The questions: (1) What is my directional thesis in one sentence? (2) What strategy structure expresses that thesis with appropriate risk? (3) Is IV rank high enough to sell, low enough to buy, or neutral? (4) What is my max loss in dollars, and is it within 2% of my account? (5) Where is my profit target, written down? (6) Where is my stop loss or time-based exit? (7) What is the worst plausible scenario and am I prepared for it?
If any answer is fuzzy, the trade should not be placed. The single highest ROI activity in trading is not finding more setups — it is filtering out the ones you should not have taken. The pre-flight checklist exists because professional traders go through some version of it on every trade, and amateurs typically skip it entirely.