Why the smartest people I know run on checklists

I’ve been deep into reading Poor Charlie’s Almanack this month. It’s one of those books that punches you in the face with wisdom, then laughs at you for not learning it sooner. What’s wild is that Charlie Munger, one of the sharpest thinkers of our time, didn’t place his bets on brilliance or instinct. He placed them on process. Repetition. Discipline. And especially… checklists.

There’s a quote in the book that stopped me cold. The context is related to making investment decisions, but the application is far reaching:

“How can smart people go so wrong? They don’t take all the main models from psychology and use them as a checklist in reviewing outcomes in complex problems. They think they’re so smart that they don’t need a checklist. But they aren’t that smart. Almost nobody is. Or maybe nobody is.”

Let that sink in. The man worth billions by thinking clearly did not trust his brain alone. He trusted systems. Patterns. Mental models reviewed like a pilot pre-flighting a plane.

Charlie used checklists.

At Expio, I see this all the time. The creatives, marketers, engineers, and strategists who succeed are the ones who respect the list. We run content creation through checklists. We run SEO updates and web builds through checklists. We have a checklist for site maintenance, another for client onboarding, another for security updates, reporting, backups, campaigns. Everything.

The team members who thought they were too smart for checklists? They’re no longer on the team.

The ones who thrive are the ones who know the truth. Excellence isn’t a gift. It’s a system. It’s an actionable list in clear view, checked every time, followed with care, improved with repetition, and honored with discipline.

I get it. Checklists sound boring. They’re not sexy. They don’t impress clients on Zoom calls. But you know what they do? They keep you from blowing things up. They reduce rework. They eliminate avoidable mistakes. They protect your time, your attention, and your reputation.

And the best ones aren’t just for tasks. They’re for thinking.

Munger’s brilliance wasn’t that he always made the right decision. It’s that he always ran the checklist. Incentives. Biases. Second-order consequences. Alternatives. Failure points. He didn’t just trust his gut. He tested it against models, every time.

This is what separates pros from amateurs. You’ll never see a a top-tier surgeon say “I’ve done this 300 times, I don’t need to check the list.”

You’ll never see a Navy SEAL skip a pre-mission checklist.

And you’ll never see a world-class athlete step on the court without warming up with the same routine they’ve done a thousand times.

Because they’re not lazy. They’re elite. And elite performers know this: checklists are not a crutch. They’re a compass. Excellence is a checklist.

So here’s your challenge. Where in your work or your life are you trusting memory, speed, or instinct when you should be running a list?

Where are things slipping that don’t have to?

What would change if you systemized the basics instead of winging them?

Write it down. Make it visible. Run it every time.

Because the smartest people I know aren’t guessing. They’re making a list. They’re checking it twice. And they’re executing with clarity, speed, and zero drama.

See you next Saturday.