The first book I had published was in the late 1950s. It was a book of checklists called “BONES – Business Organisation Notes (Executive Section)”. Strangely, I am still getting small royalties from it being copied in some Scandinavian countries! Checklists were becoming the fashion when I wrote it and a few years later Barbara Shorter and I wrote another one called “The Book of Business Communication Checklists”. I have been a fan of checklists.
Today’s checklists are more sophisticated. Computers and, above all, AI have changed and accelerated the way in which we can prompt ourselves. We may even be on the road to becoming a robotic species. While we can keep our sense of feeling, our temperamental and quirky behaviour and our ability to laugh and cry, I hope we do so. As Rowan Jackson implied about my Holding Hands Daily Paradox article ‘a hug is as good as a Guinness’.
I couldn’t agree more. However, prompts are useful. They can become vital when the short-term memory begins to slip. Properly handled they may even extend our thinking lives for several years. Expanding populations and world visibility make more systems and procedures inevitable. Village rules are complex when you try to apply them planet wide. So we are all keeping an eye open for better ways to handle our lives, our loves, our families and our money. Good and timely prompts are a blessing.
Many people dislike the increasing plethora of laws and regulations. Freedom is precious and we should protect it from intrusion by autocracy and too much order. Only those who have lived with ‘muddling-through’ know what a graceful and beautiful flower it can be. Of course it can also ruin you, so you don’t want too much of it, Boris Johnson. To knit the disciplines of life with the treasures of relaxation is the secret of happiness.
You need to know when to put checklists away and admire the sunset.
There are two rules about handling systems. However good and convenient a procedure is it will only work if you make it. Sometimes people think a system allows them to think less. It doesn’t. It allows you to think differently but you must still devote real effort to ensure that your part of the exercise is done thoroughly and meticulously. Nuclear reactors work because of the careful attention paid to the detail of inspection.
And you must never stop thinking. No system is perfect, nor, of course, is any human. We have the ability to sense when something is not right in a way that process doesn’t. Our contribution to even the most automated procedure is sensing. When you ‘get a feeling’ you are not (usually) suffering from indigestion but sensing that something is not quite right. It is one of the greatest gifts humans have. It allows us to ‘read’ people, their moods and muddles. It allows us to put up a red flag if we think something is going wrong.
What is the next prompt we should look out for?
Study your own life to see how much time you are spending doing things you don’t like. Develop mini-processes to do them for you. Use the time saved to enjoy life by thinking.
You’ll never regret it.
And you may even write another BONES.
Good morning
John Bittleston
Do you have a system you’d like to share?
We’d love to hear it at [email protected].
14 Aug 2024
