After strong reactions, record facts and interpretations…
After any event producing strong reactions, spend 90 seconds recording observations in a two-column format (left: camera-recordable facts, right: interpretations) before analysis, because this separation prevents retroactive rewriting of evidence to fit conclusions.
When This Fires
- After a meeting that produced strong agreement, disagreement, or surprise
- After an incident, outage, or unexpected system behavior
- After receiving news that triggered a strong emotional response
- After any event you know you'll need to discuss, analyze, or act on later
Common Failure Mode
Waiting until you "have time to reflect properly." The 90-second window is the entire point — not because longer reflection isn't valuable, but because raw observations decay rapidly under emotional pressure. After 30 minutes, your interpretation has already begun overwriting the facts. After a day, you can no longer distinguish what you observed from what you concluded. The 90-second capture preserves the raw material that proper reflection needs.
The Protocol
Immediately after a high-reaction event: (1) Draw a line down the middle of a page (or open a two-column note). (2) Left column: write only camera-recordable facts — what was said (as close to verbatim as you can), what you physically observed, timestamps, measurements. (3) Right column: write your interpretations — what you think it means, how you feel about it, what you believe was really going on. (4) This takes 90 seconds. Do it before discussing the event with anyone — conversation contaminates raw observation. You now have an artifact that future analysis can trust.