Checklists save you time & energy.

A Checklist guides you through repetitive processes. It consists of a list of steps that you check-off as you go along. It's the chocolate cake recipe applied to different areas of life. As an example, I've got a procedure, or a list of steps, that lead to my morning routine and enables me to remember each step of it. Setting up procedures for repetitive actions and routines allow for energy, time, and willpower saving, which can be put into better application.

From the rise of the sun until the end of the day, we are constantly making decisions. The decision to get up or hit snooze, the apple or the chocolate cookie, the heavy-lifting, or the Yoga practice. Every action is proceeded by a decision, consciously or not. But, our decision-making abilities deteriorate throughout the day, as willpower is not infinite. It is, instead, a finite resource that diminishes with every decision we make, just as a phone battery drains with use.

Greg Mckeown, the author of Essentialism, explains that checklists are what allows airplanes to fly safely, and what got the man on the moon. Atul Gawande, a doctor, explains that check-lists reduced surgery complications by 35% and death rates by 47%.

Checklists can be used to break any complex task, or not-so-complex ones, into small and manageable bits. You're probably not going to save lives with your procedures, but you'll surely optimize your own. By relying on a system to store all the steps, you reassure you won't forget any important one.

Here are a couple of examples that I use:

a) Grocery shopping-list (a list of items to always have in stock. Never again did I forget to bring the mushrooms);
b) Travel Packing-list (chargers? medication? passport? swimming-suit? toothbrush? I just need to run the checklist to guarantee there is nothing out of the luggage);
c) Morning Routine (20-minute workout from 7:00 to 7:20, followed by a 10-minute meditation, and so on. This check-list gives structure and consistency to my days);
d) Sunday-Review (every Sunday I follow the same structure to review the previous week and plan the next);
e) Digital-Organization (back-up all digital-files, maintain a clean-desktop, check the tree-structure-system, etc).

Regardless of the check-list you'll pick, these 4-steps can serve as a guide.

1) Brainstorming — which activities make the result? e.g. meditation, exercise, and journaling lead to a morning routine.
2) Ordering — after listing all the steps, create the sequence in which they will be executed.
3) Timing — how much time does each step take? How regularly should the steps be repeated?
4) Perform — go through each step and make the necessary adjustments.