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17min chapter
The Checklist Manifesto – Productivity Book Group
Productivity Book Group
The Power of Checklists in Enhancing Efficiency and Performance
Exploring the impact of checklists in critical situations, this chapter underscores the importance of structured guidance to navigate emergencies, drawing parallels between aviation and healthcare sectors. It emphasizes the benefits of routines and checklists in daily tasks, including leveraging technology for automation and reminders. The chapter also discusses tailoring checklists to specific contexts, utilizing documentation for future reference, and emphasizing accountability and rewards for sustainability in checklist implementation.
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Episode notes
Speaker 3
I really was interested in a little bit taken aback in a good way by the details of the story of the pilot, Sully landing the plane. And obviously I knew the news story, of course, but I liked how he shared about what that looked like in real time and how powerful the use of the checklist was in such a monumental success. Just breaking that down in real time and was powerful as a reminder of really the true power that a checklist can have as a tool to depend upon. And when you know what to do, you know what to do, right? And even in a time if I stress, you can, if you know where to find the list and you know how to go through that process, it can really be a huge help when your mind is not necessarily in a great place.
Speaker 2
Yeah, and it talked about that they went through like the checklist to restart engines and try to do that. And then let's go through the checklist for the ditching procedure and the flight attendants were going through their checklist with the passengers so that in that emergency situation, they're not having to dream up, oh my gosh, what do we do? That's already been decided. Grab the list and start at the top and just go through
Speaker 1
the list. I found myself kind of bored a bit with the healthcare analogies. And he's a surgeon, so it makes a lot of sense. And his nonprofit focuses on reducing deaths in surgery. So it totally makes sense. But when he started using the aviation stories and whatnot, it really helped to give me a little bit of balance there. And I really enjoyed the Sully Sullenberger story. You know, he's flying into Airbus A320 with his co-pilot. And just that whole story was very compelling. And it illuminates for you the real importance of, you know, not just when it's life or death. I mean, that obviously was a life or death circumstance. And a lot of lucky as well as, you know, following procedure based on those checklists by both the copilot and the pilots helped land that plane that day. But the non, I just think about all of, it's like death by a thousand cuts. The fact that so many people don't use their checklists throughout the day causes so many hiccups, like little small things that just end up causing so much more, you know, it's like it's catastrophe on a very slow moving basis. Right? It's like you're just watching an accident in slow motion because so many people go throughout their day just fumbling through. And you know, like I think of a routine. A routine is basically a checklist for how you manifest the day until you go from you know, aortically, organically, let's say organically going throughout your morning to then mechanically doing so where you have manifested things and then it becomes learned reflex, right? It becomes an acquired reflex where you are naturally doing things that are more efficient for you throughout the day. But I really believe that it starts with a checklist, right? And then you go through these movements and what's good about a routine that's in a fungible format in a moldable format is that you can say, okay, I'm going to brush my teeth, then I'm going to hop in the shower and then I'm going to do X, Y and Z. And then you get to the next few days and you're like, you know what, actually, it'd be better if I foured first. and then I got out of the shower and then I did X, Y, and C, and then I brushed my teeth. Right? Like there are ways in which you can figure out how those things can move around and be more efficient as well as more effective. Because you might say, oh, well, you know what? Actually, I eat my breakfast, then I gotta brush my teeth a second time. I might as well eat my breakfast and then brush my teeth and then I'll only have to do it once. Right? So like there are ways in which we can get around those pieces for effectiveness and then we can say, okay, now we lock it in place. We've got a good routine checklist. Now let's do them until they're learned reflex until I do them on an almost automatic basis. And I think that we tend to think that somehow if we just keep doing it, it's going to be great. But it's that, I don't know, there's a dopamine kick, there's a little bit of benefit of being able to have it, see it physically, whether it's digital or otherwise, and checking it off and feeling that you're in control of the situation, you're commanding your own world. And I think that's important for us to realize
Speaker 2
