Checklist / The Checklist Manifesto
Updated 2026-08-13
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
A checklist is an external memory aid listing the critical steps of a procedure, designed so that omissions are caught under high workload and low fault tolerance. The core proposition is that human memory and attention fail predictably under pressure, so key steps should be verified from a list rather than recalled, especially for repetitive work where an error is costly. The key qualification is that the list must stay short and current: an overlong checklist is skipped, and an outdated one misleads precisely when it is trusted.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Critical step filter: include only steps that are easy to miss and expensive to get wrong. - Mode choice: decide whether the list is read-then-do or do-then-confirm, and label it. - Live verification: run the checklist item by item during execution rather than from memory afterward.
Anchor fast decisions
Attention is a limited resource, and under time pressure it narrows to the task in front of the operator while peripheral steps drop out. Moving those steps onto paper removes them from the scarce resource, so verification costs almost nothing. Because the checklist encodes the accumulated lessons of past failures, it also transfers experience to people who have not lived through those failures.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checklistverified
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