Check it out!

[This is a companion blog-post to my review of The Checklist Manifesto, which can be read at GReviewz. For a technical writer's perspective on checklist, visit ByteSpace.]

Reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande has been a satisfying experience. Not because the book gave me a new insight or approach. It doesn't. But it validated something that I have been following over the years: using checklists.

I must have got this trait from my father. He is a very methodical man, very painstakingly so. We have never seen him miss out on any aspect of a process or a transaction. He is always very clear about which step he is at, what needs to be done next, which documents will be needed, whom he needs to meet, and so on. He has never come back from an office because he didn't carry the necessary papers with him.

Whenever the family goes out for an outing, he is the one to close the house. This seemed easy, until we had to do it ourselves in his absence; and invariably we would miss out on something: forgetting to keep the milk in the refrigerator or forgetting to close the knob of the gas regulator.

As I watched him, it became clear that he followed some kind of checklist, albeit from the memory.

I created my first checklist as a student: an exam checklist. It listed the things needed to appear for a paper: the writing pad, the Camlin compass box with all the necessary instruments, extra pens and pencils, and so on. It proved immensely useful: never did I have to borrow anything in the exam hall.

After finishing the studies, I joined my first company. Living alone, it soon became a chore to get all the necessary accessories in place before leaving for the office. This was when I created a checklist based on a Marathi acronym: मोरूचा पापा  which meant: मो (Mobile), रूमाल (Handkerchief), चावी (Keys), पाकीट (Wallet), and पास (Gatepass). I still follow a more enhanced version of this.

A friend of mine often chided me for using these kind of checklists, saying such "simple things should be obvious". Well..... HP, if you are reading this and still feel so, do check out  The Checklist Manifesto.

There ain't no shame in usin' checklists.