as well. And when we make that list, when we consciously say, we do this first, this second, this third, what we tend to cut out is those things that we have just sort of been doing by habit, and we do them because that's what we've always done. And when you stop and think about, well, why are you doing that thing? Well, it turned out that five years ago, there was a good reason for it. and thinking, thinking with my own, uh, dogs, you know, that, that we gave this little extra taste of something because this dog was having a problem eating foods. Okay. Well, we'll give them this little something or other. And now that dog's been gone for five years, but we still give the dogs that little something rather because we're in the habit of doing it. But then when we stop and go, here's the check, now why are we doing that? Oh, well the reason for it is no longer there. Then we start to refine those lists and cut out some of the steps, make it more, make it easier to do, make it quicker to do, make it more refined, make it more meaningful, and make it shareable. Then here's my day, Here's how I end my day. Ray, you were talking about automating some things. I have an If This Then That applet that sends me, it emails to Remember the Milk at 7 p.m. BAM, a task is going to appear at the top of remember the milk that tells me how to wind down my day to make sure that Email is empty that my Evernote inbox is empty that I've looked at the little widgets that tell me these are the Notes that you have changed in Evernote today. Here's your just take one more look at them to see if you need to do something about them. Just this little list. I don't want to see that list all day long. I want at 7 o'clock. I want to see it. It's 7 o'clock. I want to interact with it. I don't want to see all the list all day long. Not even right at the bottom. So you're seeing those lists when you to see them and setting up the technology so that you see what you see when
Speaker 1
you need to see it and the rest of the world is hidden away. Really important to underscore that fact that you know you've seen that that item on your list all day is fatigues you. It is a decision to have to look at it, process it. And see the
Speaker 2
background and then wind up not doing it. It's like the thing that you tape to the wall so that you won't forget it. And it just becomes part of the decor. You know, four years from now, that reminder that there's a sale that starts Thursday
Speaker 1
is still taped. So Mike, I'm curious, how do you decide what needs a checklist today? How do you determine what needs a checklist if you have already been an ardent checklister, you know, you know, list maker? How do you determine today what needs a checklist and what does?
Speaker 2
stress when there's any stress involved with, oh, am I going to remember to do this or that? I think that's the time to make the list and put that in the system.
Speaker 3
I think anything that I want to happen in a similar way the next time is worth a checklist. I just think, you know, if it's not the exactly same way, the checklist gives you the opportunity to evaluate each item when it comes. Like I, some of the power for me with the list is choosing if it needs it that day. Like I know I have some things on my weekend checklist that don't always need it. Like I refill our soap dispensers and do they really need it every week? No, it's probably about every two weeks they need it. But, that weekend, I just don't worry about it because I know I will revisit it when I next week looking at my list. And so it gives you that opportunity to quickly say yes or no to something. So sometimes even if it needs to be more flexible in that regard, it still serves me really well and not having to generate in my head what needs done.
Speaker 1
Yeah, similarly, Elena, I like to, as I'm working my way through a project that I know I'm going to do again, is I like to have a separate little checklist that I create that's what I'm doing as I'm doing the project. And then sometimes I will just, you know, the project is just too harried for me to think through at that time. And so I will then come back afterward and do a project debrief and say, okay, this project is going to happen again in the future or something like it's going to happen again in the future. Let me go through and take down all the things that we did so that I can manifest what's the, not the ideal, but the realistic things that we're going to do next time around to make that project better. And it's happened in many, many areas of my life over the years of just being, okay, let's look at what happened, what could have made it better. Not just what happened in the project and what we want to repeat, but the things that we're going to do in the future to make the project run more smoothly. Those are the things that are really important because if we already did some of those things, it's kind of like the do confirm. If we've already done a lot of those things really well, that's great. We need that on the checklist. But more importantly, if we did some things poorly, we need to know how to shore up the poor parts so that we can actually perform better in the future. And that really has helped me in so many ways is like just thinking through, you know what? Our communications here weren't really good between team members. What can we do in the future? Oh, okay. Let's do more milestone meetings between in this portion of the, of the project so that we're touching base with each other more often. And therefore we're not getting bogged down in, is so-and doing that, or am I doing that? You know, that kind of confusion over who's doing what tasks. So I really love doing project debriefing. And I also think that, as you said, Dr. Buck, about like stress, it's, for me, it's like, not just stress, but you stress, which is positive stress. If there's a positive stress circumstance, I like to think through what the positive stress circumstances are going to be first to build checklists, only because if you think about it from like the doom and gloom, like negative stuff, like what happens if I die, right? Like you're much less likely to deal with your mortality than you are about like the next holiday party you're going to host, right? So practice building checklists on the positive side, and then you can kind of gently ease yourself into maybe some of the more negative things. But I think that having a checklist for many of those circumstances are helpful. The other is like use Google. You know, Google has just a multitude of checklist templates. And so just basically going there and searching for a type of template and going out there and seeing what templates are out there and then you can kind of pull from the various checklists, the ones that work for you and the ones that don't.
