I highly recommend that you read this short article from the New Yorker about how a checklist dramatically improved outcomes in a hospital’s ICU. 

Those who know me know that my business life is dominated by checklists.  During calls or meetings, I make little boxes in my notebook to indicate that there is a task to be done.  If the tasks are easy/quick, I get them done right away, if not they get transferred to my Outlook task sheet.  If items make this “task stream,” they get done, if not, they don’t.

We also use group checklists for our business.  New customer account set-up is an example.  It’s not like flying a jet or saving a life in the ICU, but nonetheless, it’s pretty difficult to get all of the steps down without a checklist.

One other area crying for a checklist:  setting up a search campaign.  Setting geo-targeting, turning off the content network, setting a budget, choosing your ad delivery format, etc.  One little mistake and you could be looking at significant losses for you or your client until you find what you forgot to set.

If a simple checklist could make the “flying fortress” flyable and save thousands of lives in an ICU, isn’t it worth a try in your business? 

Photo credit:  TeeRish (TrishaBrunner)