The list for next winter

Every winter, a family in Riyadh drives out to the desert for a weekend of camping, and every winter something goes wrong in the same way. One year it is the pegs for the big tent. Another year, how the generator starts. Someone always recalls that last time there was a trick to it. Nobody recalls the trick.

We will remember it next time. Few sentences are said with more confidence, and few are less reliable.

What memory does keep is the question. We know there was a problem with the generator. We know the tent went up badly. The answer, the exact sequence that solved it, fades within weeks, because we only needed it once.

The fix is unglamorous. Write it down while the answer is still warm, somewhere it will be found. A note on the phone named after the trip. A photo of how the ropes were tied. A short video of the generator being started, with someone saying out loud which switch comes first. Then, next winter, the question comes back, and the answer is already waiting.

The same goes for anything done once a year or once a season. Setting up a shop's holiday page. Renewing a licence. Packing stock for a weekend market. Each of these teaches us something the first time, and almost all of it is gone by the second.

A short manual written for your future self is the cheapest help you will ever get, and the only kind that knows exactly what you forgot.