Schalk Burger van Wyk | Systems for the work that lives in one person’s head

my work

Every time, the same thing has happened. The obvious route was already the one being followed. Careful questioning turned up the real problem underneath it. It got written down. Then something got built that carries it.

flow

The week between two sessions ran on paper, and the practice ran on her evenings.

case study

The week between two sessions ran on paper, and the practice ran on her evenings.

An app, is what she asked for. The paper diary cards kept coming back late, so make them digital.

The cards were one drop out of six. The work lived across too many channels, and never in one shared space.

So it got written down: one diagram of the week between two sessions, with all six drops and the cause under them.

Then the shared space got built, where the record fills in as the week happens. The session stops starting blind.

The diary card, rating urges and the thoughts that come with them. — The day, written down in six parts.

The practices, each with what it is for and how long it takes. — A practice for whatever is happening now.

A practice for whatever is happening now.

The workbook, its four chapters and the sections already finished. — The course, and how far through it you are.

The course, and how far through it you are.

What the practitioner sent through, beside what the person saved for themselves. — What was sent, and what was kept.

dance awake

The loyalty card was paper, and the rest of the practice lived somewhere else.

case study

The loyalty card was paper, and the rest of the practice lived somewhere else.

An app for the stamp card, is what it started as. A free dance every tenth one, run off a paper card. Mine lived in the car.

The card was not the problem. The practice is one evening a week, and everything holding it together lived somewhere else.

So it got drawn as one thing: what a dancer arrives with, what they leave with, and what sits between Thursdays.

Then it got built. One place for the dance, the music, the book and the people. The card is the smallest thing in it now.

The home screen: the next dance, fourteen weeks unbroken, and a code to check in with at the door. — Your next dance, and the weeks you have kept.

The sessions list: the weekly dances, a morning practice and a weekend retreat, each with its time and how many are going. — Every Thursday, and what is coming after it.

The live screen: the session streaming, the track now playing, and messages from people on the floor. — The room, playing, wherever you are.

The circle: posts from the room after the dance, with photos, replies and a track someone shared. — Everyone who was there, still talking about it.

The book inside the app: the cover, what it is about, a sample to read and the chapters. — The book, in the same place as the dance.

Your own page: how long you have been dancing, the credits you hold, and the writing that comes with it. — What you have kept, and what is yours.

socrates

I left every session with more questions than I arrived with, and nothing held them.

case study

I left every session with more questions than I arrived with, and nothing held them.

A coaching session, to get myself unstuck. The obvious move, and a good one.

I left with more questions than I arrived with, and nothing held them. By the next session the thread was gone.

So I wrote it down: how I am actually wired, and what I was circling on, in a form something else could pick up.

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

Socrates opening on a dark page with its name, the line know thyself, and one button. — It opens on its own name, and nothing else.

It opens on its own name, and nothing else.

The thread list down the left, each conversation named by what it was about, beside the conversation itself. — Every thread it has held, still named.

The read back opened at the top of a thread: what the day circled, one thing to try, and a place to say how it landed. — The read back, once you open it.

Searching across every thread, with the matches listed down the left by the week they came from. — Everything you have said, searchable.

What it remembers, and where that came from.

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.

Every system I build takes something out of someone’s memory and puts it somewhere it will still be tomorrow. I build them the way I need them to work, because I cannot hold it either.

A system should ask less of you, and hold what you are carrying.

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 flow that does.

it starts with a conversation

Before any of that, I sit in the mess with you. I ask the questions that give the problem a shape. Sometimes the thing you walked in with turns out not to be the thing that needs fixing. The hour is free, and you leave it understanding your own situation better whether or not we go further. The map is the work that comes after it.
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. It is the first real piece of work, and it is yours to keep whatever happens next.
the flow that holds 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 flow, or a small piece of software that holds the state so a person does not have to.

start a conversation

background

Twelve years, mostly in sales, across kitchens, furniture, software, an online catalogue and a cafe. Different businesses, and the same friction in every one of them. You cannot give the person in front of you your full attention while you are still carrying everything that has to happen after they leave, and they feel it.

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. Every business has its own version of that email.

Engineering taught me how a thing works. Draughting taught me how to draw it, so somebody else can see how it connects. User-centred design taught me the half that is not mechanical, which is how people actually behave around the thing. I think in webs, and I keep asking how this connects to that. The drawing and the engineering came first, and it is why I map a thing before I build it.

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. What comes after it is agreed before it starts.

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

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Prefer LinkedIn? find me there

You should have the biggest say in how you spend your time meaningfully,not your systems.I set that up.

my work

case study

case study

case study

case study

how i work

what you get

it starts with a conversation

the map

the flow that holds it

background

let’s talk

You should have the biggest say in how you spend your time meaningfully,
not your systems.
I set that up.