In high school, I drove a 1993 Toyota Tercel. It was a functional, reliable car, but it had no keyfob to lock the doors remotely.
Getting out of your car, pressing the lock button on the inside of the driver's side door, and shutting the door are all routine, boring actions that make it easy to forget your keys inside the car. The keys can go in all kinds of places as you climb out of the car - jacket pocket, pants pocket, center console. It is very easy to lock your keys in your car.
I quickly learned to hold my keys in one hand, say out loud, "Keys in hand," and then lock the door with the other hand.
This technique is perfect for any repetitive action that could go wrong with non-trivial consequences, and there's lots of that in everyday life.
I wake up in the mornings with "Shit Shower Shave" and leave the house with "Wallet Watch Testicles Spectacles". Simple mnemonics work, doubly so if you actually say them out loud and check them each off.
I do that exact some thing, and I haven't smoked in 3 years. The downside is that if I'm supposed to remember to bring something, in addition to those 3 things, I'm extremely likely to forget it. If it's super duper important, I tie it to the door handle.
To remember to bring a physical object, I leave my keys on it. Downside, sometimes people will bring my keys to me when they find them in strange places, like the fridge.
Definitely a good idea. In the subject of the analogy (software incidents) I think both should be done -- a regular and habitual focus on important/high risk commands via procedure, and preparations for the time when the inevitable still happens because people are people and it's impossible to fully predict all potential sources of unintended consequences. A lack of habitual focus when important consequences are at stake could lead to an over-reliance on the safety nets, and you really don't want your safety nets becoming routine. Otherwise you'll need safety nets for the safety nets.
Getting out of your car, pressing the lock button on the inside of the driver's side door, and shutting the door are all routine, boring actions that make it easy to forget your keys inside the car. The keys can go in all kinds of places as you climb out of the car - jacket pocket, pants pocket, center console. It is very easy to lock your keys in your car.
I quickly learned to hold my keys in one hand, say out loud, "Keys in hand," and then lock the door with the other hand.
This technique is perfect for any repetitive action that could go wrong with non-trivial consequences, and there's lots of that in everyday life.