Decision Audit Template 📝

A structured template for auditing past decisions — separating luck from skill, improving your decision process, and building a personal track record that compounds your judgment over time.

Why Audit Your Decisions?

Annie Duke, former professional poker player and decision strategist, emphasizes: the quality of a decision and the quality of its outcome are different things. A good decision can have a bad outcome (bad luck), and a bad decision can have a good outcome (good luck). Decision audits help you distinguish between the two.

The Decision Audit Template

Part 1: Decision Context (Fill out BEFORE the outcome is known)

## Decision Record #___

**Date**: ___
**Decision**: What are you deciding?
**Deadline**: When must this be decided by?
**Reversibility**: Is this easily reversible? (1-5 scale)
**Stakes**: How consequential is this? (Low / Medium / High / Critical)

### Options Considered
1. Option A: ___
   - Pros: ___
   - Cons: ___
   - Estimated probability of success: ___%

2. Option B: ___
   - Pros: ___
   - Cons: ___
   - Estimated probability of success: ___%

3. Option C (Status Quo / Do Nothing): ___

### Decision Made: ___
### Reasoning: Why did you choose this option?
### Key Assumptions: What must be true for this to work?
### What Would Change Your Mind: What evidence would make you reverse this decision?
### Confidence Level: ___%

Part 2: Pre-Mortem Analysis

Before implementing, imagine it's 6 months later and the decision failed badly:

### Pre-Mortem
**The decision failed because**: ___
**The warning signs I should watch for**: ___
**My contingency plan if things go wrong**: ___

Part 3: Decision Audit (Fill out AFTER the outcome)

## Audit Date: ___
## Time Since Decision: ___

### Outcome
**What actually happened**: ___
**Outcome quality** (1-10): ___

### Process Evaluation
**Decision quality** (1-10): ___
**Was this a good decision with a bad outcome, or a bad decision with a good outcome?**

### What I Got Right
- ___

### What I Got Wrong
- ___

### Surprises
- What happened that I didn't anticipate?: ___

### Lessons Learned
- What would I do differently next time?: ___
- What principle can I extract from this experience?: ___

### Bias Check
- Was I influenced by any cognitive biases? (anchoring, confirmation, sunk cost, etc.)
- ___

How to Use This Template Effectively

1. Record Decisions in Real-Time

Don't rely on memory. Write down your reasoning at the time of the decision, not after you know the outcome. Memory is unreliable and biased by hindsight.

2. Review Quarterly

Set a calendar reminder to review your decision journal quarterly:

• How many decisions had good process AND good outcomes?
• How many had good process but bad outcomes? (Keep doing this — you were unlucky)
• How many had bad process but good outcomes? (Stop this — you were lucky)
• How many had bad process AND bad outcomes? (Prioritize fixing these patterns)

3. Look for Patterns

After 10+ audits, patterns emerge:

• Do you consistently underestimate timelines?
• Do you neglect certain stakeholders?
• Are you overconfident in specific domains?
• Do you avoid decisions too long?

4. Track Your Calibration

Compare your predicted probabilities to actual outcomes. Well-calibrated people who predict 70% probability should be right about 70% of the time.

The Decision Quality Matrix

	Good Outcome	Bad Outcome
Good Process	Deserved Success — reinforce this process	Bad Luck — don't change what works
Bad Process	Dumb Luck — don't be fooled into repeating	Deserved Failure — learn and improve

Build Your Decision Practice

Create and explore structured decision prompts at KeepRule — where AI-powered frameworks help you make better decisions and build a habit of reflective judgment.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.