Originally Posted by
motormadness
I like the A,B,C format personally.
Atis
Brief approach (get your navaids in order)
Checklist
You can't really go wrong with this personally. Just remember to always do something. If you're flying around doing just about nothing then you'll eventually fall behind the airplane.
I agree. The simpler the better.
Jepp paid some big bucks to research how professional pilots brief approaches and came up with the Briefing Strip. It's so good, the FAA/NACO copied the concept. Follow the strip for the basics, review the notes for gotchas, look at the plan view for the extra navaids and overall situational awareness, check the profile view for details, and you should be good to go.
It's all right there in front of you.
I'm not a fan of mnemonics and acronyms. The real answer is SOP - find a way that works for you and do it the same way every time. Most of my mistakes come up when coming into my home base on an approach - it's so familiar that I neglect to follow my own SOP.
If you do develop your checklist, think of it as an interim solution. Make your checklist confirm to what you want to do as an SOP and it can ultimately act as a true "check" list to review to see whether you missed something after you already did the flow.