Classify every decision as one-way or two-way door before…
Before beginning deliberation on any decision, classify it as one-way door (irreversible/high-stakes) or two-way door (reversible/low-stakes) and allocate analysis time proportionally—minutes to hours for two-way doors, days to weeks for one-way doors.
When This Fires
- Before beginning deliberation on any decision — this is the mandatory first step
- When you notice yourself spending hours on a decision that feels like it "shouldn't take this long" — it's probably a two-way door
- When someone asks for a decision and you feel paralyzed — classify first, then deliberate proportionally
- During time audits when you discover excessive time spent on low-stakes choices
Common Failure Mode
Treating all decisions as one-way doors: analyzing every option exhaustively regardless of reversibility. This produces decision paralysis on trivial choices and decision fatigue that depletes resources for the genuinely consequential decisions. The person who spent 45 minutes choosing a restaurant has less cognitive energy for the career decision later that day.
The Protocol
(1) When a decision arises, before any analysis, ask: "If I choose wrong, can I reverse this? What would reversal cost?" (2) Two-way door (easily reversible, low reversal cost): decide in minutes to hours. Use quick heuristics, gut check, or a coin flip for truly trivial choices. Speed matters more than optimality. (3) One-way door (irreversible or high reversal cost): allocate proportional time. Use structured frameworks (Use a weighted decision matrix when options exceed 3…, Every decision framework needs five explicit components), seek diverse input, and explicitly consider second-order consequences. (4) Set a hard deadline even for one-way doors — open-ended deliberation doesn't improve decision quality past a point; it just delays action. (5) When uncertain about classification, default to two-way door. Most decisions are more reversible than they feel in the moment.