4 — Personal Decision Journals
Fill in Sections 1-4 before making a major decision. Come back and fill in Sections 5-6 after the outcome is known — weeks or months later. The gap between “before” and “after” is the point: it lets you judge your reasoning process separately from how things turned out.
- Decision: [FILL]
- Date decided: [FILL]
- Review-by date (come back and fill Section 5-6): [FILL]
1. Before — The Decision
What am I deciding, exactly? [FILL]
Options considered:
| Option | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| [FILL] | [FILL] | [FILL] |
| [FILL] | [FILL] | [FILL] |
| [FILL] | [FILL] | [FILL] |
Option chosen: [FILL]
2. Reasoning
- Why this option over the others? [FILL]
- Key mental models / frameworks used to reason through this: [FILL]
- Key assumptions this decision depends on: [FILL]
3. Expected Outcome
- What do I expect to happen? [FILL]
- Confidence this will go well (0-100%): [FILL]
- What would change my mind if I saw it now? [FILL]
4. Current State of Mind
- Emotional state while deciding (calm / rushed / pressured / excited…): [FILL]
- Time pressure (low/med/high): [FILL]
- Who else’s input did I get, and did it change anything? [FILL]
5. After — Actual Outcome
(Fill in on the review-by date above)
What actually happened? [FILL]
How did it compare to my expected outcome in Section 3? [FILL]
6. Process vs. Outcome Grading
Grade the decision process, not the outcome — a good process can still have a bad outcome, and vice versa (the “resulting” trap, per Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets).
| Grade (A-F) | Why | |
|---|---|---|
| Outcome quality (did it turn out well?) | [FILL] | [FILL] |
| Process quality (was the reasoning, given what I knew then, sound?) | [FILL] | [FILL] |
What would I do differently in the reasoning process next time — regardless of how this turned out? [FILL]
Reference: Process/outcome separation — Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets. This journal is most useful precisely when process and outcome grades diverge (good process/bad outcome = bad luck, not a bad call; bad process/good outcome = don’t repeat it).
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