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The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Atul Gawande. A reader recently pointed out that I hadn’t covered his most recent book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. I had only covered an interesting subset of the book—why we fail. In this post, we’ll take a quick look at some other parts of the book. To put us in the proper context, we’re smart. Not scary smart but smart enough. the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. To overcome this we need a strategy. In response to increasing complexity we’ve become more specialized. The response of the medical profession, like most others, is to move from specialization to super-specialization. Modern professions, like medicine, with their dazzling successes and spectacular failures, pose a significant: challenge: “What do you do when expertise is not enough? The origins of the checklist. Of course everyone wanted to know what had happened.

Achieve More With Less In Life Using 80/20 Principle by Celes on Jan 9, 2009 | ShareThis Email This Post This is part-1 of a 3-part series on achieving more with less in your life using the 80/20 principle. “Conventional wisdom is not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 80/20 wisdom is to choose a basket carefully, load all your eggs into it, and then watch it like a hawk.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle Today, I am going to share with you the power of applying the 80/20 principle to your life. So, what is the 80/20 Principle? Imagine you are the CEO of a company and you have a sales force of 100 people. However, what if instead of a 1-1 relationship, you found out 80% of your sales is actually contributed by 20% of your staff? What the 80-20 Principle Is About This is what the 80/20 rule is about – it says that 80% of the effects in situations are from 20% of the causes. Examples of 80/20 Principle in Action Below are just a few of the tens of thousands of examples where 80/20 principle can be observed: ….And the list goes on. 1. 2.

Mind Tools - Management Training, Leadership Training and Career Training Understanding the Pareto Principle (The 80/20 Rule) Originally, the Pareto Principle referred to the observation that 80% of Italy’s wealth belonged to only 20% of the population. More generally, the Pareto Principle is the observation (not law) that most things in life are not distributed evenly. It can mean all of the following things: 20% of the input creates 80% of the result20% of the workers produce 80% of the result20% of the customers create 80% of the revenue20% of the bugs cause 80% of the crashes20% of the features cause 80% of the usageAnd on and on… But be careful when using this idea! 20% of the workers could create 10% of the result. Also recognize that the numbers don’t have to be “20%” and “80%” exactly. Life Isn’t Fair What does it mean when we say “things aren’t distributed evenly”? In a perfect world, every employee would contribute the same amount, every bug would be equally important, every feature would be equally loved by users. But that isn’t always the case: Of course, this ratio can change. So Why Is This Useful?

Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 20 Different Ways to Manage Your To Dos « How many ways are there to manage your task list? Almost as many as there are people with tasks to do. Here are 20 different ways of tracking your to dos, with examples of each. You probably use more than one of these options, depending on what you’re trying to manage and what suits your temperament. Or maybe you have some other ideas. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. What tools do you use to manage your to dos? Feature: The inbox makeover Each e-mail message in your inbox demands your time and attention. Filters and rules are great for reducing some of that demand, shunting easily defined mail such as e-newsletters and personal notes to their appropriate folders. But important e-mail messages are often hard to define and organize with automatic, rules-based management. They require filters and rules that reside only in your brain. The key to managing these important messages is to evaluate each one for the response it requires and then quickly convert that evaluation into action. Setup Start by stripping your e-mail directory structure down to seven basic folders, each defined by the action that its messages require (See screenshot): > Inbox For unread and unprocessed items only. > Respond For messages requiring only short responses that can be ticked off in five minutes or less. > Action For e-mail that requires anything beyond a quick response—work, research, or a detailed answer. Triage Timing Keep It Short

The New York Times > Fashion & Style > Resolved: To Do More. Or Less. Or Something. Published: January 2, 2005 T'S time for the New Year's resolution, that odd annual rite wherein after a month of giving thanks and celebrating all that is good in our lives we resolve to change the very lives we professed to be so thankful for. While many people are happy with tidy and task-oriented resolutions — stop smoking, drop a few pounds, lay off the Scotch — others are more ambitious. They strive for personal improvement, not a task but a project. Fortunately for them, there is no shortage of people eager to help create a new improved you. Ah, yes. Open "Focal Point" (American Management Association) by the motivational guru Brian Tracy, and you are ordered to "Do it now!" In "The Success Principles" (HarperResource), the new book by Jack Canfield, the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, we learn that "positive thoughts affect your body in a positive way." But wait. Sometimes the self-help wizards even contradict themselves. Carl T. As Mr. Mr. "I'm split," Ms. 1.

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