[throwaway848483]

I get the point of checklist for critical process. But I think it's counterproductive to drone your life away following task lists full of feature creep.

First with a little training you can put mental reminders in your mind, trusting yourself that they will show up when needed. It also helps with keeping your brain and memory in good working condition, and force you to stay in mental clarity and not being so overworked and tired that you have to rely on external list.

Second it's not robust to rely 100% on a task list being completed, sometimes forgetting something means that it's not that important. It's more important to rely on situational awareness to know what's need to be done and in what priority. The logic behind is pick something from the hot mess and make the whole better.

Third we can automate and delegate more easily now, quite often if you need to use a checklist, a script would be even better.

[_f2qa]

Think the "Checklist Manifesto" addresses your creep and clutter as basically a very bad design. In the book they went over several medical checklist iterations before they struck something sensible that improved conditions and saved lives. Most importantly, they changed culture in places to where a nurse was allowed to tell a doctor "no" without fear of reprisals, and re-framed checklist items to pay attention to a time window for administering antibiotics, not just whether a patient received them. The checklist that's helpful should fit on a laminated index card and it should list critical things. But, it's hard to distill the essence of something and most checklists end up as a loose thought vomit on pages.