4 ms·

The bigger story here is: checklists, checklists, checklists. They’re underrated!

ghaff 4y ago
And automation. So long as you confirm that the automation is doing what you think it's doing. Another comment mentioned an offline backup. And I agree. But it's also easy to go from having a month old offline backup to a year old to...
ElevenLathe 4y ago
Do you know of a good app for doing checklists of this type? Many TODO-list apps market themselves as "checklist apps" but they really just mean "yeah we've got checkboxes". They don't mean "our app lets you choose from a library of checklists for common tasks and pull a fresh one to tick off when you want to perform one of those tasks." One that seems close is ForeFlight (demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d05_ZQMm6Zo&t=23s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d05_ZQMm6Zo&t=23s), but it's just one feature of a much larger app, is mobile only, and obviously targeted at aviation. I'm looking for similar functionality but more IT-oriented (or at least generic, not referring to airplane models, etc.) and preferably with an offline desktop "client" (it is especially critical that you have your checklist library available if the whole corporate network is down, for example) or, barring that, at least a desktop-friendly web UI. Honestly, if I knew there was a market for this, I would build it. It's either a great opportunity or the market isn't big enough.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > Do you know of a good app for doing checklists of this type? 1. Type it into a file. 2. Print it onto a piece of paper 3. Put a mark by each item with a pen as you finish it.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    This. I have a small sticky note pad on my desk. When we have a meeting about features, I jot down my todos. In some cases, I may do a screengrab, or submit a bug report (to myself), but, most times, it’s the PostIt. When I’m done with a task, I crumple the note, and drag it into the trash can.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    These are "TODO" lists. They are a different beast from process checklists, which are repeatable and (ideally) have input from multiple "checkers."
  - niccl 4y ago
    And if it's really important, have one person doing what it says in the checklist, and another reading what's to be done next, making sure the first person did it, and _then_ ticking it off. And finally storing the dated checklist in a paper file somewhere The number of times I've missed a step on a paper checklist because I was on autopilot is ... non-zero
- akkartik 4y ago
  In the spirit of being wrong so I can learn: this seems easy? Would a simple open source CLI suffice?
  - travisjungroth 4y ago
    I was a flight instructor and am now a software engineer, plus I've made a daily checklist app. So I think I'm at least qualified to throw out some opinions on this. It's not a software engineering challenge. The minimal features are textbook basic CRUD. The essential UI will be well-supported by any framework. Even the challenges when you branch out are solved problems. Device sync, sharing, backups, etc all have some off-the shelf solution or are solved in another space you can look at. It's a product design / UX / whatever you want to call it problem. Within the set of choices that are easily available to you in the software engineering world, you have to make the right ones! Most people won't naturally make good checklists. How do you help them? One of the biggest (maybe single biggest) issues with checklist is using them at all. How do you get compliance up? How do you handle "skipping" items? Do you go with read/do or do/confirm? How do you keep checklists up-to-date (critical for emergency checklists). It would be very easy to get this stuff wrong. It also hits a weird spot in the market. What would people pay for this? I don't think you hit enough users for "free" and then my guess is it's a really weird curve with some people