National Checklist Day

If you pride yourself on your organizational skills, then put a check mark next to National Checklist Day on October 30, a cherished holiday which keeps our lives together. The more complex our lives get, the easier it is to make mistakes. Today, we celebrate the humble checklist as the innovative tool that has stood the test of time.

HISTORY OF NATIONAL CHECKLIST DAY

Without checklists, we can feel like we’re juggling a bunch of balls in the air and trying to keep them from dropping. Even the simple things can be forgotten or go unnoticed — let alone the difficult or complex things that fill our day. Although success in any endeavor is not guaranteed, armed with an organized checklist, you stand a better chance of achieving your goals.

So, is National Checklist Day the result of a reformed hoarder or the work of an obsessive compulsive freak? Definitely not! But you might be surprised to learn that checklists came out of a need to keep pilots safe during WWII.

The first checklist resulted from a crash that injured several people, killing at least two on a Boeing Model 299 B-17 plane in 1935. The 299 was heralded as the most state-of-the-art aircraft at the time. During the post-crash investigation, Boeing discovered that the pilot had forgotten to do a simple task — turn off the elevator lock. This simple omission caused the aircraft not to respond to pitch control, leaving the plane vulnerable.

According to a report by two university professors in a 1990 study, cockpit checklists serve several key functions in aviation safety, “… to ensure that the crew will properly configure the airplane for any given segment of flight” and to create “…standardization in the cockpit.” Also, memory of the safety procedures can never take the place of the actual checklist in aviation.

So, if a checklist can keep us flying safely in the air, what better way to keep our lives organized and running smoothly on the ground? American companies also use checklists as successful training tools. Now that you know the origins of the National Checklist Day, check that off your list and enjoy the rest of the day!

source: https://nationaltoday.com/national-checklist-day/

Good Thoughts to Inspire Taking Action

The purpose of the examined life is to reflect upon our everyday motivations 

and values and to subsequently inquire into what real worth, if any, they have. 

If they have no value or indeed are even harmful, 

it is upon us to pursue those things that are truly valuable.

James Ambury

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.

William James

​Talent is what you possess. 

Genius is what possesses you. 

Malcolm Cowley

 

What is our greatest responsibility to ourselves?

What is our greatest responsibility to others?

How does our daily checklist reflect that?

more: http://ToBeWiseApp.com

New Version 12.6

 

Cosmetic improvements are focused on a cleaner look, lighter colors, and more white space. The big improvement is on the addition of that most conspicuous "Checklist Purpose" cell, which is to be clear about Why you are doing this. Focus on the Why gives power to everything you do.

To View it in daily use by you know who, click here.

Permission may be needed, but always enthusiastically granted, of course.

Version 12.6

EZchecklist™ - Lite

Check out a simplified version of EZchecklist™ for people who may be overwhelmed by all the bells and whistles of the Professional version. There is beauty in simplicity. Maybe that's what you prefer.

Click the link below and see it for yourself. Let me know what you think.

EZchecklist™ - Lite

Free, of course.

The limit of 10 activities focuses the mind on the most important things.

In support of Less:

Brevity is the soul of wit.  Oscar Wilde

Perfection is achieved, not when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be taken away.   Antoine du Saint-Exupery.

Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler. Albert Einstein

Do Good Now. Make it better later.  Michael McCafferty 

 

Checklist Power

BY Richard Dally

Why Use Checklists?

When you are working on your business you are probably multi-tasking and dealing with all sorts of distractions. This can make it easy to forget to do certain tasks or mean having to spend time trying to remember how to complete a specific activity. When you are under pressure or rushing to complete something it is easy to forget a small but important step in your process. This is where checklists can be valuable to help you get things done.

Checklists for business processes

In the context of business processes, we are discussing process/procedure checklists rather than checking off items on a to-do list. With a checklist associated with a process or procedure, you write down all the steps or tasks needed to complete an activity or process. The list of tasks does not change which means that you can use the same checklist every time you carry out that particular activity/process. To-do lists will typically have new items added once earlier ones are completed and additional tasks are identified.

