I found myself on a plane for seven hours the other day, as you do, and I passed the time reading what turned out to be a very good book: The Checklist Manifesto, How to get things right by Atul Gawande. It’s about checklists. More precisely how having a checklist for the things you do regularly can help you do those things better.

Taking a lead from pilots, who have checklists for pretty much everything, Atul Gawande learns there are two types of checklists: Read-Do lists and Do-Confirm lists. The latter have pause points where you stop and run through a set of checks before you continue.

A good checklist is precise and easy to use, even in the most difficult situations. It should not spell out everything, but provide reminders of the most critical and important steps. The steps that even highly skilled professionals could miss. A good checklist above all should be practical.