Decision journal template: one signed page.
This decision journal template is one handwritten page that takes about twenty minutes. It records the decision, the date, your reasoning, your unknowns, three reversal triggers and a review date. Then you sign it, before you know how things turn out.
The decision, the date and what you know.
Here is how to write down a decision. First, state it in one sentence: what you will do, and by when. Not the feeling. Then write the date, which matters more than it looks. Next, add three or four lines of real reasoning, including the uncomfortable part.
That means your number from chapter 4, your hours from chapter 10, and chapter 12's lesson on strangers paying.
Name what you cannot know.
This part saves you in 2029. When you reread it, you will see you knew you were guessing. So you will also see you guessed anyway, deliberately, with your eyes open. Then list three things that would make you reverse it. Make them specific enough to recognise.
Finish the decision journal template with a signature.
Set a real review date and put it in your calendar before bed. Then sign it. Handwritten is better, since you will believe it more when you find it again. Finally, a signature turns a note into a promise. It matters most when you write a decision before quitting.
Fill in your decision journal template tonight.
Write all six parts on one page by hand, in about twenty minutes.
Put the review date in your calendar, then sign the page before bed.
From the book.
What you cannot know. Name it in writing. This is the part that saves you in 2029, because when you reread it you'll see that you knew you were guessing, and that you guessed anyway, deliberately, with your eyes open.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 14: A decision you can defend later
Questions about decision journal template.
What goes on a decision journal template?
The decision in one sentence, the date, your reasoning, your unknowns, three reversal triggers and a review date.
Why write it by hand?
Because you will believe it more when you find it again later.
Why sign the page?
A signature is the difference between a note and a promise. The person you promise is your future self.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 14, “A decision you can defend later”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Outcome bias: why you grade choices by results.
- 02 Regret of inaction: thinner than the coffee mug.
- 03 Why some regrets hurt more: the reason you gave.
- 04 Process vs outcome accountability: the case against.
- 05 Decision journal template: one signed page.
- 06 Business phone number banned: the mistake I can name.
- 07 Starting a business after failure: what data says.