It may seem like an oxymoron, but why would you need to create a filing systems for your online business? "Online" somehow suggests that nothing is offline. If ever there was a case for a paperless office, a business that is entirely on the Internet seems like the ideal case. Is it?

Let me ask you something: What would happen if you lost your internet connection? You say that that couldn't possibly happen. You have guarantees with your supplier. You have a dedicated line. Your signal arrives via fiber optics. Or maybe you get it by satellite.

There are no end of ways that you could lose your connection completely, and you need to think about what you'd do if that happened.

There could be a brown-out. That's journalist-speak for a widespread loss of electricity. It's not uncommon in some parts of the world for thunderstorms to knock out the power, snow or ice to start pulling down power lines.

A heat wave could cause you to lose your electricity. When everyone starts running their air conditioners, that puts a huge strain on the electricity grid. In Britain, there used to be a noticeable dip in the nationwide electricity supplies when everyone made a cup of tea. It's true.

Another way you could lose your connection is if your ISP was hacked. Big sites have this happen all the time. There are numerous rogue programmers who like nothing better than to break into the most high profile sites; and some of them, who have an axe to grind find themselves at the mercy of a group of people who are determined to crash the site. The entire anti-virus industry, by-the-way, began as a result of malicious programs roaming around the Internet.

Or, may be a careless workman cuts your line while digging up something else. Less frequent, thankfully; but it happens. I can remember a time when an underwater cable across the Mediterranean, I think, was cut in half. It was weeks before the Internet was available for thousands of people.

Another possibility is sunspots. These are known to disrupt communications. Atmospheric disturbances can occur for no apparent reason, too. It just isn't possible to know.

And if you just happen to have all of your computer files, you know, the ones that you used to back up onto the hard drive on your desk, in an Internet cloud, then you're at risk of not being able to access anything.

In this article, I want to explain why you should create systems for your online business. A system is a written description of what you do to create a product, write a sales page, or any other activity in your business. The most successful online business people have them, and you should, too. But why would you want to? Isn't is a lot of unnecessary work?

In a nutshell, you want to write a description of every process in your business that is so precise that someone with your knowledge of products, but who knew nothing about running the business could do so. Of course, it's unlikely that you'll ever need someone to run it for you; but if you've created a system that is as exact as that, then you'll have no trouble performing each process in the least amount of time.

Why, however, would you want to do it. I mean, given all of the other things you must do, why would you want to take time out of your already full days and make the effort to write everything down?

Well, there are three reasons.

First, it's easy to forget what to do. Sounds crazy. I know. But, some activities you'll only do every few weeks, such as search for and register a new domain name. Other activities you'll do every day, such as create your products.

No doubt, you've discovered already that you sometimes need to remind yourself of how to do something that you've done before. What a waste of time! It would be so much easier if you could just follow a checklist. Well, why not create one?

The next thing to remember is that all of the online services that you use - web host, autoresponders, shopping carts, forum and blog software, etc. - gets updated regularly. If you don't have a description of how your current version works, then it will be a lot harder to figure out how to alter your routine to allow for any changes.

Sometimes steps are combined or eliminated altogether. Without a description of what you normally do, you may not be able to understand how to change your process without spending a lot of time trying to figure it out.

And that's what systems are for: to substantially reduce the amount of time you spend accomplishing everything that you do in your online business.

The third reason is that when your services revise their programs, it will be harder to recognize what has changed if you don't have a description of how it works now.