I'll usually say my checks out loud, just to make sure I haven't missed anything (sometimes in a silly voice, just to relieve the boredom, depending on pax presence / experience!).
There was one time where I think doing so saved me from being a smoking hole in the ground - it was an inadvertent spin after 'playing' in my final solo hour before sending off my licence application - everything else was completed, I needed 1 more hour solo. I went off and played in a C152 and took it beyond the range of what I'd experimented with before....
I got caught out by a sudden wing drop and fully developed spin. Luckily I had done over 3 hrs of full spin trg in a C172 in Canada and just replayed my instructor's voice for spin recovery. Kept me calm and thinking straight - recovered it no problem! The remainder of the hour was some very sedate straight & level flying!!