Making better decisions
Most advice about decisions is about the moment of choosing. The harder problem is finding out, later, whether you chose well: by the time the outcome arrives, your memory has quietly rewritten what you expected, and it rewrites it in your favor.
These pages are about closing that loop. Write down what you predict before the outcome exists, put a number on your confidence, and score the page against reality when it reports back. After twenty entries you have something no amount of reflection produces: a measurement.
Start with the template if you want fields you can copy today. The method essay has the reasoning behind each one, the evidence piece covers what the research does and doesn't support, and the calibration test gives you a baseline while your first entries accumulate.
A decision journal template
The fields I use for consequential decisions, plus a worked example from start to second look. Works on paper, in a notes app, or in a spreadsheet.
4 min read
How to keep a decision journal
What to write down before the outcome exists, why the confidence number has to be a number, and how to score yourself once reality reports back.
6 min read
Do decision journals actually work?
What the research actually supports about decision journals, what it doesn't, and why the one statistic circulating in their favor should be dropped.
6 min read
How calibrated are you?
A ten-question test for whether your 90% means 90%, what your score says, and the only kind of practice that measurably improves it.
5 min read
Full disclosure: I make Reckon, an iOS app that runs this loop and does the scoring for you — the part that makes people actually keep it up instead of letting the habit lapse. One-time, no subscription. Everything here works on paper too, and the pages say so where it matters.