Using Checklists to Boost Efficiency

This one checklist made my life 10x easier (Save hours later by following these steps now!) Over the last 22 months, I’ve attended 184 walkthrough meetings. Trial. Error. Frustration. Fixes. And through all of that, I created this simple system. A checklist that every auditor should follow after the walkthrough ends. If you’re tired of scrambling for screenshots, losing notes, and chasing follow-ups days later, Save this post. Share it with your team. Use it every time. Post-Walkthrough Checklist: The SOP I swear by 1. Segregate your screenshots (Immediately) - Use Windows + Print Screen to capture quickly. - Create a new folder right after the meeting using this format: [Date]_[Control_ID]_[ControlName]_[AuditName] - This makes it easy to find everything later. 2. Store in two places - One local folder on your laptop - One shared folder (e.g., Teams) so others don’t need to ping you 3. Summarize your notes - Right after the meeting, take 5–10 minutes to clean up your notes. - Capture who said what, any key clarifications, and system flows. 4. Save notes smartly - Again one local, one shared. - Use the same naming format for consistency. 5. List out all follow-ups in one place - Don’t rely on memory. - If something needs clarification or additional evidence, document it immediately. 6. Assign owners and due dates - Use a tracker to assign each follow-up to a control owner with a clear timeline. - This alone will save you days of back-and-forth. 7. Update your main control tracker - Capture the status of the walkthrough and all pending items. - If your team doesn’t have a control tracker, create one. (And if they do make sure you’re using it daily.) Bonus: I personally keep a tracker with separate tabs for each audit I’m working on. Every control I’m assigned gets listed with deadlines, dependencies, and current status. This isn’t just a checklist. It’s a habit. Follow it after every walkthrough and your future self will thank you during wrap-up week. Have your own post-walkthrough system? Drop it below! I’d love to see how others do it.

Here’s something I wish I had started doing as a law firm associate: using checklists for project intake. Too often, when a project is handed over, details get missed, and questions go unanswered, leading to confusion, frustration, write-offs, and avoidable mistakes. Part of the problem is that senior lawyers usually aren’t trained in assigning work effectively. That’s how you end up with emails being forwarded with directives like: “pls handle” or "pls fix." A checklist can help a junior lawyer who is unclear on a request gain clarity. It can also help a senior lawyer become more thoughtful and consistent in how work gets delegated. Atul Gawande writes about this in The Checklist Manifesto (one of my favorite business/productivity books). Gawande is one of my favorite authors, generally. He is an orthogonal thinker in the best sense of the term—someone who looks across disciplines, borrows ideas from other fields, and applies them in practical ways. He writes as a surgeon, but his insights apply well beyond medicine. One of his core points is that in complex environments, problems arise because complexity overwhelms the human brain. Important steps get skipped, assumptions go untested, and small omissions create bigger problems downstream. That idea applies just as much to legal work as it does to surgery or aviation. A simple checklist can make legal project intake cleaner and reduce the odds that important details slip through the cracks. Here are a few helpful prompts: When? Make sure you are clear on the deadline. If there is a filing deadline or a date by which something has to go to a client, when does the assigning lawyer need to see a draft? Clarify what is meant by “ASAP” or “COB.” Who? Who is the audience? Is it an internal memo? Is it going to the client? Is the client a lawyer or a business person? This matters because it helps ensure the work product strikes the right tone and includes the right level of detail. What? What are the client’s work product preferences? Lots of detail and citations? A short list of practical conclusions? Also, what is the scope of the assignment? Spend a few hours and report back on initial findings, or go deep and try to reach a final answer? Why? Why does this matter? What is the context, and how does what I am doing fit into the bigger picture of the representation? Are there other issues I should be on the lookout for? Clarity comes from asking good questions. A checklist helps make sure those questions actually get asked. Create a checklist for the types of projects you commonly work on. It is a simple habit, but it can make a significant difference. You will feel more organized, work will move more smoothly, and fewer details will slip through the cracks.

94% of failures in business aren't people problems. They're system problems. A Fortune 500 CEO once fired 3 assistants in 6 months. All for "forgetting" critical tasks. The 4th assistant implemented a simple checklist. Zero mistakes for 2 years straight. Same role. Same tasks. Different system. Leaders often get mad when a job is not finished. You ask your employee, "Why wasn't this done?" They say, "I forgot." Or they say, "I got busy with something else." You think the problem is the person. But the problem is usually the system. Most people on your team want to do a great job. They don't want to make you upset. When they fail, it's often because the process was unclear. It was not their fault. They were never given a clear, step-by-step path to follow. If you just give an instruction, it will fail. If you build a bulletproof system, it will work. Your most important job as a leader is to build these systems. The system is the way you make sure things happen every time. How to Build a System That Works ✅ 1. Pick one task that always gets forgotten, like checking lab reports. 2. Do that task yourself while writing down every single step. 3. Be clear about the order. 4. Turn those steps into a visual checklist. 5. This is your new process. 6. Teach the team to use the checklist every single day. Now, the team follows the system, not just a memory. This is how you create reliable results. Systems make people reliable. Stop blaming the people. Start fixing the process. That's how you get consistency and reduce mistakes. 🛠️ What's one process in your business that feels broken right now? Let me know in the comments below ⬇ 🚀 Feel exhausted but not sure where to begin? I built a diagnostic tool that reveals what's keeping you stuck — and the fastest way out. ✔ Free to use ✔ Takes only 3 minutes ✔ Already used by 800+ professionals to gain clarity Take the quiz now: https://lnkd.in/eNKE_kaJ 👋 Hi, I'm Sharon Grossman! I help organizations reduce turnover. ♻️ Repost to support your network. 🔔 Follow me for more leadership truth bombs

