5 mental models to train your AI on for smarter decisions

Big decisions feel heavy because you have to live with the outcome.

When you're stuck going back and forth for weeks, the usual instinct is to ask ChatGPT or make a pros and cons list. But a generic pros and cons list weighs every factor the same, and an untrained AI just flatters your bias or hands down an unearned answer without showing you how to think.

That is what Decision Coach fixes.

Instead of guessing an answer or feeding you generic advice, you give your AI structured judgment models. It spots the exact cognitive trap locking you up, sorts whether your choice can be undone, and asks the one clarifying question you haven't considered yet.

It never steals the call. It just strips out the noise so you can see what you are actually trading away.

The 5 cognitive traps and the models that break them

Here is the exact framework to run when you feel your logic looping:

1. If you have decision paralysis

Use: One-way vs. two-way doors

Why it works: You stop agonizing when you realize most choices can be walked back through. Spending two weeks debating a reversible call is pure waste. If it is a two-way door, pick fast and run a low-risk test. If it locks behind you, take the slow look.

2. If you have vague goal-setting

Use: Inversion

Why it works: Knowing how to succeed is often fuzzy and overwhelming. Inverting the problem by listing the exact moves, habits, and assumptions that guarantee total failure gives you an immediate checklist of what to avoid.

3. If you have short-term thinking

Use: Second-order thinking

Why it works: Easy choices feel great today, but asking "and then what?" stops you from borrowing temporary relief that ruins your next 12 months. It forces you to map the delayed ripples before you sign off on the upfront comfort.

4. If you have perfectionism

Use: Satisficing

Why it works: Looking for 100% keeps you trapped in analysis. Satisficing means setting a strict floor of non-negotiable criteria and picking the very first option that clears it. Good enough to move forward beats perfect on paper.

5. If you have shiny-object syndrome

Use: Opportunity Cost

Why it works: Every new idea looks amazing until you force yourself to name the exact project that has to die to pursue it. It turns abstract excitement into an honest trade-off.

How it works in practice

You type the decision into Cleve the exact way you'd say it out loud to a friend:

What changed is that Cleve diagnosed the trap and sorted the door type first. The reply isn't a recycled pros and cons list. It tells you how heavy the decision actually is and leaves the final call with you.

The complete pack includes 14 structured models ready for your workspace:

• One-way vs. two-way doors (Jeff Bezos)

• Inversion (Carl Jacobi / Charlie Munger)

• Second-order thinking (Howard Marks)

• Satisficing & Trade-off scoring (Herbert Simon)

• Opportunity cost & Regret minimization

• Premortem & Tripwire criteria (Gary Klein / Chip & Dan Heath)

Try it yourself

Get the Decision Coach template on Cleve

Steps to get it:

1. Create a new account (free)

2. Head to Marketplace > Templates

3. Click on “Decision Coach” > Install

4. Close the Marketplace. The folder should be in your workspace now.

How to start using it

1. Drag the "Start Here" document into the chat. Drop it straight into your Cleve chat panel. This tells the AI to structure judgment using the frameworks, so you never have to re-explain the prompt.

1. Type what you'd tell a friend. Rough is fine: "Here's a decision I'm stuck on: [describe your options]. Help me think it through based on this document."

1. Check it worked. You get back a plain-words diagnosis, the door classification, the fitting model, and one question to break the tie.

Add your context over time. Drop in your goals for the year, your non-negotiables, or past decisions and how they turned out. Cleve keeps them in your workspace, so future runs remember what you care about without starting blank.

Cleve is an AI second brain where your notes, files, and chat live side by side, so your AI reasons with your actual context instead of generic web fluff.

When Decision Coach won't work

Decision Coach structures your judgment. It won't make the call for you, and it can't fix a fuzzy worry. If you feed it "I feel stuck in life," there is no decision structure to sort, so you'll get a textbook model back.

Name the concrete options on the table and the trade-off you're afraid of. Let the model handle the friction, then make the call yourself.