My dumb ass thought eyeballing was fine for years too

Did you ever read that HBR piece about "managing up" where they say you should always send a quick recap email after a verbal instruction? I saw something like that when I was googling this exact problem after it happened to me. The idea is you write "per our chat, I'll cut the tables and keep the summary" so there's a paper trail. My old team started doing this after our lead threw a guy under the bus in a client call. It feels a little paranoid but it saved me twice since then. Takes ten seconds and nobody can pull the "that was your call" move on you.

Trowel beats the brush? I mean, depends what you're doing, but for most stuff I'd agree. Guess it just comes down to what you're used to.