I'm lucky that I get to travel most of the time by car. Yeah, there's a lot of people who might not enjoy driving upwards of 3-6 hours, but for me, I like some of the conveniences that come with being able to do that, though I will admit that, when it's time to come home, I'd rather be home now.

When I travel by car, I take a lot of stuff, mainly because I can. I like the convenience of having my own stuff, whether it's food, drink, or other things. Otherwise, I might as well just fly in and out.

To make sure I remember everything I need, years ago I created a checklist of things I want to make sure I have with me. Some of those things are necessities; who else has gone on a trip and realized they didn't pack underwear or socks? Some of these things are just because; do I really need a bag of snacks, or soda and water?

These days the most important things I need to remember to bring with me are my pills and, unfortunately, my insulin. The pills are actually easy; with the insulin, since I'm on a pen, I have to always check to make sure I have enough, and if not, then I not only have to remember to transport another pen, but I have to pack it and keep it cool in some fashion so that it not only stays cold, but it can't be allowed to freeze either, so I can't just pack it in ice by itself; I have to wrap a towel around it and then pack it in ice. Kind of an inconvenience, but it has to be done.

In business situations, instead of checklists, we talk in terms of procedure manuals. In essence, procedure manuals are step-by-step checklists of how people should perform specific types of jobs or checklists of rules. However, what I see most often when I go into a consulting gig is that there are no manuals around, and I'm left to help educating people on how to do their jobs, while not really having enough time to work on procedure manuals myself because I know I'm not going to be there for the long term.

Still, even without always having the time to create procedure manuals, I do create checklists, because one has to have a plan of attack when working on getting things done, and helping to keep remembering everything that has to be taken care of. Checklists are positive ways of highlighting everything that needs to get done.

So, what's on your checklist?