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Reversible / Harder-to-Reverse
Stopping hard-decision effort being spent on soft decisions.
A keep-close version. Read it here, or screenshot this page to have it on your phone — print and PDF copies will appear once final files are attached.
The most useful second of thinking in a day: sorting a decision into its class before deciding anything. Soft decisions get seconds; hard decisions get time, information and usually another voice.
Reversible — decided cheaply, undone cheaply
- What to eat, what to watch
- Whether to go out today
- Whether to answer this now or tonight
- Which of two workable options to try first
Harder to reverse — worth real care
- Financial commitments
- Medical choices
- Things that affect other people
- Anything with a door that doesn't easily re-open
One thing I'm currently over-deliberating
The soft decision wearing a hard one's coat
e.g. Which day to do the food shop — it's reversible, and it's been 'pending' for four days
So it gets
Ten seconds and a choiceA coin-flip between two good-enough optionsA default, so it never comes back
If it can be undone tomorrow, decide it in ten seconds. Changing your mind later is how decisions work — reversible decisions exist partly so that changing your mind is cheap.