I recently read the book The checklist Manifesto by Atul Gand I don't know about you but I hate it when I send an important email and I forget to check for spelling mistakes or I deliver a report to a client and I'm missing a damn page I don't make these mistakes due to a lack of experience I've avoided making these mistakes a 100 times before but for some reason this time I forgot to verify my work and I fear looking like an amateur author Atul gu day hates making these avoidable errors too but his errors don't just hurt his reputation they can end people's lives gu is a surgeon and when he makes small oversights like forgetting to wash his hands before surgery or forgetting to make sure that there's enough reserved blood on hand it puts his patient's life in jeopardy despite the advancements in surgery and the number of surger is performed every year more than 150,000 Americans die each year during surgery author tul Gand says that research consistently shows that half of all deaths and major complications during surgery are due to avoidable human error airs like not washing your hands or failing to confirm that there's enough reserved blood on hand before surgery having so many lives lost to avoidable air in the operating room is just unacceptable so Gand set out to find a solution he searched for other high stakes professions that have severely minimized human errror and have maintained a reputation for excellence despite operating in a risky and complex environment on his quest he interviewed leaders from the construction and Aviation Industries two industries rich with complexity and danger but two industries where catastrophic events rarely occur the construction industry has a building failure rate of only 0.002% that means only one in every 50,000 structures partially or entirely collapses due to avoidable human error and despite how complex an aircraft is the the odds of being killed on a single Airline flight are 1 in 29.4 million both Industries have an excellent track record because they've developed the habit of Consulting a checklist before completing important tasks and making critical decisions the construction industry uses checklists throughout the building process to ensure that work meets building standards a structural engineer who has built hundreds of similar buildings and is considered a master of their craft still consults a checklist every time he lays a foundation or starts construction on a new floor of a building despite hundreds of flights and thousands of hours of training a veteran pilot still consults a checklist before making any major decision for example shortly after Captain suy left Loria airport on the morning of January 15th 2009 he struck a flock of geese and lost both engines on his aircraft despite the intense panic and the pressure to make a quick decision he and his co-pilot consulted a checklist before taking their next action after after going through a checklist to accurately assess the situation he could confidently make the decision to land the plane in the Hudson River and save everyone on board both Industries understand an uncomfortable truth we humans are flawed decision makers and have unreliable Memories We may know what's best and we may have vast experience to back us up but we will always forget small details and Mis important steps atula Gand says four generations after the first Aviation checklist went into use a lesson is emerging 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 inherit in all of us flaws of memory and attention and thoroughness without checklists Builders and Pilots would not have the excellent track record they have and the general public wouldn't trust them it's their discipline to consult checklists no matter how familiar they are with their jobs is what makes them responsible professionals Atul Gand took his findings from both Industries and started making checklists for surgeons in the operating room after 3 months of surgeons and nurses using a checklist for every operation major complications due to avoidable human error dropped by 36% deaths fell by 47% how did this happen well before each surgery a nurse would read off each item of a checklist out loud and then use a pen to check off each item manually the items on the list were as simple as verify that the correct patients's on the table the doctors and nurses never skipped an item and they delayed surgery until every item on the list was verified like most people the doctors put up a lot of resistance to using a checklist they were sophisticated professionals after all but once they started seeing the effect it had and the disasters it prevented they learned to embrace checklists it was humbling for doctors to realize that despite their extensive training large number of surgeries performed and relatively High IQs they were still prone to forgetting simple things and making common oversights now you may not be saving lives but you can develop an excellent track record of producing high quality work by developing the discipline to consult a checklist before issuing important projects or making critical decisions but if your checklists suck you'll resist using them and you'll continue to release work with errors and people will doubt the professionalism of your work to find out how to make awesome and reliable checklists let's turn to a checklist expert Boeing engineer Daniel Borman a man who makes checklists for a living Dan identifies four components of every useful checklist component number one a useful checklist has a clear pause point a particular point in time where you know to pause and complete a checklist for example I use a checklist when releasing a video on YouTube to verify that the video's description is consistent and that the links are working the pause point is just before I hit the publish button on a new video component number two a useful checklist is Speedy Dan Borman recommends that each checklist be less than 60 seconds to complete any longer and you'll resist doing it or you'll start taking shortcuts to make a checklist Speedy you should aim for 5 to nine killer items a killer item is an item that if missed would give the impression of poor quality or would have a negative impact on another person's life component number three a useful checklist is a supplement to existing knowledge and expertise a checklist should not allow you to turn your brain off and execute a task like a robot each item should be a short and concise reminder a way of triggering a familiar routine and number four a useful checklist is field tested and continually updated a checklist should be practical and based on actual experiences if it's not you won't trust it an ideal checklist is made up of past failures and Lessons Learned so if you develop the discipline to consult a well-made checklist a checklist that has these four components before hitting send on an important project or making an important decision you can reduce your anxiety and cultivate the reputation for releasing high quality work the discipline to use a checklist signals the difference between being an amateur and a professional that was the core message that I gathered from the checklist Manifesto A Tool Gand has many great stories to illustrate the power of a checklist I highly recommend the book If you would like a one-page PDF summary of the other insights that I gathered from the checklist Manifesto just click the link below and I'd be happy to email it to you if you already subscribe to the free productivity game newsletter this PDF is sitting in your inbox thanks for watching and I hope you have a productive week