paying $1 and then a minority paying like a lot ($100?). I don't know, that's a total guess. Just bringing this up to cover "why isn't a company already doing this?". Not to be discouraging! Just don't take it as a software engineering challenge. If you're experienced and working on your home turf, it will be easy. The hard thing will be making the right easy thing. Best way to do that is to solve your own problem btw. Maybe start with a "I crashed the server" checklist or something. If anyone wants to take a stab, the essay that the book "The Checklist Manifesto" is based on would be a good start. The book itself is a bit verbose, but would be worth it if you get serious. I'd also chat for 30 minutes or answer random questions for anyone who's going to make something. My email is my last name at gmail.
    - ElevenLathe 4y ago
      Couldn't have put it better myself. As usual, the hard part isn't building software, it's building software that people want and finding a way to get them to pay you for it.
- themadturk 4y ago
  It's Apple only but I use a grocery list app called Grocery (which uses the Apple Reminders database) and it remembers items, allowing you to easily restore things you've check off previously to an unchecked status.
  - jiehong 4y ago
    I also used one called CheckYourList, as it proposes to uncheck everything as soon as you’ve been through a list. [0] Perfect for do-check lists. [0]: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/daily-checklist-checkyourlist/id1571623264?l=en https://apps.apple.com/de/app/daily-checklist-checkyourlist/...
- koheripbal 4y ago
  We use orgmode sync'd to a common folder.
- sowbug 4y ago
  I've thought of the same idea. The rough workflow for creation would be (1) create a checklist, (2) publish it to the world as a template, (3) let others fork it, send PRs, etc. Then the usage workflow is (1) search for a template, (2) instantiate your own copy, (3) use it. As you say, you'd want the list and the checkbox states available offline, and maybe synced elsewhere. Throw in collaboration features like sharing a single checklist ("are we bringing everything we need for the roadtrip? mark items that you've packed" "someone please buy milk, or else I will if it's still on the list when I stop at the grocery store tonight," "has everyone grabbed a task for the next sprint?"), or delegating items to other people ("for tomorrow's presentation, make sure someone has set up the projector"), and it could add the magic that I felt back in 2009 when I realized how amazing git became once GitHub was layered on top of it. The reusable-list idea works for me when I'm traveling. I have a list of stuff I need to do when I leave the house -- turn off the thermostat, make sure the plants are watered, etc. -- and I find it annoying to have to uncheck the old list's items in Google Keep. I'd rather keep the old checked lists and instantiate new ones. The list itself evolves over time, so having the old completed (or not-quite-completed) lists is interesting. Also see this recent item https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32552782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32552782 proposing a spec for to-do lists.
- stavros 4y ago
  Yes, Process Street is what you want (and what I thought of building a while ago).
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    Thank you! I will be kicking the tires on this.
- simonw 4y ago
  GitHub Issues. You can create an issue with a checklist in it by pasting in the following: - [ ] Item one - [ ] Item two If you put that in the issue description itself, checking those off will be reflected in anything else that displays that issue (3/5 complete). And if you want to duplicate a checklist, you can copy and paste in a full block of markdown.
As_You_Wish 4y ago
https://youtu.be/dfl8Xt8W09A?t=126 https://youtu.be/dfl8Xt8W09A?t=126 https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000 https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/...

