The Craft of Checklists Pt. 2: Putting It Into Practice

Our last blog post discussed the importance of using checklists to avoid making mistakes. These lists can be used for your personal life, but are especially important in the workplace and when posting online content.

The key to a successful checklist is to remember that not all checklists are created equal. Do not do any extra work to create your checklist or make them overly cumbersome. Keep your checklist short and to the point and if you have several big tasks, subdivide them into smaller chunks. This will create a list-within-a-list and allow for a staged approach.

Finally, a successful checklist allows for all employees to be empowered in that they are given permission to question the boss and preform an on-going quality control of the tasks assigned.

Now, the moment you have all been waiting for! Here at Think Profits, we are big fans of using lists to complete our daily tasks, as well as, throughout our larger projects. We can\u2019t talk\u00a0about checklists without showing you one we use ourselves. I chose social media posting because it is a simple task, but one that if messed up, results in a public mistake.

Feel free to employ these same methods for your projects and daily tasks.

A Checklist for Social Media Posting

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1. I have logged into the right platform/manager and selected the right social media.
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2. All links are working and pointing to the right content.
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3. All hashtags are relevant to the post and audience.
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4. I have reread the post for grammar, spelling and syntax.
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5. I\u2019ve scheduled the post to be sent in 15 minutes or more.
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6. I have reread the instructions and/or asked someone for clarification if I have any concerns.
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7. I have pressed post.

And that is it! It almost feels too simple! \u00a0But, remember that each one of these steps is a point at which mistakes have occurred. I mean, who hasn\u2019t forgotten to run a spell check?

Yet, at the same time, the point isn\u2019t to make sure I\u2019ve run a spellchecker. Checklists are a tool that prevents mistakes by acknowledging that we make them. They get the dumb stuff out of the way, by reminding us to pause, think and make sure we have everything we need \u2013 only then can we move ahead.

What do you think? Will you be using a checklist from now on? If you do, does it work? As Vancouver SEO consultants we often rely on checklists when optimizing websites. They are vital for any range of locally targeted SEO services in Vancouver.