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Kofi and the morning that ran backwards

Kofi, 15 — writing a when-then routine on his phone so mornings stop being a scramble

The idea in play: an automation is an ordered sequence started by a trigger — the order of the steps is part of the logic.

Kofi's routine says: when the alarm is dismissed, turn on the lights, read the weather, start the playlist, remind me to pack my bag. On Monday it reminded him about his bag while he was still in the shower and read the weather before he was awake enough to hear it.

The steps were all right. The order and the trigger were not.

A routine runs exactly in the order written, at exactly the moment its trigger fires. It does not know what you meant.

The bag reminder fires too early. What is the best fix?

Which order should the remaining morning steps go in?

Design a routine →

Where this idea comes from

The pilot’s checklist

On 30 October 1935 Boeing’s Model 299, the prototype of the B-17 bomber, took off on a test flight for the US Army at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, climbed steeply, stalled and crashed. The crew had left the gust lock on, a catch that held the control surfaces still while the plane was parked. A newspaper called it “too much airplane for one man to fly”. The Army’s test pilots saw the problem differently: there were too many steps for anyone to hold in memory. Their answer was a short card of checks to read before takeoff and landing.

One thing to hold: A pilot’s card of steps, read in order before takeoff: is each one done? It catches a forgotten step, like the gust lock, before it matters.

Why it matters: A checklist is a program a person runs; an automation is one a machine runs. Both work only if the steps are in the right order and nothing is missing, which is what you check when you run a routine here. In 2009 a study of a 19-item surgical checklist in eight hospitals around the world found fewer deaths and complications after surgery after teams began using it (a before-and-after study, not a trial).

Dates:

  1. 1935 The Model 299 crashes on a test flight with its gust lock on.
  2. 2008 The World Health Organization publishes its Surgical Safety Checklist.
  3. 2009 A study across eight hospitals finds fewer deaths and complications with the checklist.

Sources: Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto (Metropolitan Books, 2009) · A. B. Haynes et al., “A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population”, New England Journal of Medicine 360(5), 2009 · Boeing, “B-17 Flying Fortress” (company history)

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