Decision journal
Record the reasoning, the expected outcome and your confidence before the result is known, so that later review compares against what you actually thought.
- Time cost
- 10 min per entry
- Output
- A dated entry with a confidence number and a review date.
- Steps
- 7
Use when
- You make decisions of a similar kind repeatedly and want to get better at them.
- You cannot tell whether your judgement is improving.
- You want to know later what you believed, not what you now remember believing.
Do not use when
- The decision is trivial and will never be reviewed. The entry costs more than it returns.
- You will write it after the outcome, which makes it a record of hindsight and actively misleading.
Inputs required
- The decision, before the outcome
- Ten minutes
- A review date
Procedure
- 01
Write it before you know
This is the only rule that matters. An entry written afterwards records your reconstructed reasoning, which is systematically distorted toward whatever happened.
- 02
Record the decision and the rejected options
What you chose and what you did not. The rejected options are what make the entry useful later — they are what you will otherwise forget considering.
- 03
Record the expected outcome with a number
What you expect, and how confident you are as a percentage. The number is what makes the entry scorable rather than a diary.
- 04
Record the reasoning
Why this option. What would have to be true. What you are uncertain about.
- 05
Record your state
Tired, rushed, angry, enthusiastic, under pressure from someone. This feels irrelevant and it is one of the strongest predictors of a decision you will later disown.
- 06
Set a review date
When the outcome will be known. Put it where it will find you rather than where you would have to look for it.
- 07
At review, score process and outcome separately
Two scores, not one. Was the reasoning sound given what you knew? And how did it turn out? Keeping them apart is the entire purpose of the exercise.
Characteristic failure mode
Worked example
A person records a decision to turn down a role.
- 01Rejected: the role, and a counter-offer at the current employer.
- 02Expected outcome: a better-fitting role within four months. Confidence 65%.
- 03State: exhausted, end of a long week, decided in one evening.
- 04Review date: four months out.
Result
At review the outcome is worse than expected. The process score is still high — the reasoning held — except for the state note, which flagged a pattern of deciding while exhausted that three other entries also showed.
Where to go next