While browsing Youtube to look for some inspiration about what I should be blogging, I came about Ali Abdaal 

And as a productivity enthusiast, his video titled “How I Manage My Time – 10 Time Management Tips” caught my attention.

Here he mentioned that he uses a checklist, and the idea came from Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto.

I did try reading this book before, but I didn’t really enjoy it so I stopped reading it before I got anything substantial.

With Ali’s recommendation, I tried learning more about this mundane, simple checklist. 

I have been using a checklist (or to do list, to be more specific) for quite some time now to help me with my productivity.

But I didn’t realize that this technique can be used in more situations that I have ever imagined.

What I learned here opened my eyes about the reason on why it is used, and why it is effective.

With that, here are some of the reasons I gathered on why having a checklist would help and why you should use it too:

 

Prevent errors that are completely avoidable

One of the worst feelings in the world is encountering an error that is completely avoidable. 

Imagine giving a presentation, then you see something is misspelled or an animation isn’t right. 

By having a checklist, you can prevent errors that can be avoided.

You can refer to your checklist on what action items you need to do to avoid error.

In my case, I make slideshow presentations quite often. I use the same template, only the content is different.

But even though I do it almost every other day, there are still some typographical errors, slides that the title or date aren’t updated, some animations are incorrect, etc.

I guess since I do it quite often, at times I become complacent.

Or sometimes, it is just human error.

 

Humans are inherently prone to errors due to different factors

Unreliable memory, attention, and focus are some of the factors that cause human errors.

In my case, even though I make slideshow presentations quite often, as I mentioned I still make errors.

Maybe I’m quite confident already in making these, hence I am too complacent that I don’t really take time to proofread. 

How I use a checklist to help me

I now use a checklist to help me with my presentations. My checklist would contain the following:

  • Update date of Presentation
  • Update content for slides 1-5
  • Update subtitle for slides 1-5
  • Update summary slide
  • Check animation of each pages
  • Check each slide for typographical errors
After I make changes to my slideshow, I refer to this checklist before I can say that I am done.

Summary

We all want to avoid completely avoidable errors. I hope this blog post can convince you to try using a checklist in your day to day life as well.

If you want to learn more about this, I recommend you to watch Ali Abdal’s “How I Manage My Time – 10 Time Management Tips” or read more on the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

Please do share below for any comments.