I’ve been riding my bike to work just about every day the last couple of months. (Yes, I consider helping injured people an “essential” service.) I have a pretty specific routine. It includes the order I put on my cycling clothes, getting my bike ready, etc.
This morning there were a few things that interrupted my routine. And I was thinking about a couple of products.
I started off toward Seattle. No rain. I felt good on the first hill.
Then I realized that i wasn’t wearing my helmet. I’ve been skiing and riding with a helmet for over 20 years. I can only remember one time I forgot to take my helmet skiing.
How in the hell did I forget my helmet today? I have a mental checklist. But if something breaks my routine the checklist apparently doesn’t work very well.
Two offshoots.
- This comes up in cases a lot. A defendant will testify that they always follow the same procedure and there’s no way they could ever deviate from it. I know from my own experience (and from seeing people drive down the road with things like coffee mugs on their roofs) that even if you do something the same way 999/1000 there’s going to be that 1 time that something interrupts the routine. Nothing is absolute.
- For the past 10 years we’ve used (written) checklists in every single case.
The checklist has about 100 events on it. Far too many to remember. The checklist makes sure that we handle cases systematically and nothing gets missed.
Okay. That’s it for this newsletter. I’m going to ride home (with extra caution) and enjoy the weekend with the crew. I hope you enjoy your weekend too.