Delayed gratification. After interviewing thousands of professionals, I realize the ability to delay gratification is, perhaps, the key differentiator between success and failure. Success in any endeavor requires work, over an extended period of time, before success is visible. Consider: Sales Exercise Learning a skill How do successful people sustain the effort without visible results? They track the effort - meticulously. When you workout or choose a healthy food option you won't see results in your physique or on the scale immediately (although you will FEEL better immediately). Many people get frustrated and quit before they see results. Heck, it's why January is the biggest month of the year for a gym, then February is a ghost town. Sales is no different. Want to land a deal? That requires 100s if not 1000s of outbound messages and meetings. Most of them turning into a goose egg. Want to learn a skill or a language? Can't pick that up in a day. Takes weeks and months, even years to perfect a skill or a language. Most people don't have the staying power. So what can you do to get through the grind? Track each step in a dashboard. Example: If you are trying to get fit or lose weight, try this: Track your efforts in a spreadsheet. List each day in Column A. Then insert a title over Columns B, C, D: Exercise. Subtitle Column B: Nope Subtitle Column C: Sort of Subtitle Column D: Crushed it Then insert a title over Columns E, F, G: Nutrition. Subtitle Column E: Nope Subtitle Column F: Sort of Subtitle Column G: Crushed it Put "Check Boxes" in Columns B, C, D, E, F, and G: Then simply track each day by checking the appropriate check box. You need to be honest with yourself. If you skipped a workout, record it. If you showed up but went through the motions, record it. If you crushed it, record it. Same with nutrition. Why does this work so well? When you start your dashboard is empty, but if you do this for 30 days, even though you may not be at your goal, the look of this spreadsheet will drive you. Seriously, it will. Just knowing you did the work is a huge accomplishment. Want to get really geeky? Add Totals at the top of Columns A-G. You'll start to see how well you are showing up - or not. Keeps you accountable and allows you to celebrate the work before the results show up. That's how CRM's work, they track the calls, emails, etc. and if enough are completed, the results WILL follow. Exercise and sales only don't work if you don't do them. Period. Show up, be intentional and track it. The gratification may be delayed, but it will be there if you do.

“What gets measured gets managed.” — Peter Drucker Every January we make resolutions that sound like outcomes. Lose weight. Improve relationships. Grow our career. Increase income. Reduce stress. These are not bad goals, but they are incomplete. Outcomes are lagging indicators. They tell us what already happened, not what we need to do today, this week, or this month to make progress. The real work is turning resolutions into leading indicators—specific, repeatable actions that move the outcome in the right direction. Take weight as an example. The resolution is “lose 20 pounds.” That number won’t change unless something upstream changes first. The leading indicators might be meals tracked per week, workouts completed, average daily steps, or hours of sleep. None of those guarantee success on their own, but together they create momentum. If the scale doesn’t move, the indicators tell you where the system broke down. The same logic applies to relationships. “Be more present” is vague. Leading indicators are concrete: number of intentional check-ins per week, uninterrupted time blocks with family, or difficult conversations you’ve been avoiding but finally schedule. You can’t control how someone else responds, but you can control the actions that build trust over time. Career goals follow the same pattern. “Get promoted” or “find a better role” are outcomes. Leading indicators might include new skills learned, certifications completed, network conversations scheduled, proposals written, or value delivered beyond your job description. If nothing changes in your calendar, nothing will change in your career. The mistake most people make is tracking results too infrequently and actions not at all. Annual goals reviewed once a year are almost useless. Weekly tracking of leading indicators creates feedback loops. You see what worked, what didn’t, and where to adjust. Progress becomes visible before results show up. This is where scoreboards matter. Simple, visible, and reviewed regularly. Not to judge yourself, but to learn. If you miss a target week, the question isn’t “Why did I fail?” It’s “What needs to change in the system?” Resolutions fail because they rely on motivation. Systems succeed because they rely on behavior. When you define the actions, track them consistently, and review them honestly, outcomes take care of themselves. Start small. Pick one resolution. Define three leading indicators. Track them weekly for 90 days. Let the data tell you the truth about your habits. “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear

One of the most useful tools in my practice is also one of the least exciting: A checklist. It’s not something people usually associate with forensic accounting or expert witness work, and yet its utility is so obvious, It can play a big role in managing cases. When I'm handling multiple matters at once, each with its own set of documents, deadlines, and issues, it’s very easy for something small to slip through the cracks. And in this line of work, the “small” things have a way of turning into big problems later. Every case has a series of steps that need to happen. (Of course each case is different, so those steps are going to vary.) I'm gathering records, reviewing transactions, tracing funds, preparing schedules, drafting reports, and eventually getting ready for testimony. The steps themselves aren’t complicated, but the challenge is keeping everything moving in the right order and making sure nothing gets missed along the way. That’s where the checklist comes in. For each case, I build out a set of tasks that reflects the specific work I'm doing. It’s not a generic list. Rather, it’s tied to the facts of the case, the accounts involved, the time periods, and the deliverables in that case. As the work progresses, I can see exactly what has been completed and what still needs attention. What I like about this approach is the certainty it gives me. When something is marked complete, I know it has actually been done. I’m not relying on my memory or hoping I’ll circle back to something later, which is great because I'm always working under deadlines. The checklist also impacts how I use my time. Instead of trying to keep track of everything in my head, I can focus on the analysis itself. I get to pay attention to the numbers, the patterns, and the story they tell, not whether I followed up on a document request three days ago. There’s nothing groundbreaking about using a checklist. It’s just a simple system that keeps the work organized and reduces the chance of missing something important. In a field where accuracy and consistency matter as much as they do here, that’s enough of a reason to keep using it. #forensicaccounting #casemanagement #expertwitness #litigationsupport #accountingpractice #legalindustry