How to use Decize.

Chapter 01 · Set up

One short setup, done once.

After that, the day-to-day runs from your email.

1. 1

   Sign in

   Sign in with a code we email you. No password.

2. 2

   Name your workspace and pick your values

   Its handle becomes part of your Decize address. Pick at least one value your team decides against; Decize estimates how each decision fits it, except past the 40th row of a spreadsheet import.

3. 3

   Add your team

   Paste their email addresses during setup, or later on the Members page. Each person gets an email invitation with your Decize address and a sign-in link. There is nothing to accept: they need an account only to browse the log, not to Cc decisions or answer outcomes.

   Up to 150 addresses at once, and 150 invitations a day per workspace. A pasted list is invited in batches: the first 20 at once, the rest of an owner’s list within a few hours; a manager sends the rest from those people’s rows on the Members page. An invitation that got lost can be sent again from the Members page after 3 days.

4. 4

   Find your Decize address

   It’s at the top of every workspace page (labeled Capture by email), ready to copy, and looks like yourteam+k7q2m8xd@in.decize.app.

   Leaked? Rotate it in Settings. The old address keeps working for 30 days, then stops.

Chapter 02 · Capture

Cc it. That’s the whole step.

You already decide by email. Cc Decize and it writes the record for you.

1. 1

   Cc your Decize address

   Add it to the email where you make the call, or forward the thread afterwards. No tags or forms: say what you decided, plus the owner and due date if you know them.

   Only people on your roster can send to it, from their listed address; mail that fails its sender’s email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is refused. Anyone else who writes in and passes that check can appear in the owner’s daily summary with an add link, whatever their domain, including an outsider who replies-all on a Cc’d thread. The exception is someone who was removed: they can appear only marked previously removed, with no link, and are added back from the Members page. Decize keeps only their address and subject line. Approving them makes them a member, and they have to resend. To keep what someone outside your roster wrote, a member can forward their email to the Decize address. Forward it inline, not as an attachment: attachments aren’t read.

2. 2

   What gets saved

   Decize drafts a title and summary, plus any owner or due date you mention, and saves it straight away. Owners are matched to your roster (“I’ll own it” means you). Your email’s text is kept (for good, unless an owner sets a limit or deletes the workspace, or a decision it’s linked to is deleted); attachments aren’t.

   In the app you can fix the title and summary, and change the owner, due date, reversibility and expected impact. Once a decision has an owner, only that owner, whoever logged it, or a manager can hand it to someone else. An email longer than 100,000 characters is cut to that length before Decize reads it. Only an owner can set Email text in Settings to 30, 90 or 365 days. Each night Decize then removes the text of emails older than that, except one still waiting to be read. It also removes the Original capture of decisions logged by email that long ago; the decision page then says the text was removed. A long backlog can take more than one night, and with 30 days, what Decize read from an email goes a day after its text. The decision, its outcome and lesson stay, and so does a record that each email arrived (sender, date and subject).

3. 3

   What Decize sends back

   A reply with what it logged. It goes to the whole thread only when everyone on it is a member; otherwise just to you.

   At most one receipt per thread a day, and 20 replies a day per workspace. The 20 restart at midnight UTC. An answer to your question, a meeting-notes review, a receipt that asks you to confirm a new decision replaces an earlier one, or a notice that something can only be finished in the app can still follow in the same thread; those count toward the 20. Someone not on your roster can get a note saying their email wasn’t saved yet; that note doesn’t count toward the 20. Owners and managers can switch replies off, which also turns off answers in the thread and the confirm email when you reply with an outcome. Notices that a decision couldn’t be recorded, and meeting-notes reviews, still go out.

4. 4

   When the thread keeps going

   A later reply from someone on your roster that keeps Decize on Cc and changes the call (a new date, “done”) updates the same record, without asking you. A reversal, or a change sent from another thread about a near-identical decision, is logged as a new decision, and the receipt asks whoever sent it to confirm it replaces the earlier one.

   Replies from people outside your roster are refused and change nothing. If Decize can’t read a decision from a reversal, it logs nothing and the earlier decision stays as it was. A new email on another thread that confirms a near-identical decision or says it’s done can update that decision’s summary and due date instead of logging a new one. From another thread, the receipt asks only when the sender’s email passes authentication and, while Reply to everyone on the thread is on, everyone on the thread is a member (no-reply, mailer-daemon and postmaster addresses aren’t counted); with that switch off, the receipt goes to the sender alone.

