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Decision journal template
For a leader who wants an honest, private record of their own judgment. It captures what you expected and how sure you were before the result, so hindsight cannot quietly rewrite your reasoning.
When to use this template
- The decision is yours to make, and nobody else will hold you to the reasoning.
- You want to know whether your confidence is well placed, not only whether things turned out well.
- You make a similar kind of call often: hires, pricing, investments, when to step in.
- The notes are personal, including your mood and doubts, and do not belong in a shared team log.
The 11 fields
- Entry ID
- A running number, such as J-017, so entries are easy to find at review time.
- Date
- When you made the decision, including the time of day.
- Decision
- The call you are making, in one sentence.
- Situation
- The context as you see it now, including what you do not know.
- Options considered
- The real alternatives, and why each one lost.
- What I expect and why
- The outcome you expect and the reasoning that leads there.
- Confidence
- A probability from 0 to 100 percent that the expected outcome happens.
- How I feel
- Your physical and emotional state: tired, rushed, excited, anxious. It is part of the evidence.
- Review date
- When the outcome should be clear enough to judge.
- What happened
- Written on the review date, without editing the entries above.
- What I’d tell myself
- One note to your past self: what to weigh more, or less, next time.
How to use it
- 1
Write it before you act
Fill in the first nine fields when the decision is made, not after. Ten minutes is enough. The point is to capture your thinking before you know the result.
- 2
Put a number on it
Write your confidence as a percentage. “Pretty sure” cannot be scored later. 70% can.
- 3
Record how you feel
Note whether you are tired, rushed, or under pressure. Over time your weakest calls may share a state rather than a topic.
- 4
Review on the date, then look for patterns
Compare what happened with what you expected. After twenty entries, check whether the calls you rated 80% came true about 80% of the time.
Illustrative example: an entry by an invented head of operations
- Decision
- Promote Dana to warehouse lead instead of hiring externally.
- Situation
- The lead role has been open six weeks. Dana knows the site and the team but has never managed more than three people.
- Options considered
- External hire through an agency: about ten weeks and a 20% fee. Rejected because peak season starts in eight weeks.
- What I expect and why
- Dana runs the peak with no rise in mis-picks. The team already brings her its problems.
- Confidence
- 70%
- How I feel
- Tired at the end of a long week. Some relief at closing the gap, which may be inflating my confidence.
- What happened
- Mis-picks rose 6% in the first month of peak, then fell below last year’s rate. Dana asked for help early, which I had not predicted.
- What I’d tell myself
- Judge a new lead on the second month, not the first. Treat Friday-evening relief as a reason to wait a day.