Why do you need boring checklists?

Why do you need boring checklists?

This might be one of the shorter blog I’ve ever done, but I want to get you thinking about checklists and the benefit of them to you, your team and your business. Ultimately, it’s a productivity thing:

• They help people not to forget something.
• They remind people what order to do things in.
• They help people remember the Dos and Don’ts
• You only have to write them once then everyone can use them again and again and again.
• They can be digital and accessed online, or in a shared folder (or use a specialist tool like Basecamp or Trello).
• They ‘could’ be paper-based, but think how sustainable that is. I’ve seen some great ones printed in notebooks on or scribble pads, and they also make great gifts if applicable to your audience.

Types of checklists

So, what kind of task might need a checklist? I’d say all of them, even if there’s only two or three things on the checklist. It saves you repeating yourself when someone asks ‘what do I do?’. Just point them at the checklist, which can also include tips and guidance (policies?) on how to do things. Here’s a list of examples of ones I have created for myself and customers in the past:

• Blogging
• Writing a post for Social Media
• Making a video
• Creating in-house templates
• Producing a newsletter
• Organising an event
• Inducting a new starter

If you’re interested in what a checklist might look like, and what it includes, help yourself to my version for creating in-house templates. It includes a bunch of things that might also be useful when briefing a third part supplier to create your templates.

Alternatively, if you have regular tasks or briefings that you undertake and think a checklist might be useful, please do give me a call for a chat about it and pointers on how to get them done and teaching your team to use them.