You're overthinking a decision you could undo

Blog Draft - Decision Coach

Logic spine:

• Intent: Type the decision you're stuck on and get a plain-words read on whether you can undo it, one mental model that fits, and one question to answer.

• Who needs it most: Someone with a real choice in front of them (a job offer, a move, a launch) who has gone back and forth for days and still can't pick.

• Their pain: "I can't make the call. I keep going back and forth."

• Spine: They want to make a call they keep going back and forth on. They're stuck because they treat every decision as equally heavy, so they over-analyze the ones they could undo. The usual fix (a pros and cons list, or asking a chat tool) fails because a list weighs every decision the same way and a chat tool hands down an answer without showing how to think. This resource works because it sorts the decision first and picks the one mental model that fits, and the Proof run shows it. It won't help when there's no real choice to sort, like a vague worry.

Description: You keep going back and forth on a decision and can't pick. Decision Coach sorts it as a one-way or two-way door, applies one fitting mental model, and ends with one question, so you know how much thinking it needs.

You're overthinking a decision you could undo

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

You can talk to friends, coworkers, or an AI, but none of them have skin in the game, and none of them carry your full context.

That is what Decision Coach fixes.

Instead of guessing an answer or handing you another pros and cons list, it sorts your situation by three things: reversibility, novelty, and risk. Then it applies the one mental model that fits and asks you one question that you haven’t considered yet.

It does not make the call for you. It just strips out the noise so you can see what you are actually trading away.

The two offers, sorted

You type the decision the way you'd say it to a friend:

What changed is that the coach sorted the choice first, so the reply is about how heavy the decision really is, not a list of pros and cons.

Some of the mental models included:

1. One-way vs. two-way doors (by Jeff Bezos)

2. Inversion (by Carl Jacobi / Charlie Munger)

3. First principles thinking (by Aristotle)

4. Second-order thinking (by Howard Marks)

5. Regret minimization framework (by Jeff Bezos)

6. Premortem (by Gary Klein)

7. Tripwires and kill criteria (by Chip and Dan Heath / Annie Duke)

8. Opportunity cost (by Friedrich von Wieser)
   ….

Try it yourself

[Get the Decision Coach resource]

It arrives already installed. You only do three things.

1. Drag the "Start Here" document into the chat. It's the first note in the folder. Drop it in the chat box on the right. This tells Cleve to refer to this doc while helping you, so you never need to explain it.

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

1. Check it worked. You should see a plain-words read on whether your decision is a one-way or two-way door, the name of one mental model, and one question at the end for you to answer.

Add more of your own context into Cleve. For example, your goals for the next year, past decisions and how they turned out, and the must-haves you won't trade away. You only do it once. Cleve keeps them, so everything later starts with what you already shared.

Cleve is an AI second brain. You keep your notes and docs in one place, and the AI uses them to help you think and write.

When the Decision Coach wouldn’t work

Decision Coach structures your thinking. It doesn't know your facts, and it won't make the call for you. If you type a vague worry with no real choice in it, like "I feel stuck in life," there is nothing to sort, so you get a generic model back. That's the tell. Name your options and the thing you're afraid of, then run it again.