I listened to Atul Gawande talk about his book, The Checklist Manifesto and immediately thought about how I could use his technique in web development. His basic premise (backed up with data) is that things have gotten so complicated in medicine that everyone needs a simple checklist to reduce errors. It doesn’t matter how well educated or trained the physician, nurse or technician. The facts is that individuals and teams will often forget small but critical steps such as washing their hands.
I know web development isn’t life or death, but a simple checklist at each phrase of a project would be extremely useful. Now I just have to figure out what’s on that list…
A couple years ago, I started making checklists. Now I use Google Tasks, or just a piece of paper. It is life changing.
I use them too, but I never refer back to them once I write them. Also I write them more like outlines than checklist. I really go old school and use notepad. Actually, I pretty much use notepad for all my writing. It opens up in a nano-second and their no formatting. Just text.