An under appreciated tool for doing things right every time while freeing you up to think about the hard stuff.

Checklists are incredibly simple tools that don’t get enough credit for what they do. They enable you to doing the basic, most fundamental but vital things correctly every time while freeing up your mind to think about the harder stuff. They reduce Noise.

🔑 Checklists are not meant to be comprehensive how to guides. They are quick and simple checks to help skilled people who already know what they are doing.

See what makes A Good Checklist

There are two basic approaches to checklists. See Read, Do or Do, Confirm.

Checklists can be either to ensure the right things are done, or to ensure the right conversations are had. See Communications Checklist

Not all checklists are simple lists. See Other Forms of Checklist

Checklists reduce errors of ineptitude. See Ineptitude and Ignorance.

Other Reading

Checklists are the main topic of The Checklist Manifesto, essentially the main topic of Work the System, and would fall into the ‘Resources’ part of the PARA Method.


Source