the thousands of emails I’ve answered.
And this is why I get that wild gleam in my eyes when I talk about checklists. Because for me, checklists are not really about doing more. For me, checklists are about living more—making room in your life for the moments that matter, for the beautiful memories that you’ll carry to your deathbed.
The Franzen Checklist Method.
I have a unique way of making checklists.
It’s not just “writing down a bunch of stuff I need to do.”
There’s a particular method I’ve developed, which I’ll teach you in the pages of this book.
This method, which for simplicity’s sake I call The Franzen Checklist Method, is informed by several things:
•My lifelong practice of yoga, which taught me the importance of setting a clear intention before beginning a new project, goal, day, week, month—anything in life.
•My early-life training in music, dance, theater, and improv comedy (thousands of hours in total), which taught me the value of creatively experimenting, trusting your instincts, and improvising when something doesn’t feel right.
•My helicopter pilot training in my late teens/early twenties (I’ll share that story with you later!), which was my first exposure to Pre-Flight Checklists—mandatory checklists which can prevent tragic mistakes and literally save your life.
•Conversations with dozens of psychologists, counselors, and life coaches—wonderful friends, clients, and colleagues—about how the mind works, why people get stuck, and how to get unstuck.
•Years of trial and error and experimentation on myself, trying to figure out which types of checklists work best for my brain and why.
All of this has gelled together to create a particular way of approaching checklists—in particular, making a Daily Checklist, which you’ll learn in chapter five of this book.
To be honest, I didn’t even realize that I had a “special approach” or “unique method” until I starting teaching my checklist-making process to other people—from clients to friends and family. People told me, “This is pretty cool. You should really put your checklist method into a book or something.”
At first I resisted—“Oh no, that’s silly. It’s not like I’m a psychologist or anything like that. This is just something I do for myself. It’s no big deal”—but several people lovingly nudged and encouraged me.
My confidence grew after I decided to teach a class called “Get It Done,” which had around fifty students in attendance. The students were diverse. Teenagers. College students. Professors. Full-time parents. Business owners. All ages. All the way up to people in their sixties, seventies, and beyond.
The purpose of the class was to choose a project that they had been procrastinating on—any type of project, like a creative project, business project, financial project, house/domestic project, or a personal project like writing poetry or editing a series of YouTube videos, any project they had been neglecting or avoiding—focus on their project for three days in a row, and finally get it done.
On the first day of class, I taught the Franzen Checklist Method and urged everyone to send photographic evidence to me.
“Take a photo of your checklist first thing in the morning and please email it to me,” I told everyone. “Then, at the end of the day, before bedtime, take another photo of your checklist—hopefully, all filled up with checkmarks. Send that photo to me too.”
Soon, my inbox was filled with people’s beautiful checklists—which to me, is basically the equivalent of tantalizing X-rated pornography. I was in heaven. People emailed to report: “This is really helping me feel calmer!” “I feel organized!” “Look! I can barely believe it! I did almost everything on my list!”
Several months after the class ended, I still got occasional emails from participants saying things like, “I’ve become obsessed with checklists” or, “This has helped so much.”
Now, years later, after sharing my checklist methods with friends, family, clients, colleagues, students, and approximately 12,000 e-newsletter readers who follow my work online, I’m so happy to teach my methods to you.
My intention for this book.
I begin every creative project with an intention, much like setting an intention before meditating.
Here is my intention for The Checklist Book.
•Gently help you evaluate your life and make some important decisions about where your time is going.
•Teach you my personal checklist methods, which I’ve used for years behind-the-scenes in my own life and career—and which I’ve also taught to people of all ages, from high school students to CEOs.
•Help you set realistic goals, celebrate tiny wins, reduce stress and overwhelm, and feel calmer (and more proud of yourself) every day.
•Ultimately, help you die peacefully and exit this world with more memories that you cherish—and fewer regrets.
•To help you make some checklists!
The tragic event that led to the world’s first modern checklist. How checklists have been used in different industries, including technology, hospitality, and medicine. The origin of the classic checkmark symbol.
When I was nineteen, I dropped out of college and decided I would become a professional helicopter pilot.
My parents, understandably, were somewhat distressed by this sudden and unexpected change of plans.
“Really?” I recall my dad asking me. He is a kind, stoic, sensible man of few words with a strong, Swedish jawline, and the first of his bloodline to graduate from college—a privilege his immigrant parents never had. “Really?” Such bewilderment was layered into that two-syllable question.
My parents were mystified as to why I’d walk away from a generous undergraduate scholarship. My folks were also concerned for my physical safety. They remembered, all too vividly, that it had taken me three separate attempts (yes, three) to pass my vehicle driving exam a few years earlier. (During one of my doomed attempts, I hit the curb while exiting the exam parking lot—to my immense embarrassment.)
I imagine my parents were probably thinking, Alexandra can barely operate a Toyota Corolla on flat terrain at fifteen miles an hour. Perhaps a career in aviation is not the ideal path for our daughter… Needless to say, mom and dad were not stoked. But I was determined to proceed.
Prior to this moment, I had always been a shy, quiet, introverted, artistic child. I had never shown any previous interest in machinery, physics,
