Description by Adam

When I arrived at ILM, the checkbox was already a piece of institutional practice. I noticed it one day early in my tenure, looking over the shoulder of my boss, Brian Gernand, as he went down his to-do list for me that day. Next to every item on his list, down the left-hand side, he’d drawn little boxes. Some of the boxes were empty, some were colored in, others were only partially filled in. I asked him about it when we were done and he explained it very simply:

• If a task was completed, he colored in the corresponding box on the list.
• If a task was halfway or mostly complete, he colored in half its checkbox diagonally.
• If a task hadn’t been started or measurable progress had yet to be achieved, that box stayed empty.

Read article: Adam Savage on Lists, More Lists, and the Power of Checkboxes