Checklists are amazing.
They are one of those simple innovations that can make a huge difference in life, like the wheel, or sliced bread.
In The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande outlines the power of checklists to help us navigate the increasingly complex modern world.
Where AI tries to make computers think more like people, so that they can accomplish things otherwise impossible, checklists try to help people think more like computers.
Faithfully followed, checklists can prevent many common errors in medicine, aviation, business, engineering, or really any profession where complexity rules the day.
Faithfully followed.
That’s the trick.
Checklists, of any sort, require habits.
The doctor must habitually go through the pre-op checklist, the pilot the pre-flight checklist, the software engineer the deployment checklist, etc.
Without the habit, the checklist is useless. With the habit, the checklist helps us humans overcome forgetfulness, skipping important steps, or the natural human tendency to get lazier over time.
And guess what?
Your daily plan is just a checklist for the day.
When you include all the important things you need to do, it can make an otherwise complex day much simpler to navigate and help you beat the inherent human weaknesses that hold you back.
Plan your day, today.