Even Van Halen saw the power of Checklists

Back in the 70s and 80s, the band Van Halen like touring, and they liked touring BIG. They used to give the venue a massive document of all the things that needed doing before they arrived to do the show. They’d then pull up with their 6 trucks of kit and pull out a checklist. The first thing that they would check was if that there were no brown M&Ms (chocolates) in the bowl that they had requested for in the dressing room. If they found any, they would then consider cancelling the show!

They would then run through the rest of their checklist for everything, as their logic was that if they couldn’t get the simple thing of getting the M&Ms request right, then what really important stuff had they not got right. For example, how safe was the stage and lighting rigs.

A Checklist for Everything

This got me asking the question about why we don’t all use checklists more often, to help reduce errors. A simple tick sheet to make sure everything has been done or is right, or that we need to do.

I created a daily Checklist, for planning my day, here it is:

·   Cross off completed actions that I did yesterday from my master task list

·   Add to master tasks list any uncompleted tasks that I wrote down yesterday under “Unplanned and Urgent”.

·   Check calendar - Look back and forward 2 days on calendar to capture any tasks I need to add to my list

·   Check “Waiting for” folder. List people to chase today.

·   Check email inbox (my @action folder) and choose which you will reply to today.

·   Choose tasks from your master tasks list that I am going to do today.

·   Put Pomodoro (Time Blocking) squares next to a task (or group of similar tasks), to check I can achieve them all today.

Some of what I do here may not make sense to you, but for me it is clear and in the right sequence so I don’t forget anything. It’s a set of instructions so I don’t need to start thinking about what to check or in what order, I just run through it from top to bottom. It takes about 10 minutes. I keep the note on an electronic sticky on my laptop so I instantly see it when I sit at my desk.

Removing thinking of the mundane

I build checklists for everything and they really help. What to take on holiday, Things I need to take to a workshop, When designing a workshop. I even have one for when I take the dog to the woods for a walk, as I sometimes forget or take his whistle, and even worse, forgetting the poo bags!

What do you build checklists for, let me know in the comments.