About
The checklist is the highest form of knowledge we have.
That's the argument at the heart of The Checklist Manifesto, and it's the idea GetThingsRight is built on.
The book
What The Checklist Manifesto teaches us
In The Checklist Manifesto, surgeon Atul Gawande examines why highly capable professionals in aviation, surgery, and construction still make devastating mistakes. His conclusion is striking: the problem is rarely a lack of knowledge — it's our own memory, distraction, and complexity letting what we know slip.
The remedy isn't more training or more discipline. It's the humble checklist. By capturing the crucial steps of complex work in a simple written list, experts free themselves to focus on judgment and improvisation, safe in the knowledge that nothing essential gets skipped.
Two kinds of failure
Ignorance — we don't know how to succeed yet. Ineptitude — we know, but don't apply it consistently. Checklists conquer ineptitude, and that's most of our everyday mistakes.
Checklists work
In a global study Gawande describes, surgical teams using a simple checklist cut major complication and death rates dramatically — not by doing more, but by consistently doing the basics.
The app
How GetThingsRight helps
The Checklist Manifesto proves that a written checklist is one of the most powerful tools we have for getting complex work right. We turn that insight into software you can actually use every day.
Capture your process
Turn the checklist in your head into a reusable template, structured the way you actually work.
Run it without relying on memory
Check off each step on every run. Under pressure, you follow the template instead of your memory.
Refine as you learn
Every run teaches you something. Improve your template so the lesson becomes your new standard.
Share the standard
Hand off a run or share a template so everyone works from the same checklist, not their own recollection.
Stay focused on the work
The checklist handles the routine steps so your attention stays free for the judgment that only you can bring.
Prove it happened
See who completed what and when, and export a record whenever you need to show the work was done.
“The checklist is not a way to force people to be mindless — it is a way to help them be mindfully expert.”
Put the checklist to work
Capture your first checklist template in minutes, refine it as you go, and make it a standard you rely on every time.
Build your first template