5. 5

   When nothing happens

   Just discussion? Decize makes no record and doesn’t reply; the email is kept as thread context. Meeting notes are the exception when Decize reads them as notes (tagged [notes] in the subject, unless the subject starts with a reply prefix such as Re:, or a forwarded notetaker summary it knows): if they hold no decision, Decize replies to say it found none, unless the 20 replies a day are used up. If Decize finds a decision but can’t record it (say your workspace requires a due date and you didn’t give one), it tells you why, even if replies are switched off, unless it’s something you can fix by resending and Decize already replied on that thread in the last 24 hours, or the 20 replies a day are used up.

   Say it plainly. A hedged “maybe we should” can read as discussion. Decize reads up to 30,000 characters of meeting notes and offers at most 10 decisions to keep; the link to review them works for 30 days.

6. 6

   Other ways in

   Type it into the capture box in the app. On every plan, owners and managers can also import past decisions from a spreadsheet or a document, approving them row by row; imported decisions never count toward your allowance. No Slack app yet.

   The capture box takes up to 100,000 characters. A pasted document can be up to 20,000 characters, and gives at most 20 decisions. Of a spreadsheet, the first 40 rows can be found by Ask straight away and the rest over the following hours.

Chapter 03 · Follow-through

The part you don’t have to remember.

Decize comes back to you to ask how it went.

1. 1

   Reminders

   If a decision has a due date, its owner is reminded as it nears and while it’s overdue, or you, if you logged it and nobody owns it: at most two a week, in your workspace’s working hours. Whoever gets them can mute them from the email.

   Working hours are Monday to Friday in your workspace’s time zone, so a decision due at the weekend is reminded on the Friday before. An imported decision isn’t reminded until someone owns it. If the person they’d go to is no longer in the workspace, no reminder goes out until someone else owns it, though an overdue one can still be counted in the overdue email to the workspace owner. That email stays off unless you switch it on.

2. 2

   The outcome email

   About two weeks after it’s due (with no due date, after it’s logged, or after an earlier decision date an import gave it), Decize asks the owner how it went, or you, if you logged it and nobody owns it. Tap Went well, Mixed, Regret or Didn’t matter, then Save. No login; a note is optional. If your workspace has replies on, you can also reply in a sentence, then tap and Save to confirm.

   Two weeks is the default; owners and managers can set it anywhere from 1 to 90 days in Settings. A decision marked In progress or Archived isn’t asked. The scheduled email also skips one that was replaced, reversed or retired, though a reply with an outcome can still offer one to confirm. An imported decision isn’t asked until someone owns it and it’s marked Decided, Done or Reviewed. If the person it would go to is no longer in the workspace, nobody is asked until someone else owns it. The link works for 30 days, and whoever holds it can record the outcome, so don’t forward it. Missed it? It asks again later, still within two a week. Whoever gets it can mute it from the email.

3. 3

   The lesson

   Your team writes the lesson on the decision, or confirms the Next time line after replying with an outcome by email. When you record an outcome, Decize also drafts a short retrospective, marked AI-generated. Its takeaway stays in the retrospective and isn’t saved as your lesson.

   A spreadsheet import brings no lesson. From a document, Decize writes the lesson from what the document records, shown with its row before you approve it. Before October 2, 2026, Decize could save the retrospective’s takeaway as the lesson when none was written, so an older lesson can be Decize’s words. You can change or clear it on the decision.

4. 4

   Answers in the thread

   Ask your Decize address “didn’t we try this?” and it answers you from what you’ve logged: title, date, outcome and lesson.

   On by default, but only while replies are on; owners and managers can turn it off. It answers only you.

5. 5

   Ask the ledger in the app

   On the Decisions page, type a question such as “Did we already decide on a new CRM?” Decize answers only from decisions your team recorded. If one answers it, Decize links up to three of the closest; if none does, it says there’s no record and links nothing.

   It appears once your team has recorded a decision. It finds decisions by meaning, not exact words, so a record worded very differently can be missed. Asking never saves anything as a new decision. A question can be up to 300 characters.

Chapter 04 · Your log

Who sees what, and how to leave.

One shared log for your whole team.

1. 1

   Everyone sees everything

   Every active member can read every decision, including the original email until an owner’s Email text setting removes it. Meeting notes also lose their text when any decision kept from them is deleted. There are no private decisions, so keep HR and pay out.

   On Team and up, owners and managers can also add extra report recipients in Settings, such as a board member, with no account needed. They get the weekly and monthly health emails and a PDF link that works for 45 days, but no decisions. A workspace with no decisions gets no monthly email, and gets the Monday one only from 14 to 60 days after it was created.

