CHECKLISTS

Nobody can remember or think of everything. It is just one of our shortcomings as human beings.

An excellent way to overcome that frailty is to develop checklists. A checklist is nothing more than a listing of items related to a particular subject. It serves as a reminder to perform some activity or to review something.

Checklists serve many purposes. They prevent oversights, especially for people with declining memories, and they ensure consistency of action if more than one person performs the action. They also prevent reinventing the wheel. That is, the items in the checklist are recorded and, therefore, are available to everyone with access to them long after the author departs.

You can use checklists for routine and nonroutine tasks or inspections. No matter what your profession (military, medicine, education, criminal justice, and so on), you can use them. You can also use checklists for any topic, including physical security, computing equipment, and facilities maintenance.

You can organize checklists in many ways. For example, you can arrange their contents chronologically, alphabetically, sequentially, or randomly. No matter how you organize checklists, however, you’ll find that the time spent building them will never exceed the time saved using them.

for Developing Checklists

• Identify the major categories of topics.
• List the categories in order of descending importance.
• Under each category, list items of relevance.
• Arrange the items within each category in descending order.
• Periodically review the checklist to determine your progress.