Keep your head in crises by designing emergency checklists

When alarms scream, attention narrows and memory fails. That’s not weakness, it’s biology. The fix is a tiny, visible card you can follow under stress. Emergency checklists aren’t long. They start with the prime directive—what pilots call “fly the airplane”—and list only the steps that save a life or prevent irreversible damage. Everything else can wait ten minutes.

Design matters here more than anywhere. The card must live where your hands go in a crisis: taped inside a server cabinet, clipped to the defib cart, above the fryer. It must be readable in low light and thick markers. And it must tell you who does what: one person leads, one reads the card aloud, one executes initial steps. That small division of labor prevents everyone from doing the same thing or, worse, doing nothing.

Teams that drill short, focused scenarios are calmer when it’s real. A cafe runs a two‑minute fire drill before a busy Saturday. Someone pulls the alarm (test mode), someone hits the gas shutoff, someone checks exits. The first time is clumsy. The third time is smoother. When an actual flare‑up happens, they react in seconds and are pouring drinks again before the espresso cools.

Cognitive load theory explains why this works. In crises, your working memory is saturated. A visible checklist shifts remembering to the environment, reduces decision branching, and frees your brain to scan for anomalies. Practicing under mild stress builds automaticity so reach‑for‑the‑card becomes a reflex, not a debate.

Name your top three emergencies and write a six‑step card for each that starts with the prime directive. Put each card where hands will go and run a fast drill with clear roles so someone leads, someone reads, and someone acts. Keep the drills short and repeat until grabbing the card feels normal. Then, when the real heat hits, you’ll have a calm script to follow.