list
Under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success. There must always be room for judgment, but judgment aided—and even enhanced—by procedure.
The Checklist Manifesto (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009), 79.
We don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness…It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us—those we aspire to be—handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists. Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating.
The Checklist Manifesto (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009), 173.
We like lists because we don’t want to die.
“Interview with Umberto Eco,” SPIEGEL, by Susanne Beyer and Lothar Gorris, November 11, 2009.
For gardeners, this is the season of lists and callow hopefulness; hundreds of thousands of bewitched readers are poring over their catalogues, making lists for their seed and plant orders, and dreaming their dreams.
“A Romp in the Catalogues,” March 1, 1958 in Onward and Upward in the Garden (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), 3.