Key Checklist Concepts

It's easy to forget exactly what needs to be done to complete an activity or set of tasks. In many cases not only must you complete a set of steps but these must be done in a specific order. Checklists are a simple tool that can help improve the effectiveness of individuals or teams carrying out complex tasks.

A checklist will help ensure that important steps of a task are not missed out.

Perhaps the seminal, and certainly the best known, work on checklists is The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. The author is a surgeon who recognized how useful checklists could be for patient care where a large number of staff are involved in the process, each carrying out different tasks and with different responsibilities. Gawande introduced a simple checklist to a number of hospitals during a research study and patient deaths fell by 47%.

Example uses for Checklists

• Airplanes
• Pilots must complete a checklist before every take-off

• NASA
• If you have ever listened to a shuttle launch you will have heard the controllers working through a checklist that ensures each part of mission control is ready

• Human Resources
• New employee ‘on-boarding’ processes

• Virtual Assistants
  • Providing your worker with a precise set of steps to follow to complete their assigned tasks.

Benefits of Checklists

• Checklists ensure that the essential tasks get done. Even if a step is very simple it can still be forgotten. Checklists also stop the use of ‘initiative’ by those following them, i.e. where they think they know better than those who designed the process.

• They help avoid distractions by forcing you to only do the tasks that are on the checklist

• Checklists free the mind from having to remember the steps that need to be completed and worrying about the possibility of forgetting to do something.

• Checklists can save time. Having the steps written simply and in order makes them easy to follow and is likely to result in less errors, therefore avoiding time wasted needing to fix issues. They also help avoid the time-wasting “what-should-I-do-next” indecision as the checklist tells you what to do next.

• Checklists provide discipline and consistency. Depending on your business lives might depend on the process being completed correctly. The use of checklists can help when things go wrong – providing evidence of whether a particular step was completed.

• Checklists can improve productivity – there is something that humans find satisfying about ticking items off a list and research has shown that using checklists make us more likely to complete tasks. This fits well into the new theories of ‘gamification’.

Types of Checklists

There are two types of checklists, according to Daniel Boorman of Boeing, who was consulted by Gawande:

• Read-Do: you read each step of the task, and then perform them in order, checking them off as you go

• Do-Confirm: you perform a number of steps of the task from memory until you reach a defined pause point, when you go through the checklist and confirm that each step has been completed.

 Creating Checklists

• Start with areas of your business where you have been experiencing issues with processes you carry out regularly.

• Make sure the checklist focuses on the most important things that need to be done for the task to be successful.

• Each item on the checklist should be non-negotiable and be your single focus of attention, having only a yes/no or go/no-go style that prevents you moving forward in the list until you have checked off the item. This is how the checklists used by pilots work, ensuring that each item checked is air-worthy before continuing through the list. As a passenger you would not want the plane to take off unless every item in the checklist had been confirmed as air-worthy. Imagine if the pilot marked one item as “maybe okay” or “couldn’t check this one”!

• Test the checklist to make sure it delivers the required outcomes. It is very likely that you will miss steps when you first create the checklist. If appropriate, have someone else use the checklist and confirm that they can use it successfully to complete the activity.

Tips for Creating Checklists

• Keep it simple – use short, precise, easy to understand descriptions of the tasks

• Keep it simple – keep the list to one page if possible

• Make it easy to use – include a checkbox or leave a space to mark items complete

• Review it regularly – looking to edit and simplify the tasks involved

• If using pause points – no more than ten items between pauses, preferably five to seven

Reposted with permission
source: https://www.richarddally.com/why-are-checklists-so-powerful/

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Now that you know the power of checklists in aviation, medicine, and general business, you can see how a personal checklist can add power to your daily routines and achieving your goals faster and with less stress.  

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