A modern cockpit has hundreds of switches and handles.

The emergency checklist names six.

Because in an emergency, under heavy load, six is all you can keep track of.

People don’t burn out from doing too little.

They burn out from doing everything at once

• every tactic,

• every idea,

• every someday maybe strapped on at takeoff.

Keep it simple isn’t minimalism.

I fly for a living. The checklist is the principle.

You choose what’s in the cockpit before the emergency, not during it.

Everything else is ballast