Free Decision Journal Template
Log a decision and your prediction, then review it later and score your calibration
Write it down before you know how it ends
Once you know how something turned out, your memory quietly edits what you expected. A decision written in advance cannot be renegotiated later, which is the whole point.
Your decisions never leave this browser.
Everything is stored in this browser's local storage. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is synced, and no one else can read it. Clearing your browser data erases it, so export a copy if a decision matters.
State the choice you are making, not the topic. "Take the contract role" beats "career stuff".
What is going on around this decision, and what forced the timing?
Be specific enough that a stranger could check it on the review date. Vague predictions are always right, which makes them worthless.
This number is what makes the calibration table possible later. Guessing honestly beats guessing high.
How do you feel right now?
Tired, rushed and hungry decisions are different decisions. Recording your state is how the pattern eventually becomes visible.
When should you review this?
Far enough out that the result is actually known. Three months is a sane default for most decisions.
Your draft autosaves in this browser, so a closed tab does not lose it.
How to Keep a Decision Journal
A decision journal is a written record of a choice made before you know how it turned out. You capture the decision itself, the situation around it, what you expect to happen, how confident you are as a number, what would make you wrong, the options you rejected, and how you felt in body and mind. Then you set a review date and walk away. Months later you come back and compare the prediction against reality. That comparison is the entire product. Everything else is bookkeeping.
Hindsight bias, and why memory is not a witness
Once you know an outcome, your memory of expecting it drifts toward it. Psychologists call this hindsight bias, or the knew-it-all-along effect, and it has been reproduced for decades: people asked to recall their own forecasts after learning the result reliably misremember them as closer to the truth. This quietly destroys learning. If you remember predicting whatever happened, every outcome confirms your judgment and nothing ever corrects it. The written record is the fix. It is not clever, and that is exactly why it works: a note written in March cannot be renegotiated in September.
Decision quality is not outcome quality
Poker players call the mistake resulting: judging a decision by how it happened to turn out. The two come apart constantly, because outcomes carry luck and information you did not have at the time. A well-reasoned bet can lose and a careless one can pay. That is why the review here asks two separate questions: was the outcome good, and was the decision good. Four combinations follow, and the dangerous square is a poor decision with a good result, because it feels like proof and teaches you to repeat a process that nearly cost you.
Calibration is the payoff
Confidence is a number here for a reason. Once you have a stack of reviewed decisions, this tool groups them by the confidence you claimed and shows how often you were actually right. The classic finding is uncomfortable: when people say they are 90 percent sure, they tend to be right closer to 70 percent of the time. Seeing your own version of that sentence does more than any amount of advice about humility. Give it at least ten reviewed decisions before you read anything into the table.
Which decisions are worth logging
Not many. If a choice is small, reversible, and cheap to undo, decide it and log nothing. The journal earns its keep on decisions that are expensive to reverse, that you will have to justify later, or where you catch yourself feeling unusually certain. Roughly one a week is a healthy rate. For the decisions that scare you rather than puzzle you, the fear-setting exercise pushes on the downside you are avoiding, and a weekly review is the natural place to check what is due.
How to Use This Tool
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1
State the choice you are making, not the topic: "Take the contract role" beats "career stuff"
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2
Add the situation and what forced the timing, so future you remembers the pressure you were under
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3
Write the prediction specifically enough that a stranger could check it later, then set your confidence as a number
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4
Note what could make you wrong, the alternatives you rejected, and how you felt physically and mentally
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5
Set a review date, three months by default, and close the tab: the gap between logging and reviewing is what makes this work
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On the review date read what you wrote first, then record what happened and rate the decision and the outcome separately
Frequently Asked Questions
A decision journal is a written record of a choice made before you know how it turned out. You capture the decision, the situation, what you expect to happen, how confident you are as a number, what could make you wrong, the alternatives you rejected, and your physical and mental state. Then you set a review date and come back later to compare the prediction against reality. The practice was popularised by Shane Parrish and Farnam Street, drawing on Daniel Kahneman's work on hindsight bias and overconfidence.
Because your memory is not a reliable witness. Once you know an outcome, your recollection of what you expected drifts toward it, an effect psychologists call hindsight bias or the knew-it-all-along effect. If you remember predicting whatever happened, every result confirms your judgment and nothing ever corrects it. A note written in March cannot be renegotiated in September, which is the entire mechanism. It is unglamorous, and that is exactly why it works.
Outcomes carry luck and information you did not have at the time, so a well-reasoned decision can lose and a careless one can pay off. Poker players call the mistake of confusing the two "resulting". This tool asks the two questions separately in every review, which produces four combinations. The dangerous square is a poor decision with a good result, because it feels like proof and quietly teaches you to repeat a process that nearly cost you.
Calibration is whether your stated confidence matches your actual hit rate. If you are well calibrated, roughly 70 percent of the calls you made at 70 percent should land. This tool groups your reviewed decisions into confidence bands and shows the real number for each one. The classic finding is uncomfortable: people who say they are 90 percent sure tend to be right closer to 70 percent of the time. Below about ten reviewed decisions the table is noise, so treat it as a curiosity until then.
Not many. If a choice is small, reversible, and cheap to undo, just decide it and log nothing. The journal earns its keep on decisions that are expensive to reverse, that you will have to justify to someone later, or where you catch yourself feeling unusually certain. Roughly one a week is a healthy rate. A journal stuffed with trivia is a journal you will stop reviewing.
Yes. Everything is stored in your own browser using local storage. There is no account, nothing is uploaded to a server, nothing is synced across devices, and we cannot read any of it. The trade is that clearing your browser data erases the journal, so use the export button to keep a plain text copy of anything that matters.
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