Why are checklists important?
Because there are only two reasons for failure: ignorance and inaptitude.
Ignorance is a word that comes from the Latin ignorantia, which means not knowing.
We fail due to ignorance when science offers us an incomplete, partial understanding of
the world and how things work.
The second type of failure is based on inaptitude.
This word comes from the Latin ineptus, meaning absurd, unsuitable.
Unable.
In this case, there is knowledge.
Science already has the answer as to what should be done.
However, failure can still happen due to inaptitude when we do not apply that knowledge correctly.
As science advances, there is more and more information that is proven to solve many of
our problems.
And the paradox is that the sheer amount of information makes our decision-making more
complex.
With more knowledge, there are fewer reasons to fail due to ignorance.
However, cases of inaptitude and not putting knowledge into practice correctly are increasing.
This is where checklists make all the difference.
Checklists save lives.
Whether it is to make a plane take off, to build a skyscraper, for a doctor to operate
on a patient or for you to become who you want to be, checklists are the simplest and
most efficient tool to ensure that things are done right.
No matter how good you are at a certain subject, the right checklists can greatly improve your
results.
In “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right” [source: https://arata.se/book-checklist],
Doctor Atul Gawande details how such a simple tool can be so powerful for anyone who wants
to be more productive, optimise time and ensure higher performance.
So in today's Arata Academy Summary we will look at the ideas behind the book and specifically,
how you can apply these ideas to fulfil your big life goals.
A checklist is a list of clear steps that need to be completed to carry out a procedure
correctly.
Let's look at using checklists in practice with an example.
There is only one official way to contact Arata Academy and that is the form available
at https://arata.se/contact - and we receive hundreds, even thousands of messages depending
on the day.
But how do we ensure that we can respond to all messages consistently?
When the Arata Academy Team receives a message, we look to see if the person has contacted
us before or if this is the first time they have written to us.
If they have contacted us before, we check to make sure the previous contact has been
resolved.
This is the preparation checklist.
Then, we read the content of the message and check if the type of request has already been
dealt with and documented before.
We have operational manuals that document what should be done in recurrent situations.
If it is already documented, the Team follows up without needing my opinion.
However, in cases where the Team does not know what to do, I give guidelines and internal
training sessions so that the Team knows what to do in similar cases in the future.
This shows how checklists can increase the quality of customer service.
The world has become very complex.
Checklists are a way to simplify your day to day life.
A few decades ago, science still had little information on how to solve problems that
today are considered simple.
So, it was common not to be able to solve certain problems for pure lack of knowledge.
However, as the knowledge base of humanity increases, decision making becomes more and
more complex.
Knowledge helps us... but it also hinders us by overwhelming us.
Now, many of the mistakes we encounter in solving problems are more related to the misapplication
of knowledge and less related to a lack of information.
People like to criticise those who make mistakes, especially at work.
However, it takes more than extra training to reduce human errors.
In different fields of knowledge, the educational process is becoming longer and more rigorous.
Just increasing the length of training is not enough.
Even with long training and certification processes, we find professionals from different
areas making basic mistakes, and not using the necessary (and known) procedures to solve
certain problems.
These are mistakes that could have been avoided.
The excess of information in an increasingly complex world ends up causing even the most
well trained and experienced professionals to make mistakes from time to time.
How can we reduce the complexity of our tasks?
By using checklists.
A doctor may have her own checklists to diagnose their patients.
One for each type of disease diagnosed.
She may also have a checklist to keep up to date with the latest news in the field.
And still use checklists to take care of her own health, maintain her relationships and
even to have fun.
In my case, just to give you an idea, I have a travel checklist that includes the preparatory
phases, the reservations that need to be made and even what to pack so I know what to take
in my hand luggage (like cables and batteries) and what goes in the larger bags.
It may seem like a lot, but structuring processes in the form of lists is a very efficient way
to simplify your life.
Even if it takes a while to structure everything in the best possible way, once the checklist
is ready, everything becomes easier.
Well-designed checklists prevent serious errors and improve the quality of your work.
A good checklist should have all the steps you need to take to follow a procedure.
This includes the obvious steps, those that everyone should know, because it is precisely
these obvious steps that end up being forgotten or skipped.
For example, one of the first steps to provide support for someone who writes to Arata Academy
is to verify that they are a student on one of our courses.
This makes a big difference, because our students have questions about interactive activities.
Their doubts are more advanced and require a more detailed response from the follow-up
team than the doubts of someone who has never enrolled in a course.
They usually have more simple doubts about technical procedures.
It would be wrong to answer a message without first checking whether the person is already
a student or not, as this could cause errors.
It would be wrong to send an enrolment link to a person who already has access to the
course.
So, this example explains that we can think of checklists as a tool, as a safety net to
help us prevent mistakes like this.
This net should contain all the essential steps, but it should also be as short as possible.
Your checklists should only include the items that are essential to perform that procedure.
Essential items are those that, if not done, can lead to disastrous results.
These items should also be clear, so that you do not have to waste time trying to understand
what they mean.
For example, instead of something abstract like "Help student access the course", I should
write something more specific like "Send the password change link to the student".
Furthermore, it must be clear whether it is a READ-DO list or a DO-CONFIRM list.