Speaker 2
And of course that chat GPT. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1
so you can ask GPT for planning a party. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Just remember the chat GPT is making stuff up. So don't ask it to make a checklist for heart surgery. Yeah, I may just make it up. But yeah, since it's a it's a remarkable technology. And if it has that data in the database, then yeah, it's going to be able to create a checklist for you. Yeah. But yeah, so I think that I think that searching for things and a little bit of human ingenuity and human purview here is important is to look through those checklists and make sure just like a travel checklist, you may have multiples of those travel checklists, right? If you're going on one day trip, not gonna be the same if you're going to take a 20 day trip, you know, overseas. So, you know, making sure that you know how many checklists you need as well for that particular circumstance.
Speaker 2
And building at the time on the front end, I think one thing that I do differently from most people is doing more work on the front end. So many times somebody gets through a project and goes, whoo, done with that. Don't have to think about that for another year. And I'm going, I will be doing that in another year. While this is fresh on my mind and some things didn't go quite right, me get this nailed down right now so I can kind of throw that bait out into the out into the ocean and reel it back in a year from now and my future self goes, right, thank you so much for what you did last year so that it's a piece of cake now or for the next person who comes into that position or handles that project. I've been the easiest person in the world to follow because well Frank what did you it's all it's all written down it's all there well how did you do such a thing it's right there and they just have to work the list just work the list it's there.
Speaker 3
such a good point. I feel like so many seeds of checklists end up being the documentation or you know what I mean? It may not appear in a checklist. Initially, it's more of a law, the documentation, a record keeping process of something now. I even find myself, reading this book like, it's sometimes I like writing things with my hand, you know, the old-fashioned way. So sometimes I feel compelled to just take a piece of paper and kind of lesson plan for a group I'm about to lead or whatever. And lately I've been saying, no, Alayna, go ahead and just type it right into Notion and keep track of it there, because you know you're not gonna want to transfer it in there and you know you're going to want to look back at that as signing the basis of a future checklist when you return to it. So definitely that record keeping and kind of using that as a seed for those future checklists is such a nice kindness to your future self.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'll note that it is, for anybody who's listening, who doesn't, who can't relate, it is a struggle, right, sometimes with that concept though. I know that after I finished a large project, if I don't have the accountability to the team, then the, like, you've just given all of this energy, emotional and mental energy to this project, and you're like, Oh, thank goodness, I'm done. You know, and so you just want to kind of put it behind you. And you know, it's coming up a year from now or six months from now or two years from now, and you're going to do it again. But there is that sense of like, Oh, I could put that away and just step away from it for a while. But no, there is a struggle there. And you got to kind of get off the struggle bus and focus on, you know, really doing that work because it will benefit you in the future and make it fun, make it paired with a reward afterward, you know, and that way you can kind of get to that point where you're like, okay, yeah, I just finished this big project. This is going to happen again. I'm going to plan, you know, this next big annual report that I have to write now so that next year it's kind of set up for success or greater success than it already has been. But I know that it can be difficult at that time, so I just want you to know that we understand. It can be difficult when you come off of expending all of that energy and so on and so forth. All right, so any other thoughts, questions,
Speaker 2
feelings about The Checklist Manifesto? Gosh, we hit it pretty hard. It's definitely a book I would recommend to anybody. We're all living in this world where there's a lot to do and there's a lot that's going to come around again and again and again. There's no need to rethink everything.
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