PhraseryPhrasery homeGet Phrasery
Thinking & decisions21 categories

Decide well under time pressure

A real deadline, and not enough time for the analysis you would prefer.

Longspeeddecisionstriage
I have to decide soon and cannot do the full analysis. Help me decide well anyway.

1. What is the one question that, answered, decides this? Ignore everything else for now.
2. What can I find out in the time I actually have? Be realistic about the deadline I give you.
3. What is the default if I do nothing, and is that default acceptable? Knowing this lowers the stakes considerably.
4. What is the least reversible part of the decision, and can I defer just that part?
5. Give me your recommendation with the information available now, and state your confidence. Do not tell me to gather more data unless you can name data I can get before the deadline.

The decision and the deadline:

Making it yours

  • Paste your own material where the prompt asks for it. Everything above that line is instruction, not content.
  • Delete any rule that does not apply to you. A shorter prompt that fits beats a thorough one that does not.
  • If the answer comes back vague, add a line saying what you do not want. Constraints work better than encouragement.

Deciding under pressure. Making the call when time is short, information is missing, or your capacity is already full.

Related prompts

What am I giving up by doing this?Saying yes to something when your capacity is already full.Decide with information I do not haveWhen the missing information may never arrive and the decision still has to be made.Break this into smaller betsA big commitment that could be a sequence of cheaper ones.Pick one of these twoTwo options, roughly equal, and a decision that is overdue.Run a pre-mortem on this planBefore committing to a plan that people are already enthusiastic about.Argue hard against the option I pickedWhen you have already chosen and want the case against before you announce it.

Keep this one

Phrasery saves prompts with a right-click and puts them back the same way. Add this to your own library in one click.

Add to your browser — free