And automation. So long as you confirm that the automation is doing what you think it's doing. Another comment mentioned an offline backup. And I agree. But it's also easy to go from having a month old offline backup to a year old to...

ElevenLathe 4y ago

Do you know of a good app for doing checklists of this type? Many TODO-list apps market themselves as "checklist apps" but they really just mean "yeah we've got checkboxes". They don't mean "our app lets you choose from a library of checklists for common tasks and pull a fresh one to tick off when you want to perform one of those tasks." One that seems close is ForeFlight (demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d05_ZQMm6Zo&t=23s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d05_ZQMm6Zo&t=23s), but it's just one feature of a much larger app, is mobile only, and obviously targeted at aviation. I'm looking for similar functionality but more IT-oriented (or at least generic, not referring to airplane models, etc.) and preferably with an offline desktop "client" (it is especially critical that you have your checklist library available if the whole corporate network is down, for example) or, barring that, at least a desktop-friendly web UI. Honestly, if I knew there was a market for this, I would build it. It's either a great opportunity or the market isn't big enough.

WalterBright 4y ago
> Do you know of a good app for doing checklists of this type? 1. Type it into a file. 2. Print it onto a piece of paper 3. Put a mark by each item with a pen as you finish it.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  This. I have a small sticky note pad on my desk. When we have a meeting about features, I jot down my todos. In some cases, I may do a screengrab, or submit a bug report (to myself), but, most times, it’s the PostIt. When I’m done with a task, I crumple the note, and drag it into the trash can.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  These are "TODO" lists. They are a different beast from process checklists, which are repeatable and (ideally) have input from multiple "checkers."
- niccl 4y ago
  And if it's really important, have one person doing what it says in the checklist, and another reading what's to be done next, making sure the first person did it, and _then_ ticking it off. And finally storing the dated checklist in a paper file somewhere The number of times I've missed a step on a paper checklist because I was on autopilot is ... non-zero
akkartik 4y ago
In the spirit of being wrong so I can learn: this seems easy? Would a simple open source CLI suffice?
- travisjungroth 4y ago
  I was a flight instructor and am now a software engineer, plus I've made a daily checklist app. So I think I'm at least qualified to throw out some opinions on this. It's not a software engineering challenge. The minimal features are textbook basic CRUD. The essential UI will be well-supported by any framework. Even the challenges when you branch out are solved problems. Device sync, sharing, backups, etc all have some off-the shelf solution or are solved in another space you can look at. It's a product design / UX / whatever you want to call it problem. Within the set of choices that are easily available to you in the software engineering world, you have to make the right ones! Most people won't naturally make good checklists. How do you help them? One of the biggest (maybe single biggest) issues with checklist is using them at all. How do you get compliance up? How do you handle "skipping" items? Do you go with read/do or do/confirm? How do you keep checklists up-to-date (critical for emergency checklists). It would be very easy to get this stuff wrong. It also hits a weird spot in the market. What would people pay for this? I don't think you hit enough users for "free" and then my guess is it's a really weird curve with some people paying $1 and then a minority paying like a lot ($100?). I don't know, that's a total guess. Just bringing this up to cover "why isn't a company already doing this?". Not to be discouraging! Just don't take it as a software engineering challenge. If you're experienced and working on your home turf, it will be easy. The hard thing will be making the right easy thing. Best way to do that is to solve your own problem btw. Maybe start with a "I crashed the server" checklist or something. If anyone wants to take a stab, the essay that the book "The Checklist Manifesto" is based on would be a good start. The book itself is a bit verbose, but would be worth it if you get serious. I'd also chat for 30 minutes or answer random questions for anyone who's going to make something. My email is my last name at gmail.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    Couldn't have put it better myself. As usual, the hard part isn't building software, it's building software that people want and finding a way to get them to pay you for it.
themadturk 4y ago
It's Apple only but I use a grocery list app called Grocery (which uses the Apple Reminders database) and it remembers items, allowing you to easily restore things you've check off previously to an unchecked status.
- jiehong 4y ago
  I also used one called CheckYourList, as it proposes to uncheck everything as soon as you’ve been through a list. [0] Perfect for do-check lists. [0]: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/daily-checklist-checkyourlist/id1571623264?l=en https://apps.apple.com/de/app/daily-checklist-checkyourlist/...
koheripbal 4y ago
We use orgmode sync'd to a common folder.
sowbug 4y ago
I've thought of the same idea. The rough workflow for creation would be (1) create a checklist, (2) publish it to the world as a template, (3) let others fork it, send PRs, etc. Then the usage workflow is (1) search for a template, (2) instantiate your own copy, (3) use it. As you say, you'd want the list and the checkbox states available offline, and maybe synced elsewhere. Throw in collaboration features like sharing a single checklist ("are we bringing everything we need for the roadtrip? mark items that you've packed" "someone please buy milk, or else I will if it's still on the list when I stop at the grocery store tonight," "has everyone grabbed a task for the next sprint?"), or delegating items to other people ("for tomorrow's presentation, make sure someone has set up the projector"), and it could add the magic that I felt back in 2009 when I realized how amazing git became once GitHub was layered on top of it. The reusable-list idea works for me when I'm traveling. I have a list of stuff I need to do when I leave the house -- turn off the thermostat, make sure the plants are watered, etc. -- and I find it annoying to have to uncheck the old list's items in Google Keep. I'd rather keep the old checked lists and instantiate new ones. The list itself evolves over time, so having the old completed (or not-quite-completed) lists is interesting. Also see this recent item https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32552782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32552782 proposing a spec for to-do lists.
stavros 4y ago
Yes, Process Street is what you want (and what I thought of building a while ago).
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  Thank you! I will be kicking the tires on this.
simonw 4y ago
GitHub Issues. You can create an issue with a checklist in it by pasting in the following: - [ ] Item one - [ ] Item two If you put that in the issue description itself, checking those off will be reflected in anything else that displays that issue (3/5 complete). And if you want to duplicate a checklist, you can copy and paste in a full block of markdown.

As_You_Wish 4y ago

https://youtu.be/dfl8Xt8W09A?t=126 https://youtu.be/dfl8Xt8W09A?t=126 https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/dp/0312430000 https://www.amazon.com/Checklist-Manifesto-How-Things-Right/...