Decision journal

A decision looks different once you know how it turned out. Hindsight rewrites what you thought at the time, and a result you did not control gets filed as skill or stupidity. The fix is older than the research on it: write the decision down before the outcome exists, then come back and judge the thinking and the result separately.

Each review lands in one of four cells. Two of them are comfortable and two are not, and the uncomfortable ones carry the lesson.

• Earned it

  Sound thinking, good result. Repeat the process, not the choice.

• Bad luck

  Sound thinking, bad result. The hardest cell to accept and the one not to learn from.

• Got away with it

  Poor thinking, good result. The most dangerous cell: it teaches the wrong lesson loudly.

• Earned that too

  Poor thinking, bad result. The only cell where the lesson is obvious.

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