READ-DO lists are to be followed one step at a time.
You read the first item on the list, do it, and mark it as done.
Then you read the next item and do what it says and so on.
It is similar to following a cooking recipe.
DO-CONFIRM lists involve simply doing everything you think needs to be done using your memory.
And when you think you have completed everything that needs to be done, you pause to read through
and check that all the items on the checklist have been completed.
The checklist should also be concise.
Include all the essential items, but do not turn your checklist into a complete and detailed
manual of how to do each task.
For example, in aviation each checklist should ideally contain five to nine items, so that
it can be read in about one minute.
The checklists need to be brief and clear to prevent pilots from getting distracted
and skipping essential items.
This does not mean that you must stick within these numbers.
You should just follow the general rule of making your checklist as complete as possible
with the essential items, without overdoing it by adding irrelevant details.
A checklist is not final and definitive.
Actually, you should continuously refine your checklists.
Another practical tip is that you will only know if your checklist is good once you put
it into practice.
As you use the list, you will find that some checklist items are unnecessary and can be
removed.
Other items need to be modified, put in a different sequential order.
In practice you will find that new items need to be added.
For example, every time I go on a trip and something goes wrong, I open my travel checklist
and make adjustments to avoid the same problem happening again.
Similarly, when you create checklists for different situations in your personal life,
at work and in a team, you should continually check whether there were any mistakes.
Think about how your checklist can be improved to avoid repeating this mistake and make adjustments
accordingly.
You can even add a date or give a version number for the most recent change to your
checklist.
Checklists are essential for good teamwork.
If you work in a team, checklists are also a great tool to ensure the standard and quality
of the final work.
But you need to make it clear to the whole team that the checklist is a tool created
to help.
If you force its use without allowing the team to understand the point of it, there
is a great risk that they will reject the idea.
And the checklist might not be used seriously.
In some teams it is common for people to simply mark all items as completed without checking
every single item.
When a job is done by many specialists, each one acts in their area of expertise.
If the whole team has a common checklist, with the steps that each one should take,
the work becomes much more effective.
This saves time, reduces stress and increases the quality of the final work.
Have you seen the movie Sully, with Tom Hanks?
It is based on the true story of Flight 1549, which had to make an emergency landing in
the Hudson River a few minutes after taking off from New York Airport in 2009.
At the time, the media glorified the pilot as a hero who had prevented the deaths of
hundreds of passengers.
But the pilot himself reminded everyone that the emergency landing was only successful
because the whole team followed the checklist procedures for situations like that.
If certain members of the team had not followed the items assigned to them, the pilot would
not have been able to land safely.
You can do the same with your work.
Get your team together and start defining the essential items for each procedure you
do at work.
Keep this checklist in a place that everyone has access to, such as a shared task management
application.
Then start using the checklist and refine it until it becomes a safe guide for you to
get the job done to the best quality possible.
The biggest difference with shared checklists is that the team needs to have good communication.
If a team member sees that an item is marked as completed, they need to be sure it is actually
done.
If not, people lose confidence in the checklist and it becomes useless.
To improve communication, you use the checklist itself to inform team members that they need
to communicate to the next member that a task has been completed.
Checklists save people's lives, but they can also greatly improve yours.
Being a medical doctor, Atul Gawande gives many examples of how checklists are used in
hospitals to save the lives of sick or injured patients.
He gives the example of a nineteen-item checklist that was tested by the World Health Organisation
in eight hospitals and resulted in a forty-seven per cent reduction in surgical deaths.
You can also use checklists not to cure diseases but to prevent them.
Remember the morning ritual we talked about in episode 139 of the series Hello!
Seiiti Arata [ https://arata.se/hello139 ]? This ritual is nothing more than a checklist with
a series of tasks that you can do when you wake up to ensure that you start your day
in the healthiest and most productive way possible.
The same goes for your personal goals.
To be the person you want to be, you need to do the tasks required to achieve that goal.
For example, suppose you want to be an athletic, physically fit person.
You need to eat well, exercise and sleep well.
You can have a checklist for your diet, your workout, and your free time.
Once you plan and list what you need to do to meet the goal, all you have to do is follow
your checklist.
This idea can be used for all your big dreams.
Being who you want to be and fulfilling your life plan can be as simple as listing what
needs to be done, and then following the list.
Ideally, these lists and goals should be included in a larger life plan that also includes your
personal values and other deeper reflections, as we teach in the Planning Your Life course
[https://arata.se/planningyourlife].
Basically, if you want to reach a goal, first structure what you need to do and then turn
that into a checklist to turn your intentions into concrete actions.
Checklists are lists of steps that need to be completed in order to perform a procedure
correctly.
A tool as simple as this helps you save lives, produce higher quality work and reach your
biggest goals.
You can start using the power of checklists in your life right now.
Choose a procedure that you perform at home or at work and structure it into a checklist
of essential items.
Then start using the list and refine it every time, until you have the ideal model list.
If you want to take it a step further, make these checklists part of a larger life plan.
A plan that includes everything from your highest personal values to the next items
you need to accomplish on your to-do lists.
You can learn how to put such a plan together in the Planning Your Life course, available
at https://arata.se/planningyourlife