Decision Journal in Notion

What: Two Notion database templates of decisions modeled after the Farnam Street Decision Journal.

Why: To help you and your team make better decisions.

How: Once you receive a link over email, open it and click "Duplicate" on the top right to copy this page to your Notion workspace. Use it.

Here's a blog post about this template was published on the Digital Opssessions newsletter. There's also a video breakdown: https://optemization.com/decision-journal-notion

saviorand 5 years ago | |

Huge work! We work together and using this decisions flow (with a slightly different template) for our own team decisions. Gotta say it's very useful, helps wrap ones head around difficult situations

awinter-py 5 years ago |

notes + diarying as the form of self-investment is popping up everywhere

there are historical examples (leslie groves composed his autobiography of the manhattan project from his daybook)

for doing business (CRM users capture the customer's needs and situation, given that the next conversation might be in 6 months)

and for thinking (capture where you are, take a break, read and think about it the next day)

bmj 5 years ago | |

St. Igantius of Loyola (founder of the Catholic Jesuit order), outlined a process of discernment that is very similar to the decision journal method nearly 500 years ago in his Spiritual Exercises[0]. Of course, there is a distinct focus on the discernment of spirits, but the prompts in the decision journal are generally the same.

[0] https://www.marquette.edu/faith/ignatian-principles-for-maki...

saviorand 5 years ago | | |

Hmm, maybe we can bring that discernment of spirits part back to the template? JK

simonebrunozzi 5 years ago | |

> leslie groves composed his autobiography of the manhattan project from his daybook

I had no idea, and this is a great example of why I read Hacker News every day.

yodon 5 years ago | | |

Cliff Stoll did the same when while writing the Cuckoo's Egg.

saviorand 5 years ago | | |

I guess it's just a natural way of doing it. You need to write every day, then assemble -> why not write in your dailies

awinter-py 5 years ago | | |

good rec

talentedcoin 5 years ago |

This is really cool, but as a futures trader I'm a sucker for this kind of thing.

I guess perhaps this is a subset of "range of outcomes", but one specific category I've found very useful is "pros and cons" -- even just looking at an itemized list of one vs the other can jog your brain a bit.

optemization 5 years ago | |

yeah, sometimes I feel that the FS template is an overkill that's why I delete prompts often. Maybe it's a good idea to create a "simple decision" template.

munaf 5 years ago |

optemization 5 years ago | |

woah! makes me think, once Notion has reliable API and offline mode, we'll be building entire products there.

markcarrier 5 years ago |

For software projects I like markdown architectural decision records:

https://adr.github.io/madr/

saviorand 5 years ago | |

This is actually very similar in structure. With possible consequences, outcome, decision pros and cons

tiagomvalente 5 years ago |

This is really nice! Will give it a try :)

saviorand 5 years ago | |

Let me know how it goes! We're also trying it out the past month. Using it for business decisions