The Humble Checklist

Most of you know about The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. It is a wonderful, wonderful book. But, reading about checklists and using checklists personally are very different things.

I struggled with getting checklists to work in OmniFocus, and ended up using another app, that I didn’t like as well. But, after reading Joe Buhlig’s book on how he uses OmniFocus, the section on how to actually setup a checklist in OmniFocus is pure gold. Truly.

I had no idea how much more efficient I could be if I had checklist routines for the mornings. Or checklist routines for pushing software. Or checklist routines for packing. When I take the thought away from a series of complicated actions, it feels… liberating. And speedy. And I forget fewer things, too.

But the key is this, it needs to be easy to get to my checklists, and semi-easy to setup (OmniFocus isn’t perfect for setting up, but it works… and once they’re up, it’s super easy to get to and use), and they can’t be too long or complicated. I have to continuously edit and improve them. I have to see how I react to them. Checklists that have steps that are not as useful as previously thought will demotivate myself from using them if I’m not careful. I have to edit as I go. But, when I have a tested, good one, it really is like running a bash script for my mind.