Today marks the 239th day since I decided to quit my day job.

It was one of the toughest decisions I had to make. I had been thinking about doing something else for years.

A decision journal helped me take the leap. But what exactly is a decision journal and how can it help you make better decisions?

A Simple Journal for Your Decisions

A decision journal is a place for you to record your decisions before you know the outcome. We all suffer from hindsight bias, a common tendency for people to perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were. A decision journal makes it easier to review the quality of your thinking.

I keep my decision journal in a Google doc. But of course you can record it in a physical notebook too, as long as you can access it later.

Example from my own decision journal.
​Outcome: Get accepted to a psychology program and start studying while working part time.
​Probability: 18%.

18 per cent! I consider myself lucky with how things turned out. I was far from certain that this outcome would happen.

A Decision Journal Template

I'm a big fan of templates because they save you a lot of time and energy with execution.

Farnam Street offers a great article on Creating a Decision Journal. They suggest you take a moment and write down:

• The situation or context.
• The problem statement or frame.
• The variables that govern the situation.
• The complications or complexity as you see it.
• Alternatives that were seriously considered and why they were not chosen.
• A paragraph explaining the range of outcomes.
• A paragraph explaining what you expect to happen and the reasoning and actual probabilities you assign to each projected outcome. (The degree of confidence matters, a lot.)
• The time of day you’re making the decision and how you feel physically and mentally. (If you’re tired, for example, write it down.)

Use the above template as a starting point, then tweak it to suit your own decision-making progress. Try it out and see what you learn!

For my own template, I included the opportunity cost (by doing this what am I not doing). I also wrote down the worst-case scenario and asked myself why that was OK. Answering these questions was how I decided to quit my day job back in February.

What decision are you working on? Have you used a decision journal or have you tried any other techniques? Hit reply and let me know.

Your next decision is waiting... Good luck!

Have a great week!

Cheers,
Olle

PS. If you want more on this topic, check out How to Make Better Decisions.​
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