2. 2

   Roles

   Members capture and read. Managers also get the dashboard, the roster (adding people and approving new senders) and settings. Owners also get roles, billing and the workspace itself.

   Approving a new sender makes them a member at once. The daily capture email, with its add links, goes to the owner only. Without signing in, they can log decisions and, while answers are on, ask Decize about past decisions by email. Once they sign in, they can read the whole log.

3. 3

   Export or delete

   Owners and managers can export decisions to CSV or PDF on every plan, and delete a decision along with the text of the emails linked to it: the one that logged it, and replies in its thread that changed it or reported how it went. Owners can delete the entire workspace themselves, anytime.

   A PDF holds at most 150 decisions and says so when it leaves some out. The decisions PDF keeps the newest by decision date; a capture has none until someone changes its status, so it comes after every dated decision, however recently it was logged. A decision deleted more than a day after it was captured still counts toward that month’s allowance. The meeting notes it was kept from lose their text too, if any, and so can other replies in its thread that Decize read as about it, such as one that only confirmed it. Other emails, such as a reply to its outcome email or an email from another thread that updated it, can keep their text until an owner’s Email text setting removes it, and a record that each email arrived (sender, date and subject) stays. Backups keep deleted data until they rotate out, and emails already sent stay in people’s inboxes.

Chapter 05 · Reports

What worked, and what needs you.

Owners and managers get the dashboard on every plan, and it downloads as a PDF. Until the team has recorded 50 outcomes it counts how decisions went instead of showing rates; What works, Why decisions missed and Impact × Effort appear then.

1. 1

   Needs you now

   The dashboard lists overdue decisions first, then those with no owner, then those awaiting an outcome. A decision with no owner that is also overdue or awaiting an outcome is listed under that instead. Pending sign-offs are counted but not listed.

2. 2

   What works

   The dashboard compares how your decisions went by goal, door type (one-way, two-way or unsure), effort, expected impact and confidence, each against your overall rate. The biggest gaps are stated as plain sentences, such as “One-way decisions went well 4 of 12 times, against 31 of 52 overall.” Nothing is ever broken down by person.

   A rate appears only once 5 decisions in that group have an outcome of Went well, Mixed or Regret; Didn’t matter counts toward neither. Confidence counts only when a person confirmed it. A larger group’s rate is withheld too when showing it would let a smaller one beside it be worked out by subtraction. The sentences are built from those counts by code, not written by AI, and say what happened, never why.

3. 3

   Why decisions missed

   When someone records an outcome, they can pick why it turned out that way, such as “An assumption was wrong.” The dashboard counts those reasons across Mixed and Regret outcomes and names the most common one.

   The reason is optional, so outcomes without one aren’t counted in it. The most common reason is named once 5 misses have a reason, and not at all on a tie or when it is “Went as planned”.

4. 4

   Impact × Effort

   Two grids. Where to focus places open decisions by expected impact and effort, both estimated by Decize’s AI when the decision is logged; you can correct expected impact on the decision’s page until its outcome is recorded. What paid off places decided ones that went well by the impact recorded with their outcome, against the same AI-estimated effort.

   Decize leaves expected impact blank when what you wrote gives no sign of it, and impact on the outcome page is optional, so a decision missing either stays off that grid. Imported decisions stay off both grids.

5. 5

   The Monday email

   On Team and up, the Monday email to owners and managers names the decisions whose outcome was recorded recently, grouped Went well, Mixed and Regret. Once the team has recorded 50 outcomes it adds a few of the sentences from What works.

   It names at most 5 and counts the rest. A workspace with no decisions gets it only from 14 to 60 days after it was created. Extra report recipients outside your team, such as a board member, get the numbers without any decision titles.

Chapter 06 · Plans

Metered on decisions, never on people.

The meter counts decisions per calendar month.

1. 1

   What each plan allows

   Free includes 10 decisions a month. Team is $99 for 50, Business is $249 for 200, and Unlimited removes the cap. On Team and up, owners and managers get a Monday health email and a monthly one on the 1st; forecast calibration starts on Business, once the team has recorded 50 outcomes, 5 of them on decisions whose confidence a person confirmed.

   A workspace with no decisions gets no monthly email, and gets the Monday one only from 14 to 60 days after it was created.

2. 2

   What happens when you go over?

   Captures past your month’s allowance are still recorded. Decize pauses their reminders and outcome requests until the workspace moves up a plan, and emails your workspace owner once. Nothing already recorded is touched.

3. 3

   Cancel

   Cancel in workspace Settings. Nothing is deleted: the workspace drops to Free, the log stays readable, and owners and managers can still download it as PDF or CSV.