I've tried to checklist my life for years after reading The Checklist Manifesto. I later learned that the best checklists are not in the form of checklists.<p>Development checklists are often in the form of templates. E.g. <a href="https://html5boilerplate.com/" rel="nofollow">https://html5boilerplate.com/</a><p>Life checklists are in the form of routines and rituals. For example, brush teeth, shower, put on clothes, comb hair every morning. These should actually be sorted out and optimized. I have a basket for "smart casual" clothes, a basket for simply "casual" clothes, a place to dump dirty clothes, and things like toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo go into the exact same location every day. Instead of boxes you tick off, you optimize a route. I'd recommend doing one for all the major things in life - shopping for food, locking up the office, laundry, taking care of the cats, exercise, and so on. If you tend to forget something, label things. Like sometimes the comb is not enough reminder to comb my hair, so I put capital letter "COMB" at eye level.<p>I teach classes too. I used to keep a checklist of what to teach, but it's easier to have PowerPoint slides instead. This is obvious to most people, but took me months to figure out.<p>For my checklist apps I keep only two lists: Things to do ASAP ("today") and things to do later/backlog. This is the technique Marc Andreessen recommends.
I made <a href="http://pcbchecklist.com" rel="nofollow">http://pcbchecklist.com</a><p>For electronics there are a lot of small things which should be considered in each design. The must-haves are covered by standards and regulation, but there are many many other considerations which makes life easier or catches errors: checklists are an obvious choice.<p>So to make it easy for myself I bought <a href="http://pcbchecklist.com" rel="nofollow">http://pcbchecklist.com</a><p>It is mostly focused on being comprehensive, but every now and then I have some free time to expand on it.
In personal life, I find checklist useful to:<p>* not forget small tasks that if piled up, eventually become too big or annoying to tackle (daily budget update, email zero-inbox, browser bookmarks cleanup). I group such repeating tasks in daily routines (morning routine, evening routine) or periodical reviews (weekly, monthly etc.)<p>* keep up the habits (flossing, weighing myself)<p>* keep up with events rare enough to forget some pieces of it (weedings - tie a tie, give the shirt to the laundry)<p>Similarly, in software development. I've realized recently that things get less cluttered if you have a process (a checklist, basically) with steps to cover in particular activities.<p>Examples:<p>* work shutdown routine (put a work log to Jira, reply all remaining emails, git push everything).<p>* Definition of Done (DoD): code delivered, tests written, docs updated, etc. That is useful if you (or your team) want up-to-date README but keep forgetting to update it.<p>* topics to cover on project kick-off, here's mine if anyone's interested: <a href="http://bartoszkrajka.com/2018/12/28/kick-off-dev-related-topics-to-cover/" rel="nofollow">http://bartoszkrajka.com/2018/12/28/kick-off-dev-related-top...</a>
Much like @muzani below, I've tried to apply checklists at much as possible after reading The Checklist Manifesto. It's a solid book with actionable advice and examples.<p>For business, I have multiple SOPs, which are all effectively checklists:<p>* My daily marketing routine, with what to do and links directly to where I need to go.<p>* Monthly invoicing procedures.<p>* How to perform my roadmapping service (send this, update that, schedule this, etc.)<p>* Every README I write for dev projects will include a checklist of deployment procedures and how to update critical things.<p>I'll also occasionally write down a physical "ToDo" list, which ends up being a checklist that I just go down. This is more for reducing executive function in the mornings, and making sure I don't forget anything.<p>For my personal life, I don't operate off of a specific checklist day to day. Instead, I have an alarm app with absolutely everything I need to do each day, and when it needs to be done. I also rely on my Google Calendar for reminders.<p>Ultimately, knowing what to do is important, but knowing <i>when</i> to do it is also important.
I wrote up a checklist for the release procedure of the app I work on at my company. I cannot stress how much it made my life easier.<p>There were a few (too many) manual steps, like updating websites XYZ with release notes, and using this checklist made it all so much simpler to keep track of what I had done / need to do. I also added direct links, removing much friction.<p>Other than that I don't really use checklists.
I use this in my suicide prevention work.<p>10 ways to improve safety: <a href="https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/ncish/" rel="nofollow">https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/ncish/</a><p><a href="https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=40697" rel="nofollow">https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=40697</a>