Decision Lists
How to keep track of decisions and the reasons behind them
Every decision we take is based on some sort of reasoning. That means you have some balance of pros and cons. Action is taken wherever the perceived advantages are more. It's the why behind everything you do.
Now, in every organisation, a lot of decisions are taken — big and small. Those who know the reasons behind the decision and it's implications are usually the ones in power. Meaning they have the ability to navigate and drive situations according to what they see best. The clearer they see this, the better they can navigate.
There is a limitation though. Human memory. If they loose their memory or move out to another role or job, or simply die out of no where, all this usually gets lost. That gap gets somehow filled and life moves on. To fill the gap however, a lot of time and energy is expended. In many cases it's expensive.
In fact this matters even more in day to day affairs. What if you could transfer the hard earned experience to fresh minds in a way that makes sense to them? What if, for every decision, you clearly know why it was taken, with full context?
All of this is achievable very simply with a tool called decision Lists, logs or records. Call it whatever you want; it's essentially a list of all the reasoning that led you to a decision. Heck, it's not even a tool, you can do it with pen and paper too! This is how it works:
Create a list just like this one.
Write out each point as it occurs to you.
Simply add a
+symbol for pros, or a minus for cons.+ This helps you easily identify and seperate the pros and cons
+ It's easy to do anywhere, in any app or software
+ It's easily and universally understood
- Might take a bit more ink (can't think of any cons)
And so on.
Simple, isn't it? But looks can be deceiving. Try it and see for your self. I'm not listing out every advantage here, so you can discover the immense benefits on your own.
Do share. Would love to hear your discoveries.
Happy listing 🔥