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Making better decisions

A decision journal template

4 min read

This is the template I use for consequential decisions. Paper, a notes app, or a spreadsheet all work; the fields carry the weight. If you want the reasoning behind each one, the companion essay walks through it; if you're still choosing rather than recording, six frameworks covers the choosing; and if you'd rather build it inside a tool you already use, there's a Notion walkthrough and a Google Sheets one. If you're here because a call already went wrong, that question has its own page.

Fill in the first section before you know how it turns out. That one rule is what makes the whole thing work, because written after the fact, a decision journal only collects justifications.

Part 1 — When you decide

Date:
The decision (one sentence):

What I predict will happen:
  (Specific enough that a stranger could later say "right" or "wrong.")

How confident I am: ____%
  (A number, not a word. "Probably" can mean almost anything.)

Why — the actual reasoning:
  (2–5 sentences. What you know, what you're assuming, what you weighed.)

What I'm most uncertain about:

What would change my mind:

State of mind right now:
  (Tired? Rushed? Excited? It matters more than we like to admit.)

Review date:
  (When will you know enough to judge this? Put it in your calendar.)

Part 2 — While it's open (repeat as needed)

Decisions don't sit still between the call and the outcome. When something new arrives, log it:

Date:
What's new:
Does it point for or against my prediction:
My confidence now: ____%

Two or three of these per decision is plenty. The point is a paper trail of when your thinking changed and what changed it.

Part 3 — When it resolves

Date:
What actually happened:

Was my prediction correct?  yes / partly / no

How satisfied am I with the outcome?  1–5
  (Separate question from correctness. You can be right and unhappy,
   or wrong and relieved.)

What did I miss at decision time that was knowable?

Part 4 — The second look (30–60 days later)

One question, and it's the one people skip:

Knowing only what I knew then — would I make the same call again?  yes / no
Why:

The gap between this answer and the resolution entry is where most of the learning sits, and you can only see it because the reasoning on the page hasn't changed since you wrote it.

Scoring yourself

After twenty or so resolved entries, bucket them by confidence: everything you logged at 60–70%, at 70–80%, at 80–90%. For each bucket, count how often you were actually right. If your 80% bucket hits around 80%, you're calibrated in that range. If it hits 55% — a common first result — you've just measured a gap you couldn't see before. (Want a baseline while your first entries accumulate? Take the ten-question test.)

A worked example

Date: 2026-03-04
Decision: Take the six-month consulting contract instead of
  going full-time on the app.

Prediction: The contract runs its full term and I still ship
  the app's next major version by the end of September.
Confidence: 70%

Reasoning: The client's scope is well-defined and I've worked
  with them before. App work needs ~10 focused hours/week, which
  survived the last contract. Money removes the runway anxiety
  that killed progress last year.

Most uncertain about: whether "well-defined scope" survives
  their Q2 reorg.
Would change my mind: scope creep past ~30 hrs/week for more
  than two consecutive weeks.
State of mind: calm, slightly flattered by the offer. Noting it.

Review date: 2026-10-01

Check-in — 2026-05-11: Reorg happened. New PM wants weekly
  on-sites. Points against. Confidence now: 55%.

Resolved — 2026-10-22: Contract completed. Major version shipped
  Oct 21, three weeks late.
Correct? partly (contract: yes; September ship: no)
Satisfaction: 4/5
Missed at decision time: I'd priced in scope creep but not
  travel time. It was knowable; the reorg rumors were public.

Second look — 2026-12-01: Same call again? Yes. The three-week
  slip cost little; the runway mattered more than the date.

More guides in Making better decisions.

Full disclosure: I make Reckon, an iOS app that is this template with the math done for you: the confidence buckets, the per-domain calibration curves, the scheduled second look. One-time, no subscription. The paper version above works fine; the app exists because I wanted the scoring to be automatic and honest.