

compass

the operating system for a working life

the ask: A better app to keep my own work in. That is what I kept reaching for, and I kept reaching again.
the problem: It was never the app and it was never discipline. Nothing held the state between sessions, so my head had to, and a head is a bad database.

written down: Sixteen areas of a life, each with a defined purpose and one place it lives.

built: One inbox, one central list of actions, and a re-entry point that says where I stopped. Every other exhibit on this page was built inside it.

how i work

I’m not interested in adding more software. I’m interested in making things feel lighter.

The best systems are the ones you stop noticing. They quietly keep things moving, help people stay aligned, and make it easier to trust that nothing important has been forgotten.

Work rarely broke down because people didn’t care. It broke down because the system asked too much of them.

It happened to me. My own work was spread across too many tools, and every return meant starting from the beginning. So I built the system I needed. It holds the state so my head does not have to, and that idea now shapes every project I work on.

A system should ask less of the person, not more.

what you get

A map of how your situation actually works, written down and yours to keep. And where the map alone will not hold it, the thing that carries it.

it starts with a conversation

Before any of that, we sit in the mess together. I ask the questions that give the problem a shape, and often the thing you walked in with turns out not to be the thing that needs fixing. That is the half almost everyone skips. It costs you an hour, and you leave it understanding your own situation better whether or not we take it further.

start a conversation
the map

Your work, drawn the way it really runs. The parts, what each one holds, where the handovers are, and the places the whole thing quietly depends on somebody remembering. It gets written down, so you can hand it to the next person without me in the room.
the thing that carries it

Some of the map you can act on as it stands. More often one part of it cannot survive being remembered, and that part gets built: a workflow, or a small piece of software that holds the state so a person does not have to.

background

Twelve years, mostly in sales, across kitchens, furniture, software, an online catalogue and a cafe.

Sales sits between what a customer is promised and what the business delivers, and that is where I saw the work break. Behind the scenes too, where drawings, cut lists and assembly notes had to reach an installation team in a form they could build from.

Take leather. Every hide carries marks, and that is character, not a fault. A customer needs to hear that before the sofa arrives. On a busy showroom floor, that rested on a consultant remembering to send an email. It could have gone out on its own the moment the order was placed, and the consultant could have given their attention to the person in front of them.

I studied drafting because drawing is how I make those connections visible. I think in webs, and I keep asking how this connects to that.

Seven times is not a coincidence. It is a pattern.

let’s talk

Tell me what isn’t working. I read every message myself and come back to you, usually the same day. Then we take an hour, together, and give the problem a shape. Nothing gets decided in that hour, and it costs you nothing but the hour.

The best conversations start with a problem that doesn’t quite have a name yet.

Want the career history? download the cv

Prefer LinkedIn? find me there

I map how you actually work.