Surgeons use checklists because experts forget things too. Writing it down isn’t weakness.

Expertise makes you faster and more fluent. It does not hand you perfect recall under pressure, which is why people with the most to lose are the most willing to read off a list, because they have seen what forgetting costs. A list is not a confession that you are bad at this; it is how you stop spending attention on remembering and spend it on the work.

Write one down this week for something you do often and keep fumbling. What goes in your bag for a shift, or the five things to check before you hand in a paper. Keep it short enough to actually read.