A 1-Minute Strategy to Automate Important Tasks

Dear Essentialists,?

A few years ago, a friend of mine had routine knee surgery.

Everything seemed to go flawlessly.

But, as his recovery went on, instead of decreasing, the pain in his knee began to increase.

Puzzled, he returned to his doctors. Eventually, they discovered a small surgical instrument was left inside his knee by mistake.?

Most people don't expect this type of careless mistake from highly skilled surgeons.?

But, while it's easy to say, "If only the medical staff had been thinking," I propose asking a different set of questions:

What if the medical staff had not needed to think?

What if they were able to ensure essential tasks were complete without having to rely on their memory??

The human brain is a miraculous machine. One study suggests if our brains worked like a DVR, you would need to leave the TV running for about 300 years to reach its storage capacity.?(1)?

But while our brains have a tremendous capacity for storing memories, our working memory is far more limited.?

What we need is not more knowledge but skills and strategies to better apply this knowledge correctly.?

One simple, low-tech tool you may be underutilizing is the checklist.?

A checklist allows you to do the thinking ahead of time - to take it out of the equation, or rather, bake it into the equation.

That way, instead of getting essential things right most of the time, you can get them right every time.

A 1-Minute Strategy to Automate Important Tasks

1. Identify a common task that can be automated?(e.g., agendas, onboarding new clients, a family chore list, etc.)
2. Create a checklist or cheat sheet listing all essential steps

"It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong."

― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In gratitude,?

Greg?

(1)?https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/

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