Checklists establish a higher standard of baseline performance

By account for the mundane but essential tasks, checklists establish a higher standard of baseline performance. Avoiding “silly mistakes” greatly increases performance.

… checklists seem able to defend anyone, even the experienced, against failure in many more tasks than we realized. They provide a kind of cognitive net. They catch mental flaws inherent in all of us—flaws of memory and attention and thoroughness. And because they do, they raise wide, unexpected possibilities.^[1]

#effectiveness #productivity

See also:

• Checklists ensure success in complex conditions
• Checklists account for the mundane but essential tasks
• Effectiveness necessarily differentiates between importance and urgency